Peddling...

How do you pay for your vacations?  Do you save for months, use your tax refund, have a garage sale?  Have you ever thought about peddling your wares?

I have a friend that has been full time in the antique business for over 30 years.  Any vacation or travel trip, he stops and sells items along the way to earn revenue to get him from point A to point B.  Now this does take some experience in knowing what you have to get max prices out of them.  He taught me that every dealer has great items that just don't seem to sell for them but they will sell for other dealers, its just finding the dealers that want these items.

We usually plan a vacation around doing a show so we pay for our way there and then do a show on our way back.  But, sometimes we just go somewhere without taking all of the merchandise.  When we do this I put together a bag of goodies to peddle along the way.  Basically I ask antique shops we go into if they are buying, I show them my wares, and sometimes they buy, sometimes they don't.  Its kind of fun being on the opposite side of the counter. This gives me spending cash for extras and off sets some of the vacation expenses.

Sometimes its wise to make appointments with shops about higher end or more fragile items.  Lugging a set of antique china around the French Quarter in New Orleans is not a good idea.  Its better to have called shops ahead of time with the name of the maker, pattern, and a list of what you have.  It can save you a lot of trouble when you are on foot for most of your trip.

Another way to sell items is to be a picker for someone.  I always have people asking me to look for items for them.  Sometimes I find them sometimes I don't.  A few weeks ago I purchased an item that a customer in North Carolina requested.  Because of the how fragile the item is, I want my customer to see the piece first hand so I feel it is better to sell this piece face to face.  At the end of the month I am traveling to South Carolina for my step-sons graduation from boot camp and along the way I will meet my customer to sell him this item.  My customer is happy he doesn't have to wait till November and I found a way to fund the trip without doing a show that weekend.   What better way to do it...