Anyone else ever watch American Restoration? Do you think those guys care much what a scarce part they need right away costs, or buy cheaper parts that require a lot of labor to fix?

 

Kevin,

Just get a bunch of your friends together, a 50 gallon barrel of bondo, and keg of beer and a couple of days and you can have yourself a couple of vehicles worth $35K apiece, that's what they do on those TV shows.

AX,

What amazes me about American Restorations is the owner can stand there and tell the customer in less than 5 minutes what it is going to cost to restore some kind of complicated ancient machine without even opening it up to see what it looks inside. Also, on almost every item they restore, when they do get it in the shop they find it's in need of some hard to find part and tracking down, locating and shipping the item never affects the cost. He also seems to do restorations that take 4-5 days for less than $2500. He always has at least two guys working on them and they always brake something that adds to time to restore the item. From my experience nothing ever goes as planned even working with new equipment.

All of those reality shows are so far from reality.

 

Guys, you've only gotta watch "American Pickers" ... to think "there's gold in them there hills" ... or how much of a mark-up ? ... as Frank would say "I'll buy anything I can make a buck on" ... trouble is I'm now buying all my classic bike parts from the States as normally its in better shape that the worn-out crap here in the Uk and cheaper ,,,, well it was !

All best
Greg

 

Hold your powder, Ilya, same guy has a second set. These are "cheap" compared to the first set. Stu

eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

 

I have to say, those are in remarkable condition. I don't agree that the edges/rolls are an "easy fix", tho.

 

Stu,

Those boards are only an 8 hour trip due east of me, I'll pick them up on my way out to NM to pick up my wife's car Bobby has so kindly volunteered to check out for me.

 

Bob - Early on, when the first set was listed, I swapped texts with Mark (thundersnow70) to see how close he is to the seller. He said he could drive through the guy's town twice a day on his milk route if he wanted to. Since Mark's planning to visit this summer sometime to bring me wheels and pick up MH adapters and other stuff, I thought maybe he could bring the boards too. Problem is, if I'd have bid on the first set I'd have been out early on. This set won't be mine either. Guess I'll just make due with the ones I have. Stu

 

Glad to know I haven't lost my mind... Well not yet that is... I know prices are going up everywhere and with shipping things are getting out of control. I love when shipping costs are 75% of the part price. Glad I am winding down on my current build. Almost time to enjoy my hard labors.

 

I think they need to sell these part at these prices to pay for the apparent crack they are on which explains the prices they are asking.

FYI I have a complete Fresh Air heater I will trade for a set of good fenders, or best offer.

 

Again, American Pickers is another one of those reality shows that just don't make sense to me. They drive all over the country, are lucky enough to stumble onto an old guy who has five sheds full of junk. They spend a day searching through his junk, chisling him down on every item because they need "Meat on the bone" to make money, who cares if they make money, and in the end they are all excited about making $500 dollars for the day. OK, let's look at from a real business view point. Two guys spend an entire day driving around and searching through a piles of junk, they have gas they have to pay for and they also have motel and food bills.

Hotel, minimum of $100 if they both stay in the same room at a low end motel.
Gas for driving around for two hours, $25+
Food for two guys, three meals $100 minimum.

That leaves $375 for 16 hours of work that less than $25/hr for each of them.

Then you have to figure in insurance and upkeep of the van and the cost of the van itself. Also the cost to keep their store open in IA with the goofy looking tatooed babe. Also, when they go off to another state they ship their finds back to IA or wherever, that ain't cheap.

Like every other reality show American Pickers is a highly produced show, there is nothing they do that isn't planned out way a head of time. A guy on the HAMB posted about his buddy who was picked, it was a week long deal with first the production crew coming out to make sure his buddy had the right stuff they wanted to pick and the production set up of the cameras and a bunch of legal matters that had to be taken care of before the two stars even stepped foot on the property.

Two other shows that also don't make sense is Storage Wars and Shipping Wars, I watch them when there's nothing else on but from a business view point I don't see how anyone on these shows make money. I just figure the production companies must pay them fairly decent, not movie star decent, but decent enough enough to make it worth while for them.

All I really see these show doing is giving false impressions on how to make money. Also, with American Pickers I'd bet there are a lot more old geezers out in the middle of nowhere getting pestered more often by uninvited guests poking around their property hoping to make a fast buck of of their treasures store in their run down buildings since that show started.

It's not so much the sellers who are on crack, it's the buyers who go nuts bidding on the stuff. I've sold items on eBay that I started out at what I considered a reasonable price and watched as bidders went nuts, I wasn't crazy for selling them at those prices, I just sat back and watched.

 

Back to the $400 heater, did you notice that shipping is another $50? I shipped on to a fellow FTE'er via UPS for $17. From Texas to Michigan. I can get a rebuilt V8 short block, by one of the best engine shops here in Houston, for only $100 more than getting that heater. It might not keep my feet warm though...

 

Shipping is always the killer on a deal. In my business my vendors charge a pretty good fee just to deliver across town.

One vendor charges $8 per delivery. So if an order is broken up because they don't have everything in stock to be delivered at one time they charge each time their truck comes to my shop. I put a stop to it when they delivered $1.50 part, which was part of a larger order, and charged me $8 in addition to $8 for two other deliveries for the same order. I raised a stink and told them I was only going to pay for one delivery and even one delivery at $8 was too much. The salesman tried to tell me they can't send out their truck for free. I then asked if the sent their truck directly from their store to my shop and then turned around and drove directly back to their store or did they organize their deliveries so the driver could make 15-20 stops in my area. If they did the latter they're making $120-160 a morning for deliveries. The salesman then told me if I could hold off delivery until a certain day of the week they'd deliver for free because the have a stocking route to my area once a week and they'd put my order on the route truck.

Another vendor charges $8 an invoice so if they have to make 3 deliveries to fill an order they charge a one time fee, but if you place 4 purchase orders they charge you 4 times even if it's all on the same truck.

A third vendor started doing free deliveries. Their prices are slightly higher than the other two but when you calculate the free delivery it usually comes out cheaper. Unfortunately, they all carry different brands of products and I can't always get what I need from just one vendor.

 

What's funny is that I am trying to sell a new rear window and seal for a 53-55 and was asking $50 on Craigslist. I had a guy email me and told me it was "highway robbery" to ask such a price. I tried explaining to him that I paid more than that but ended up not needing the glass. He emailed back and offered me $15. It took all I had to not to get mad. lol

I need to contact the ebay heater guy and ask him what he smokes when listing his stuff on ebay.

 

A short time ago I listed a beat up '49 panel truck on CL, $1500 OBO. I figured I'd take $1000, any less and I'd get more parting it out, which I did. I got one email the guy offered me scrap price for it. He said he didn't want me to cut up a piece of old iron. The real kicker was he said he didn't have any place to store it and offered me another $50 to store it until spring, six months away. I replied back that he could have the truck for $1000 plus $50 a month storage. I didn't hear back from him, I wonder why. It got cut up, sold $800 worth of parts, with more to sell, and sold the scrap to a scrap dealer going through the industrial park for $100.

 

Those boards are really nice! They won't need much work to finish. My boards aren't even that close to being straight as these are on the sides.

He must have found a good F2/F3 to part out. This seller has been selling 48-52 parts for a while now. I think that he may even be an FTE member or lurker.

I've added to my watch list.