What should I do?...

Hello all,

Received a phone call the other day from a guy who wants to sell his razor collection, he is 82 years old. He says he has about 150 razors and none of them have any rust on them. He want to sell the whole collection, not just a few. He sent me some pics and I will be driving to his home in about 12 days to look at them. he has considered selling them on Ebay and also to antique shops but does not want to go to all that work.

Just for fun, what do you guys think would be a good offer to make him considering that I will be reselling most of them.

Here is a link to some pics....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/randyda...7604557198419/

First thing I would do is get an idea of where the seller is on his thinking he is going to get for it. Has he dropped a number on you? Then work from there. He will prob. take less to get them all sold to one person is my guess.

I tried sounding him out on price and he said "a couple of razors are worth $100! ...but some are worth only $10. But none have any rust!"

He is proud that at the age of 82 he is able to use a computer and browse Ebay, and he should be!, and that he has considered other options for selling. This will probably be a trip just for fun, the same as when I looked at over 600 razors that a guy wanted to sell. Those were almost all $3-5 razors and he had paid $10/razor several years before that! Boy was he bummed!:) Live and learn.

Wow that's an incredible collection! You better believe if you did buy that set, my eyes would be GLUED to the B/S/T! :) 150 razors...I'm sure there's a couple in there for little ol' me!

I guess you could suggest he join SRP & post the razors in the vendor section and take high bids. Or maybe he'd give you a lower price if you promised him to give away a few at the SRP for May's giveaways?

I am optimistic!

Hey Randy how is it going these days?

Anyway, see if he trusts you enough to split the sales price with him or whatever you two can come up with for a percentage. Those razors at $10 each comes to $1600 if you buy them outright. The percentage thing would work best for both of you if he decides that he can trust you to send him the money. You may have to subtract eBay and paypal fees to come out unless you can make a deal with him.

Well...I looked at the collection yesterday and it was kind of a bummer. A majority of the blades were $3 blades, if that.
But I did leave an offer for 17 of them, most of them English wedges. He did say that he had another 100 razors somewhere and would look for them and that he also had a bunch of sharpening stones and would call me when he found them.

It was a 5 hour total round trip drive time but it was fun. I explained what I knew about razors and how I was evaluating his razors. I also spoke with him regarding the different "markets" for razors. He said that he was glad that we had gotten together and he appreciated what I told him.

He is a compulsive collector of many things. One major collection is of 33 RPM record albums. He has about 10,000 of them. Many are unopened, ...Elvis Presley anyone?

Oh... and he gave me the name of another guy who has "hunderds" of razors. That will be another trip!:)

You never know where these trips lead...maybe a bountiful treasure lies ahead..:hmmm:

Even simply making the connections could lead to good things in the future!

Networking FTW!

~Chris

Well... I had left him an offer for 22 of the razors but he turned me down. Bummer.:( Oh well, more adventures will come along.

It's always a shot in the dark but 150 razors is well worth a punt. Unseen I would have offered about $700 and dickered from there but as you say most of them are gash that figure should maybe be lower. Last year I bought the entire contents os a barbershop that had been closed since 1959 - for $800. I'm still selling some of it! (Anybody want a barber pole?). It's all down to dealing - anything is only worth what somoene is willing to pay for it I guess.