subject: Watch Out List For Estate Sales & Storage Auctions [print this page] Several times I have purchased reproduction antique weapons that someone decided to bury in their backyard for a few years as to add some age and patina to the metal. Spotting fake and reproduction antiques takes a well trained eye and a lot of experience. For instance, if an item you suspect is not antique look to see if it has screws or nails anywhere and if they appear to be hand forged and not made by a machine? Is there a Made in China sticker on the bottom? Ok, lets be a little bit serious here, if you are not sure about the authenticity of an item DO NOT BUY IT! Or find an expert who you can trust to fill in the blanks for you! I am certainly not an antiques appraiser or an expert on general antiques, Victorian period, Renaissance, Middle Ages or Jurassic Period items for that matter. However, what I do possess is an army of antique dealers, collectors, appraisers and experts in just about every field imaginable at my disposal. Just like Henry Ford said, its not what you know, its who you know. I still feel knowledge is true power, but combine street smarts with knowledge and there can be no limits to potential!
Another classic blunder that many newbies make the mistake of doing is trying to by brand named items wholesale. I say mistake because almost always they end up buying knock off inventory from China or another country that turns its back on Trademark infringement and copyrights. If one were to do a search for wholesale NFL jerseys on a wholesale site such as Alibaba they would be provided with many product results from various distributors around the world. Most of which will claim that they are selling authentic jerseys and when you purchase them they will in fact come with NFL stickers and tags, quoting the MSRP value of $249. You only have to pay $20 a jersey and you think this is how business works and wholesaling is a piece of cake. It does not work that way, if you are offered wholesale genuine merchandise for less than 10% of the true value of the item you need to start asking questions. Dont get me wrong, the distributors will send you the jerseys as promised but they will not be created by or for Nike or Adidas or Under Armor but in fact just be creations and copies of the authentic product made in their factories.
Looking for drop shipping and wholesale companies can be a challenge. When searching for such companies it will be hard to find the actual business or distributor offering such an account. You will instead run into loads of companies paying top dollar for search engine placement and rankings for these search terms. You will be offered this great membership that you can sign up and pay a onetime fee of $50 or so and get unlimited access to products you can drop ship or wholesale. NEVER pay to setup a wholesale account or drop shipping account, distributors want you to sell their products and they are not going to charge you a fee to get you to sign up.
This same basic principal can be applied to print ads and radio advertisements about special one day only everything must go everything priced at wholesale rates. These sales are frequently held at convention centers where salesmen and companies rent out booths and tables to push their products. If there is an entry fee to get into the building to purchase merchandise dont be fooled! You will be paying top dollar for products you could find elsewhere. Products will be peddled by high pressure salesmen and the merchandise quality will usually be less than par. The main ploy involved in these types of sales is psychology. The vendors know that you just paid to get into this sale and therefore it is unlikely that you will just leave without purchasing anything. Customers feel as though they are obligated to buy something since they invested their time coming to the sale and had to pay to get in. If nothing else you are going to want to walk around the entire sale and see everything that is offered and end up getting sold by a salesman in a cheap suit. I am not talking about flea markets, you can find some good deals at some of those and you can also negotiate just dont pay to get in!
