Hardware gloat

Every once in a while, a man gets lucky. I was bored Saturday morning, so I rode about 10 miles out of town to a yard sale that was being held a second time, after advertising a lot of tools for sale last week. I have about all the tools I can handle at the moment, but hardware and material is always welcome. When I got there, it turned out to be a workshop sale, actually. The man was a construction electrician, and It looked like he had scarfed up every loose thing from all the jobs he had ever worked on. The family had gotten what they wanted. Someone had bought about all the tools the previous week, so I set about looking at the other stuff in the shop. The place was about 24X30 feet, and was FULL of the types of stuff us pack-rat types covet the most, and in multiples. The workbenches and shelves in the shop were piled about 2 inches deep at the forward edge, and the stuff thickened to about 10 inches deep at the rear of the benches. There were so many different types of hardware items that my eyes got tired of looking through it after about 2 hours, with NO ONE else there, except for the widow or her grandson stopping in every so often to see how I was doing. Examples of purchases were a full box of Tapcon screws for 50 cents, new 20 amp GFCI receptacles for the same price, and an 8 pound container of knockout punches for $2. The punches were randomly dug from the piles of materials scattered about on the benches. There were more electrical supplies than a lot of small hardware stores have. Breakers, boxes, floodlight fixtures abounded. Just too much stuff for the casual observer to comprehend. I filled the rear of my Blazer with trays of some of the more relatively organized materials, and the lady was so glad to see it gone that she would not take more than $25 for the lot. I felt guilty, but she insisted. She plans to clear the shop, then tear it completely down to erase the memories, I gathered. She just wants the stuff gone. She gave me her name and number and begged me to come back for more. I'm considering taking 55 gallon barrels with me next time, and just raking the benches off into them, hauling them home, and sorting later. It was unbelievable how much stuff was in there. This is what happens to your stuff when you die, so enjoy it while you can.

Weighing labor, and assets gained, against storage available....hmmm, sound familiar?

RJ

Reply to
Backlash
Loading thread data ...

sounds like there's more than you can use- care to share the loot with wreckers in your area?

Reply to
bridger

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.