My life has mostly been all about,
right place, right time, no money.
In the late 60's I was a swap meet dealer. I went to every yard sale in a reasonable distance, and brought the stuff to the swap meet on sunday.
Tools weren't really collected yet. They were just considered used tools at best, or plain worthless junk the rest of the time.
I saw family tool chests of every description. Saw lots of tools of all kinds. The ones I knew I could sell at a profit, I did buy some. Most of the elaborate chests had a higher asking price than anyone would pay (family heirloom delusions of grandeur). Worth a fortune today (not the chests so much, but the tools, they were nearly all full).
Old rusty tractor wrenches and such they would have paid me to haul them away. But I couldn't sell them either, so I didn't take them.
This did happen in Ca, so it wasn't Boston tools or anything. But there were a lot of them.
I wanted many of them for myself, but I lived close to the edge.
Then I moved to the mountains. I was still young and really just starting out. So I needed tools.
All kinds of tools. Well I couldn't afford new tools so I found the junk shops. There were antique shops and then there were junk shops. I got to know all the junk shop proprietors during that time.
Old tools still weren't collected much. So I saw bins and barrels, shelves and stacks of old tools.
But as broke as I was in the city I was even more broke in the country. So I hardly ever bought anything, and it better be 50 cents or less when I did.
Later still I opened a junk shop of my own. It was more of a country people's supply than true junk. I knew what people needed and wanted. So steamer trunks and wind up alarm clocks and treadle sewing machines, Levis in good condition, cast iron cookware, waffle irons were popular.
The way I could do this was to travel over the passes into the larger towns every friday morning. Mostly leaving home about 3:00 am. Hit every yard sale I could find on friday and early saturday morning, and then comb the swap meets too.
I had 4 towns to hit. Medford, Yreka, Grants Pass and Eureka. I would pick a different town every weekend.
Tools were being collected by this time. But not really. I saw great volumes of tools for sale. I bought a few to keep when they were cheap, but I couldn't sell that many at the shop, so just didn't buy that many.
If I'd have bought what I could have bought, when I could have had it (if I'd had the money)
I could be rich right now.
And we know that didn't happen.
But I did look, and I did see them.
Oh yeah I saw them.........
yours Scott
