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Thursday, January 16, 2014

Peacocks and Chess Sets


I've heard that you need a catchy headline for your blog posts in order to get your readers to notice.

Pretty catchy, huh?

Unfortunately, the story isn't as interesting as the headline.

Ms. Duck and I are driving to Dallas tomorrow to attend the Dallas Market. We'll spend the day searching for interesting and unusual items to sell in our side business. When we are done we'll go to a nice restaurant and decide what items are worth buying for resale. Saturday we'll head back to market and place our orders.

We've found that items with a peacock theme seem to fly off the shelves. Be it trays, mirrors, statues, etc, we've sold them all and need to restock.

Another item that has been hot for us over the years has been themed chess sets. The favorites are the Civil War set, the World War II set and the Alamo set. The pieces are hand-painted and have some nice detail. The WW II set for example has FDR in his wheelchair as the king of the American pieces and Hitler leading the Germans. They wholesaled for $39 and we sold them all day for $129, a nice profit. The problem is that our supplier went out of business, leaving us without stock and looking for a new source.

So peacocks and chess sets will be our main goal over the next couple of days.

Ms. Duck and I have found a good source for furniture items here locally. There's an auction house in nearby Crawford (Prez Bush's old stomping grounds) that we have been buying from for a little over a year. At the last auction we attended, we were able to buy a nice mahogany secretary/bookcase for $125. It was a little beat up and required some refinishing, but after three hours of work we got the result below and put a $600 price tag on it. We've had a lot of luck purchasing similar items there and marking them up for a nice profit. With Ms. Duck still unemployed (for 10 months), it's been a nice source of income.



Here's hoping for a good market. Peacocks and chess sets...that's the ticket!

4 comments:

  1. I'm taking the 49ers (against the Seahawks) in your contest this week Mr. Pete (and whichever team scores the most points in the Pro Bowl for next Sunday). Have a good one!

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  2. Hard to beat mahogany, looks great.

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  3. Wow..! I love those chess sets....hope to own one of those.....Good luck!

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  4. Sounds like they went out of business due to selling you the chess sets for too little... ;)

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