Treasure Hunting

Do you ever watch Pawn Stars, or any of those other reality shows where folks find some "treasure" at a yard sale or in Grandma's attic?  What happens when they get down to the negotiation?  Usually, the "expert" will value something at an INCREDIBLY high value (say, tens of thousands of dollars), and the seller will then immediately ask for RETAIL.  When the producers talked to him outside, he said "I'm hoping to get three hundred, but I'll probably take one-fifty, since I bought it for seven dollars.  I think that's fair."  And INSIDE, he's like, "You heard the man.  It's worth ten thousand.  Give me eight and we've got a deal!"  We laugh at these greedy mo-fos, and then we look at each other and go, "damn.  Wish I could find a Civil War-era musket!"

My point is, you know we're downsizing and selling stuff to get our butts back to our real life in LA, right?  Yeah, you know that - I was just checkin'.  Today, on Stephen's day off, we went up to his Dad's house to hunt for buried treasure.  We found some of the train sets (still not ALL of them), and a bunch of dolls that had belonged to his grandmother, and more of the blankets she had knitted or crocheted, and some great cedar chests to hold stuff.  We still haven't found all of Stephen's toys that he's looking for (superhero action figures, specifically), but we brought home maybe half of today's findings.

In doing a little research into the value that OTHERS are asking online, we've probably got enough in today's haul to put us VERY close to our financial moving goal... if stuff sells.  So, we may not have found a Civil War-era musket.  So what?  We've got some REAL items that are TRULY collectible.  And since Stephen's habit is to price his stuff for less than the cheapest seller (of similar quality), we're very likely to make a decent chunk of change from the couple of hours we spent in dusty attics.

Feels good.  I am blessed.  We are blessed.  And so far, we're enjoying this process.  Now, where's that dang musket?