"A Garage Sale Junky Upgrades to Roseville Pottery!"
How to Gain Respect in the World of Collecting!

A Garage Sale Junky Upgrades to Roseville Pottery



After being a card-carrying bottom feeder at auctions and garage sales for years, I decided I would raise my selling self esteem by raising the bar from junk to Roseville.

Now why would any highly successful bottom feeder wish to do a thing like that you might ask. I was very successful out-bidding every other bidder for the odd lots of refuse at most auctions. It was like an angry spirit took hold of my hand raising it toward the heavens. Very few dared to challenge my bidding. The auctioneers always smiled as I heaped up my "treasures".

Then there was the problem of unloading when I returned home. Sometimes darkness was my veil as I sneaked my goods into the cellar in attempts of avoiding my wife's unappreciative stares. After all, the attic was heaped up, as was my office, and then there was the shed out back. She would understand when I converted it all into cash. Someday.

Jumping from Garage Sales Junk to Roseville

Then one day she said something shocking. "Why don't you upgrade your buying and get better items." She had given up on getting me to stop going to auctions, so this was a very positive development. That is when decided to hunt down and acquire a piece of Roseville pottery.

This was to be my quantum leap to respectability. You have all seen art dealers and antique dealers who only carry the creme de la creme in their shops. These people don't even wear jeans and frown uncontrollably when they see inferior pieces in a way that suggest a bad scent is in the air. I wanted to join their club.

I had seen a few pieces of Roseville in my day and was shocked to see three lovely stem holders at a local consignment auction. Right on the bottom of each it said, "Roseville." I was smitten. The old spirit returned as I thrust my hand into the air to the tune of $75.00. I had achieved my goal and took my trophies home. Respectability.

My description on Ebay was nothing short of poetry. I finally had an item worthy of consideration by the mos tdiscriminating collector, or so I thought. My first clue that something was wrong was when after 5 days I didn't have a single bid. Then there was the terse email which read," They aren't Roseville. They are cheap imitations made in China."

Exactly one month later, I left a box at the same consignment auction. In the box were three stem holders signed "Roseville" on the bottom. I didn't attend the auction but stayed home confident that other bidders possessed by a demons would raise their hands as I had done.

The results were shocking. Since it was a holiday weekend, the auctioneer had a truckload of flowers on the auction block. When he finally started the box lots, the large crowd had all but disappeared. When the gavel finally came down on my "Roseville," it was for the sum of $8.00! (Minus the house's 20 per cent!) There ends my quest for Roseville for the time being. Presently, I will stick to the identification of peanut butter jars and other fine items that you find in...box lots!

Yes, I did suffer from pangs of guilt by trying to perpetrate the same "crime" that I fell victum to. However, you can well bet that their are many items on the auction block that are not what they appear to be. In my case, I learned a lesson...remain a bottom feeder.

Learn how to have your heart broken when you purchase a great collectable only to learn that it is a fake. A real lesson is to be learned here and that being this: Buyer Beware!

by John Lundgren -

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Source: http://www.garagesalebonanza.com