Many years ago, when we were still in Atlanta, Toney and I drove WAY out to the suburbs one Saturday afternoon to attend an open house at a new subdivision that was being built. I don’t know what brought this on, because we had never even entertained the notion of buying a house, or (gasp!) moving outside the Perimeter.
We weren’t married at the time, but I believe a date had been set. We were living in an apartment in the Little Five Points area of the city, which was noisy and bohemian and questionable at best. But, I don’t think we’d discussed moving. So, the whole thing feels somewhat bizarre to me now. Perhaps Toney had thoughts going on inside her head that I didn’t know about?
In any case, we drove out there, and it seemed to take forever. I wasn’t even sure we were still in Georgia, and thought it might be a good idea to stop and have our tires rotated before heading back.
And you can probably guess what happened… We got hooked up with a nice saleslady who was pushing hard for us to buy a place inside the new development. She drove us around on a golf cart and showed us the pool and the clubhouse and the tennis courts. It was very impressive, a beautiful place, and it didn’t take long before we were having insane thoughts.
It was a million miles (give or take) from where we both worked, and made absolutely no sense. However, the woman could smell blood in the water. She wanted us to consider having a house built there, but the price of such a thing was out of the question. Plus, it didn’t seem possible. Me? Having a house built?? Ha! That’s for adult people, folks who have their shit together and know how to have conversations and wear grown-up clothes and whatnot. It certainly wasn’t for me.
“No problem,” our new friend shouted, “I’ll just show you some re-sales!”
And that touched off a series of events that led us to the saleslady’s kitchen, eating lasagna, and making an offer on one of the houses. It was craziness! What the hell were we doing?! It felt like I didn’t have any control over my actions. I was having an out-of-body experience, watching us sign papers and shaking my head in disbelief. I think that woman was some kind of hypnotist, or maybe she put something in the pasta she served us? We both walked out of there, muttering, “WHAT? THE? FUCK?”
Here’s the house that sucked us in, as it appears today at Google Maps:
Oh, we loved that place. It was two years old, aka better than new, and just a fantastic home. However… we couldn’t get financing without a down payment. You know, on account of the fact that neither of us were making any money to speak of.
So, I sold some of my baseball cards. It was something I said I’d never do, and the whole thing still gives me a case of the loose stools. I didn’t sell them all, but liquidated many of the prized jewels in my sports collector’s crown.
And while it was going on, I was a basket case, pacing around and running my hands through my hair. I bought an ad in the newspaper, saying I had baseball cards to sell, and there was an avalanche of response. I was meeting people inside restaurants and cutting deals, each of which ripped another hunk of my heart out of my chest. It was awful.
I remember sitting in a booth at Shoney’s, across from a husband/wife wheeler-dealer team. They were professionals, and had all sorts of notebooks and calculators with them. They were trying to lowball me on some stuff, and I became furious. I didn’t even want to do this, and certainly wasn’t going to get bent over a couch on top of it all. I told them the deal was off, stood up wearing a mask of fury, and left the place before I started throwing haymakers. Interestingly enough, they followed me to the parking lot and ended up paying a decent price for some things.
I raised $10,000, and stopped. It was enough to get us into the house, and we lived there for four years. Toney still says it’s the best place we ever had. I don’t know about that, but it was certainly nice. And when we sold it we made a decent profit, which we rolled into the house in California, and eventually into our current place.
So, the sale of my beloved baseball cards has paid enormous dividends through the years. I can’t say it was a mistake, by any stretch of the imagination. But man… it still bugs me. Ya know? I don’t even want to tell you what I sold, because it makes me too sad. Aaaargh!!
What about you? Have you sold something you still regret on some level? Or maybe it’s something you gave away, or lost somehow? If so, please tell us about it in the comments.
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I sold roughly 75 percent of my vinyl collection within weeks of leaving the job at the record store. I blame the burnout, man.
I had an old jeep wrangler that I took the doors and roof of of and only took it out when it was above 75 and sunny. I sold it to do some renovation to an old house we bought. I used to strap my kids in it and take them to feed the ducks on summer mornings and occasionally take it mudding, but it was hard to justify keeping it around for as little use as it got. It still bothers me.
Can’t recall really selling or giving anything of personal value away. Oh, things break and get lost, but I’ve not had to raise money off of any of my possessions (again, my memory suck or I may have erased the bed memories from my mind with the generous use of bourbon over the years), which is good, because most of my stuff isn’t worth anything much. Believe me, I’ve looked.
It must have stung something awful to have to sell some of those cards, but 10K is a tidy sum and did you a world of good in the long run. Hope you’re not torturing yourself by looking at home much some of them are worth now…
I still can’t believe I sold that beautiful, head liquifying Mossburg 12 gauge. The buddy I sold it to tells me it broke his nose the first time he shot it.
It leaps to mind only because I found this out a couple of days ago… I was given one of the giant Lego Millennium Falcon sets. They cost $500 new. I never had time to build it (I was a new parent), so it just sat in the basement. A couple of years later I saw that were selling for $1500, so, after clearing it with the gift giver I sold it for $1500 – that buys a lot of diapers. Those sets sell for $4000+ today. Why didn’t I buy 10 back in 2007?! Idiot.
You should tell some Little Five Points stories. Although – you probably have over the years. I know that is where The Indigo Girls started out.
Sold my baseball cards too but this was about 9 years ago, by which time the bottom had long-ago fallen out of the baseball card market. I didn’t have anything too spectacular but I wish I would have held on to the near-mint 1969 Johnny Bench that I had:
http://media2.cardboardconnection.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/1969-Topps-Baseball-Johnny-Bench.jpg
I also wish I’d have kept the entire 1970 Topps set. This was the first year I started collecting them when I was a kid.
Also in 2008, so as to buy a car, I sold my entire silver coin collection. Most of these were silver dollars and I’d painstakingly put this collection together over a dozen years. I have scans of all the coins but it’s not the same, ya’ know?
I also had an awesome collection of baseball cards back in the 70s, being the incredible sports nerd that I am. But, sadly, I discovered girls (and their parts) and at some point shortly thereafter my mom asked me if I really needed those cards anymore. Figuring I was all growed-up by then and that was kid stuff, I said “no”…..really!!!! I’m talking Pete Rose rookie cards, Mickey Mantle’s last season, Tom Seaver rookie card, all mint. I find it hard to believe the poo-tang was worth that much….
First: when I was wee lad in Brooklyn, we were a Mets household. My dad had been a Dodgers fan, but after they skipped town (the bums) the Mets were the only option as the Not Yankees. We went to Yankees games only occasionally, and one of those occasions was Bat Day. They gave out actual baseball bats, not the stupid little pencils you get nowadays. Mine had a Mickey Mantle “signature.” Like a drooling retard, I used it when playing in our neighborhood softball games. I lent it out to some kid, he held it the wrong way, and cracked it in half.
Second: when I quit my job at the TV station, I ended up cashing out my ESOP because I needed the money, penalty be damned. It was about $10k worth of Viacom stock, in 1987. I shudder to think what that would have been worth today.
And I prefer not to talk about the recycling craze of the early 1970s, vis a vis my comic book collection.
It’s not what I got rid of, but what I didn’t wait to get – in the late ’80s, at the height of the satin jacket craze, my dad said he’d buy me a Philadelphia Flyers one. So we go to the store, and they’re out. Me being 10 years old and impatient, I settled for a Los Angeles Kings jacket. I still have it somewhere, but I never wore it much. Now I work for the Flyers and wish I had the thing from back then. However, thankfully there’s eBay, and I’m on the lookout.
I had a promotional set of chattering teeth that said “Rolling Stones! Love you Live” that belonged to Keith Richard’s son (long story – he lived in South Salem, NY at the time and my friend lived a few blocks away ). Anyway, that mysteriously got lifted and I always suspected my sister of taking them.
Fast forward a few decades – my sister had to move and asked me to help her. I saw a box that held Rolling Stones memorabilia but I left it. I am almost certain those goddamn teeth were in that box.
I sold a Browning A Bolt .22-250 about 20 years ago. Man that thing drove tacks.
I lost/misplaced a $1,000 savings bond.
When I was about 12 I was into R/C cars with a neighbor friend down the road. In order to get a few badass parts to have a faster car, I sold an autographed Joe DiMaggio 8×10 to a shady memorabilia shop for $40. I watched Joe D sign that glossy at a card show my uncle took me to.
When we got home, upon learning of my stupidity, my father looked at my mother and asked “what the f*#% did you let him do that for?” She apparently didn’t realize the lopsidedness of that particular transaction.
Also sold a handful of $1-$2K rifles and shotguns while unemployed a few years back. Might have added up to about $1500 for 4 of them.
Live and learn I guess.
My parents downsized their living quarters in the 1990’s – pre Ebay days. all my old toys and games from the 60s and 70s were still there, in very good condition. I lived in Chicago and didn’t have any space for the stuff, so they gave it all away (or more likely threw it in the trash).
There were treasures in there – Chemistry set, slot car track and cars, Hot Wheels track and tons of accessories (Kept the cars though!) a wood burning set, and the piece de resistance, Creepy Crawlers set (the original kind with the metal molds that you put on a hotplate)! OMG some of that stuff would make safety experts have a heart attack today.
I can still remember the burned and blistered fingers from the heating pad on the Creepy Crawlers.
that stuff goes for big money on ebay today!
My Klipsch Shorem speakers I used to DJ. They were huge and ugly and sounded heavenly crisp even at max volume. Wife finally confined me to sell them at a garage sale and it was torture.
I’ve lost Major Tom.
We all have, chill. 🙁
I’m a frugal hoarder, so there aren’t many things I buy that I get rid of.
However, I did sell the first bass guitar I ever owned. I worked all summer and didn’t spend a dime saving up for the thing. I walked to the post office and filled out a money order form and handed over the largest sum of cash I ever handled up to that point. A LITTLE OVER $200!
It served me well and I kept if for a long time. Then we had to move across country and were liquidating all our stuff so we wouldn’t have to pack it. I sold the bass for $50. It still bums me out sometimes.
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On a different note, what’s with that guy peeing on video games at the Wilkes Barre Target?
This is late, and I’m not feeling creative enough to add anything worth reading, but this is a great post.
I’m still a little disappointed in myself that I once traded a perfectly good Fender Precision bass for car repairs when you was young and completely broke. Worst of all, it didn’t really prolong the car’s life that long.