RadioFest 2011 – Willowbrook, IL

I am currently in my hotel room anxiously waiting for the 7am start of the Radiofest swap meet here in Willowbrook, IL. There was a fantastic turnout at the auction last night with many lots of neat vintage electronics. The weather appears to be cooperating with the meet this year with predicted temperatures in the low 80′s and only a slight chance for rain. This particular antique radio event is, in my opinion, one of the premier events of the year due to the fact that it is a multi-day event with a full auction, multi-day swap meet, a number of radio contests, and some electronics related seminars. I already have a lead on a rare HH Scott tube amplifier, which uses four 6550 output tubes to produce over 65 watts per channel of sweet tube sound (wish me luck on getting that one . I also plan to upload some photos of this event later in the day today so, for those of you who could not make it, you can at least see what it is all about.

Radio Extravaganza Road Trip – Lansing, MI

I just arrived at the Radio Extravaganza event in Lansing, MI. It has been a few years since I have been at this particular vintage radio event and I look forward to the opening of the swap meet tomorrow morning at 7pm. This particular event had always been one of the premier vintage radio events in the US. This is a multi-day event featuring a 2-day outdoor swap meet and a full auction conducted by Rich Estes. I will attempt to upload some photos from this event and will let you know what I end up purchasing tomorrow.

Vintage Electronics Auction Trip – Kinzers, PA

I apologize for not posting to this blog for quite some time, life has been very exciting and busy. I am currently on my way home from a fantastic vintage electronics auction in Kinzers, PA, which had over 1000 lots of goodies. I ended up purchasing seven items including a top-of-the-line vintage Marantz 2500 receiver in excellent working condition. I must say that this was one of the very best vintage electronics auctions I have ever attended based on both the quantity and quality of the items in addition to the speed with which the auction progressed. I should be listing some of these items on eBay over the next week so be sure to check out my stuff (eBay user ID: Spiritman68). Next weekend I plan to attend the radio swap meet in Carol Stream, IL and connect with some of my friends. I hope to update this blog with a review of that event shortly after it takes place. Have a fantastic day. Peace, Patrick

Charlotte, NC Radio Swap Meet & Auction: March 2010

Winter is always a bit slower when it comes to vintage electronics events, especially in the mid-west however, this certainly does not stop me from planning my next radio related road trip. In this case, the next “major” trip I have planned is to attend the Charlotte, NC radio swap meet and auction, which is a three-day event taking place the 25th, 26th, and 27th of March 2010. What makes this event unique is the fact that it is one of the few vintage electronics related events that lasts more than a half day. In addition, most events do not have an auction, in addition to a swap meet, which makes this trip well worth the 13-hour drive each way. This event is held at a hotel, which makes it very convenient for checking in and out at the swap meet as more vendors setup. One additional point of interest, related to this particular event, is their “Le Mans” start for the swap meet on Friday morning. What this means is that all customers and vendors need to vacate the swap meet area and the vendors can not even have any of their items visible to the public prior to the 8am start of the meet. At 8am sharp, the gates are opened and all of the vendors and customers go running into the swap meet area as the customers watch vendors uncover potential treasures. It is a quite exciting way to start an event such as this although it is a bit controversial among vendors. This type of start sometimes makes it difficult for vendors to uncover and setup their items with all the excited customers clamoring around. In addition to the swap meet and auction, this event also hosts numerous mini-conferences related to vintage electronics history and restoration. All-in-all, in my opinion, this is one of the best vintage electronics events of the year and I always come back home with a van full of treasures. To view the full details of this years event, please checkout the website at: http://charlottearc2010.homestead.com/index.html

Shipping Vintage Electronics

Today I would like to offer a few suggestions for shipping vintage electronics. As I have discussed in previous posts, most of the vintage electronics that I sell are sold online and therefore, I have quite a bit of experience with shipping these types of items and would like to offer my readers a few suggestions. The first tip involves choosing the right shipping service for the type of package you want to ship. In general, any domestic package that weighs over five-pounds should be shipped via FedEx or UPS. These two shipping services offer the best value for the cost, including $100 of “free” shipping insurance (which can be increased). For any packages under five-pounds, or any packages that will be shipped out of the country, the United States Postal Service offers the best rates in general. These shipping guidelines apply to any packages up to about 100-pounds. For any items over 100-pounds, it would be best to use a freight shipping company however, because I do not have much experience with those types of companies, I do not feel qualified to recommend any at this point. The next shipping related tip I would like to offer focuses on finding packing supplies. Most of the vintage electronic items that I ship use a combination of cardboard boxes, packing peanuts, bubble wrap, packing tape, foam, and sometimes styrofoam as packing materials. These items can be quite expensive to purchase new at retail stores therefore, what I do is form relationships with local small businesses that throw out boxes and used packing materials and, many times, am able to get these items for free. In addition, using used packing materials is certainly great for the environment by being a form of recycling. I consider this another step in the direction of being a “green” organization. Obviously, the used boxes need to be in good condition and the packing supplies need to be clean however, I have not found it hard to find a large percentage of my packing supplies for free due to the fact that the businesses I get them from would normally have to pay to dispose of them. The one exception to finding free packing supplies is packing tape, which I typically purchase online and in large quantities in order to get a bulk discount. In regard to the best practices for how to pack an item, it certainly varies by the type of vintage electronic items you ship however in general, more packing is always better. I always suggest double-boxing items with at least six-inches of packing material around all sides and the top and bottom of the inside box. By following these guidelines, your item will have an excellent chance of arriving in one piece in addition, these guidelines comply with the major shipping companies insurance policies so that, if an item is damaged during shipping, there is a good chance that the claim will be paid quickly. On the subject of shipping insurance, I always suggest insuring each and every item for it’s full value. Shipping insurance is relatively cheap and it offers your customers a security blanket and a bit of comfort knowing that, if shipping damage should occur, it will be covered. Lastly, I would like to suggest always having the idea of shipping in the back of your mind when you are out looking for potential inventory purchases. In many cases, having this type of mindset could prevent you from buying that 100-pound console radio only to find out that no one is willing to pay a price high enough for you to make a profit and to actually ship the item to them. In addition, the larger and heavier an item is, the more time and energy it will take to pack it for a safe journey. Until next time, have a great day.

Getting the most value for your hotel dollars

Today I would like to offer a few suggesting related to getting the most value for you money, when it comes to choosing a hotel. Due to the fact that I travel on a regular basis to vintage electronic events and stay in hotel at least 5 or 6 days every month, I have learned which hotels offer the best value for the money. The first suggestion I have is to join a hotel rewards program. My favorite rewards program is the Hilton Honors club. Most hotel reward programs now include at least a half dozen different hotel chains, which makes it easy to find a hotel within the program most anywhere. For instance, the Hilton Honors program includes: Hilton, Hilton Garden Centers, Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, DoubleTree, Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites, and the new Home2 Suites. Having this many different hotel lines to choose from, makes it easy to find a hotel within your budget in most locations (even including the small towns that most vintage electronics events seem to be held in). The major benefit of joining a hotel reward program is the fact that, like airline reward programs, you build up points which can be used for free hotel stays and other benefits thereby reducing your overall cost of travel. Through personal experience, I have found that the hotel lines that offer the most value for you dollar (within the Hilton Honors program) are the Hilton Garden Centers, Embassy Suites, and DoubleTree hotels. I prefer these hotel lines because they offer most of the same amenities as the higher prices hotels with a substantially cheaper price tag. The features I look for in a hotel include a refrigerator and microwave in the room, an onsite restaurant, wireless internet service, and computer printer and fax services. All of my suggested hotel lines offer all of these amenities within a price range from $70 to about $125. I would also suggest joining a number of different hotel reward programs but try to use only one the majority of the time. The reason I make this suggestion is that some radio swap meets are actually held in hotel parking lots yet, the particular hotel may not be a part of your primary rewards program therefore, rather than forego any rewards, using a secondary rewards program can offer some benefits. Of course you could also choose to stay at an off-site hotel however, it is much more convenient to stay on-site. All the hotel reward programs I am aware of are free to join and offer benefits that make it worth your while to join. Happy travels!

Ohio Radio Adventure Update

I am now back home from my radio adventure in Ohio, which I consider to be a success. First of all, the weather was great during the entire trip and the road were clear and easy to travel. There were a few changes to my trip however, rather than meeting my friend in Wellington, OH, I ended up meeting him in a little town called Lakewood, OH, where he owns another property filled with vintage electronic treasures. This was the first time I was at this particular location and, walking into a room filled with vintage electronics from floor to ceiling never fails to amaze me. Although I only ended up purchasing a total of five items from my friend, after a half day of “treasure hunting,” the five items I did purchases were of a bit higher quality than I usually find. I ended up taking home a vintage McIntosh power amplifier, a McIntosh preamplifier, and a McIntosh vacuum tube FM tuner. In addition, I also picked up a highly sought after Thorens TD-124 turntable, including a Shure V15 cartridge and the original tonearm. I may be listing some of these items for sale on my website, feel free to take a look at them at www.simplyspiritsales.com. At this point, I am unsure when or where I will be going on my next vintage electronics trip however, due to all of the traveling I do and all of the hotels I stay at, I will be writing a blog post related to my suggesting for choosing hotels that offer the best value for the price. Stayed tuned….

Upcoming Vintage Electronics Treasure Hunt

Although I was a bit disappointed with the fact that the last radio event I went to ended up being cancelled due to a snow storm, there is always good right around every corner, I am now planning my next vintage electronics trip. I will be leaving tomorrow (2/11/10) on a trip to a small town called Wellington, OH to visit a friend of mine, who also happens to be an avid collection of vintage electronics and literally has a huge house full of these type of items. For me, it is like finding a vintage electronics wholesaler, which if you have been collecting for any amount of time, you already know that this is unheard of. Needless to say, I am very excited. I describe it by asking you to imagine walking into a beautiful mansion loaded with all of your favorite collectibles and being given free reign to look everywhere for buried treasures. Every room of this four-story home is literally piled with vintage electronics. I truly see this as a treasure hunt in which, not only are my chances of finding something extremely high, most all of the items are for sale at a reasonable price. What more could a collector ask for? I will probably leave late in the morning tomorrow and travel half way to Wellington then, I will finish my journey Friday morning and meet my friend around noon on Friday for a day of adventure. When I return back to Milwaukee, I will be sure to update my blog with descriptions of all of the treasures I found. Until next time, have a wonderful day…

Online Selling Tips

Today I would like to follow up on the post I added yesterday regarding selling vintage electronics at an offline swap meet. Today I would like to offer you some advice related to the “other half of the coin,” that being selling vintage electronics online. By far, the best tip I can offer is to start off using eBay as your online marketplace. Although you may hear people complaining about the increases in seller fees on eBay and the way they treat their buyers and seller, eBay is still the best place to sell vintage electronics in my opinion, especially for a beginner. I make this suggestion based on the fact that vintage electronics are a relatively scarce resource and eBay, with over 300-million registered users world-wide, is currently the only marketplace that is large enough to support multiple vintage electronic sellers and is also becoming known to collectors as the place to find what they are looking for. I have personally tried various other online venues to sell my items and, not only do my listing on other sites not realize as high of a selling price, in many cases, I do not even get any initial offers on any of the other sites. On eBay, my sell-through rate is approximately 60% versus less than 10% on other sites. After building a reputation as a reputable seller of vintage electronics online, through using eBay, you can then think about creating your own website to sell on. However, you must keep in mind that you will need to heavily market your own website whereas eBay already has a built-in potential customer base of 300-million individuals just waiting for you. Enough about that, tip number two, related to online selling, treat every customer as if they were a part of your family (assuming you like your family of course). What I am getting at is that a bad reputation online spreads 100-times faster than it could offline and one bad transaction can jeopardize your entire business in no time. Along the lines of treating customers well, tip number three is to make sure you describe your items in great detail when listing them online. Pay particular attention to any defects, whether they are cosmetic or electronic. Because potential customers do not have the ability to see an item in person or to touch it, your description of the item becomes very important. Lastly, take as many detailed photos of the item as possible in order to give your potential customer an even better idea as to the condition of it and do not forget to take photos of the inside of your vintage electronics as well. This blog post was meant as an initial starting point for those of you who have never sold vintage electronics online before. In the future, I will post more advanced tips related to this topic.

Selling at a swap meet

The best advice I can give anyone who is considering selling items at an antique radio swap meet is to be flexible with your asking prices. It has been my experience that the majority of sellers at these type of events set their asking prices a bit high knowing that they will be asked if they can accept a lower price by potential buyers. Knowing this in advance can result in more sales and happier customers. Secondly, I suggest bringing a range of products types to a swap meet so that, if one type of item does not sell, another type may. Examples of sub-catagories within the vintage electronics field include: HAM radios, table top radios, vintage hifi gear (such as vacuum tube amplifier, tuners, record players, etc.), musical instrument related electronics (such as guitar and PA amplifiers, vintage microphone, and mixer consoles), vintage tubes, transistor radios, vintage radio advertising and books, test equipment (such as tube testers, VOM meters, etc). Until you know what a particular radio swap meet is most known for, it is always best to bring a variety of items. Lastly, I would suggest getting to the event as early as possible in order to pick the best possible location to sell. Typically, I prefer a location either closest to the entrance to the building or near the bathrooms or food, since these areas seem to have the most traffic. Until next time, Happy Hunting!