Adventures on Hibid

It all started out innocently enough, with a lamp, on a lark.

I’ll blame hubs. He’s been collecting old books for years, mostly antique occult and philosophy books. He’s been a regular at online book stores like Abe Books, and  Weiser Antiquarian for years. We also make biannual pilgrimages to King Books in Detroit.  It’s a book lovers heaven with four floors stacked to the ceiling. We’ll spend the morning there and walk to Mudgie’s for lunch. The best sammiches in the city!

Then, one fateful day, he discovered hibid.com. He quickly found an estate sale auction from some dude in Idaho, who had some cool books. Then his search lead him to other artifacts.

“Hey, Honey Buns! Check this out!”

He shows me a bronze bust of a long dead philosopher.

“Yeah, that’s cool.”

“It would look good on one of the stero speakers.”

Sure would.

Five minutes later:

“Hey, Honey Buns! Check this out!”

Look at this footstool! I checked the manufacturer.  Baker is a high-end furniture maker. These retail for $1200!

Nice.

Five minutes later:

“Hey, Honey Buns! Check this out!”

Sigh…

He excitedly showed me all the stuff, big and small, that he thought was interesting. In his defense,  this guy’s estate sale did have some nice stuff. Turns out the guy was never married and didn’t have children.  Go figure.

I finally caved and started poking around myself. I mean, I’ve been wanting a curio cabinet for years, something to display my mum’s old China  tea cups.

Knowing I was looking for big pieces of furniture,  I stuck with local auctions. I didn’t find a curio cabinet right off, but I did find this lamp.

Now, as an auction newbie, I had to learn a few things:

• There is a hammer fee. It’s typically around 18%, but it can be higher. On a $7 item, it’s not a big deal.
• The auction house can set a no shipping rule. Before you bid, you better make sure you can pick it up.
• Check the dates and times you are allowed to pick the item up. This is usually very specific, and they often require you to make an appointment.
• Sometimes, you picked up the item at the auction house. Sometimes, you pick up the item directly from the person’s home.
• Most importantly, note the dimensions of the item you are bidding on and measure the inside of your vehicle so you know what will fit in it.

I pulled up a local auction one day, and found a nice looking corner curio cabinet. I put in $15. No one else bid on it, so it was all mine! Yay! Until I figured out that there was no way on God’s green earth that I was going to fit it in to my station wagon, or even my hubs larger SUV.

So now a mad mental scramble trying to figure out how I will bring home a 78″ tall solid wood cabinet on my own. I could only pick it up on Tuesday, and Hubs had to work. Which brings up another point, make sure there are people there that can help you load the items. Some auction houses will not guarantee that service, so you need to be strong or bring a helper.  In this case, I called ahead and they said someone would be able to assist. Whew!

After much research,  I found I could rent a flatbed pickup truck from Home Depot for $19.99. Pro tip – don’t bother with uHaul. The process to get your quote is infuriating long with all the add-ons they try to sell.

Given the amount of time it took me to pick up the cabinet, bring it home and take the truck back, it it came to more than $19.99, but…

I came home with a really nice cabinet!

And now my mum’s teacup are proudly displayed after many years packed up in a box!

Eventually,  we gravitated towards buying books mostly. We then found out that some of these books we won were actually worth something.  Next thing you know, Mr. Curio’s Vintage Books was born! It’s been a fun hobby and I’m learning a lot.

If you’ve made it this far, AND you love old books, check out our store and use BLOGGER10 for 10% off your first order. Thanks for reading!