Taking care of older friends..
 

I have an Older friend (79) who has had some health problems last few months. Some have tried to take advantage of him. These guys are trying to buy parts and cars cheap. I don't care about making a buck, just trying to help out a good friend. NOS SD scoop was posted in thread deal is pending sale .Please look out for your friends!!!

Bear in mind that at some point things need to start going, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Better sometimes to make a sale and move on than end up your last days on earth with piles of parts someone is going to have to deal with. Seen it so many times, people that are going to "retire" on their parts collection, end up never living to reap the rewards and they get sold at auction or by family members at a fraction of their worth.

Just saying, remember that what is an acceptable deal to a healthy person with a couple decades left to live is going to be more money than what is acceptable to person with a very uncertain future. An unfortunate thing, but true none the less.

Dataway, you nailed it. My dad kept literally tons of stuff, and since his passing FIVE YEARS AGO, I am still clearing out stuff. There was a 40x60 barn with a dirt floor, and two walking paths thru it. IT had been flooded numerous times, and I ended up scrapping stuff that at one time was fairly valuable but was now destroyed.. After getting rid of the larger items like tractors, I still made nine trips to the scrapyard with a full 2500 pickup truck. I was able to sell some stuff, but scrapped the majority. There were probably quite a few things worth $25-$50 here and there, but I just didnt have the time to take the pics, wait for the sale, deal with the boxing and shipping. I had 5 days and I just got after it. Its unfortunate, but its done. Getting a floor put in these next few weeks hopefully.

Around my "circle of car guys" we will sell stuff to each other for about half of the going rate. Its nice to know that you arent inviting strangers over to see your stuff, your friend is likely to use the item, and you get good deals in return.

I have a friend nearby who hoarded all sorts of non-pontiac/chevy GM stuff, and his retirement plan was selling parts. Well, the place he stored it was not where he lived. Between falling trees, thieves, city ordinance violations, etc... it ended up costing him more to clean up and deal with than it ever made.

I have more stuff than I should, but I am not in the "place" now that I expected to be five years ago. Between deaths of family members, estates, good fortune, luck (some good and bad), the stuff I have accumulated is more than I need, but as a few wise people told me, when something good is offered to you, take it. The offer might not be there tomorrow. Between hard work and a fair amount of luck, I'm happy with the current situation, for the most part. Life moves more quickly than it should, and I adjust accordingly as I can.

I took care of my parents affairs during their last few years and the thing that struck me was how vulnerable they became to somebody in my position being able to cheat them.
So it really drove home the concept of having somebody younger than us, that we trust 1000%, to be ready to jump in when we get to that point in our lives.

Eric

Watching that happen with my inlaws right now, they are starting to make mistakes that could be very costly, they just wrote my wife a six figure birthday check ... with her maiden name on it ... we've been married 30 years.

They live in down in FL in a real nice area full of well to do retirees that are probably just a gold mine for thieves. In their very exclusive gated community they have been burgled twice and had both their Benz's stolen. Tons of pawn shops down there for old people getting rid of things they think aren't worth selling ... top of the line vintage Rolexs and such .... I can see it now, I'll give you $1000 for it ..... well I paid $2000 for it 30 years ago so that sounds like a good deal. I hate to even think about how they are getting ripped off.

However, when it comes old parts and cars in barns, whole different thing in most cases. You can spend 20 years and lots of time trying to get the "right price" or you can let it go for a bargain and put the money to good use before you go.

I promised my wife I'm going to quickly liquidate everything that is of no use to her in a rapid fashion when it looks like my day is no long off. Heck, I even sell off my spare window glass for my GTO because I don't want it lying around.

My GTO, which I bought 45 years ago .... I'm going to park in a field behind the house and set it on fire. I'm serious, no one in my extended family would care about an "old car", my wife won't need the money, and I don't want it humiliated by being sold, blown up, wrecked and rusted away in the woods. So it's going out with a Viking funeral :)

Before my Dad passed last year, he used to send checks to all kinds of junk mail 'charity' requests. He kept wondering why he received more and more junk mail and was surprised when I explained it to him.

Nunzi called me yesterday to make sure I was still on the green side of the grass!Tom

I started liquidating couple years ago. Friends get first crack. Nunzi well?

People trying to take stuff for nothing in this situation. Amazing how some dirt bags will take advantage on venerable people? And to be clear he can't live alone anymore so not staying at his house. Appeared someone had tried to break into the shop? Real Douche bags!

LOL Jeez O man!

He sounded great,had some rain in the shop from the tropical storm that went through.Tom

Tom, that is too funny! Did you ask him, the same question?

I do call him every once in awhile to make sure.There was rumors out there last year he had passed and his son got on here and said not true.Tom

One of my friends is in his late 50s and lives about 2 hours away. He has seen his share of bad luck over the past five or six years. I won't go into details, but I've been storing his 79 W72 WS6 T/A body for about two years. There was a period of close to a full year where I couldn't locate him. The rental house he had been staying at burnt, and the owner wouldn't give me any information on where he might be or where the tenants moved to. My friend is slowly getting things straightened out, but I suspect I'll have his car for at least another year. When he was shutting down his shop, I put him in touch with a couple of people to buy some shop tools and miscellaneous. I know some of the people took advantage of him, but the stuff had to go.

Mike

Seen that kind of situation before. If there is no one close enough to him, with the spare time and knowledge to put into protecting, advertising, selling and shipping, and the collection is truly valuable enough ... then a company or organization that specializes in this sort of thing needs to be called in to auction the stuff, or buy it complete.

I've seen collections like that disappear in a couple of years from break-ins, family coming in and "throwing out all the junk", building collapsing, fire, things getting lost, before you know it's gone or worthless. Family will come in to look for "that old dresser" and haul stuff to the dump to get to it out of the way and are not going to listen some guy they don't know when it comes to dear old Dad, Uncle, Grandpa etc. that they haven't visited in five years.

When someone offers $500 for a $1000 part in that situation ... ask yourself, how much are you willing to pay someone to sort, clean, advertise and ship those parts if the owner isn't there to do it? Subtract that from the price.

Scary situation being on the precipice like that .. having to decide between "something" or possibly nothing. Bear in mind if things get bad the whole collection could be one family phone call to the "Garbage Guys Garage Cleaners" from disappearing forever. And very often family isn't inclined to take the advice of their relative's friend, that to them is some old guy they don't know that likes to collect junk too. Non-car people only understand shiny cars they can drive down the street, to them there is no difference between a set of RA heads and two barrel intake, it's all junk.

I should have titled this looking out for older friends? Have known this guy for 20 years. Been to Tiger Run with him and his son. Also went to GTOAA Nationals in Portland, OR. Have video of him somewhere cutting a perfect light at Woodburn on Friday that show started maybe Thursday? Also running his wagon at Bremerton Raceways.