Transcript:

Ben Smith:

Welcome to The Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. My name is Ben Smith. Allow me to introduce the Maine Savings Amphitheater to my Thompson's point, Curtis Worcester. How are you doing today, Curtis?

Curtis Worcester:

All right. I'm doing well then. We're getting into summer here. We got some concerts rolling in. I like the theme here.

Ben Smith:

Yup, yup. So, we like rock and rolling here on this show. And again, one thing that talk about rock and rolling on episode 48, we had Kim Dorsky on and discussing how to write size our stuff as we age-

Curtis Worcester:

That's right.

Ben Smith:

... and rock and roll towards getting our house cleaned out here. So, the concept was really about being mindful about what we own, how does it fit into our living space as we age, and then finding a way to part with items that no longer serve purpose for us. So, of course, once we decide apart with our things or maybe our relatives haven't gone through that process, how do we get the most value from them?

Ben Smith:

Better yet, what about the collections that we've been obsessed over during our lives? What do we do with those? Isn't that why people have estate sales just to get rid of things all at once? So those are just some of the many questions our clients have come to us about. They're seeking an expert in the vintage and antique marketplace about the tips, tricks, and hacks we can all use to get the most value from our things. That's the premise of today's show.

Curtis Worcester:

That's right. And as you know, Ben and hopefully our listeners know, we're not the experts in everything. So, we had to pull someone in here.

Ben Smith:

That's right.

Curtis Worcester:

So, on our show today, we have someone that in 1988 set off on an antique odyssey. So, from 1990 to 1998, he and his business, Jeffrey Nelson operated the Wrigleyville Antique Mall, which was one of the first modern multi-dealer vintage stores in Chicago. So, after tens of thousands of sales, countless fails, and the revelation of too many startling stories to tell in a single night of vintage debauchery, our guest wrote Selling Dead People's Things, which documents a slice of those early years of vintage retailing.

Curtis Worcester:

Selling Dead People's Things is awry behind the curtain peak into the world of antiques and their obsessive owners while still alive and after their passing. So, an amusing observer of the human condition, our guest entertains in 25 life-illuminating, scary, sad, or frightfully funny resale tales and essays. You can't just say to the bereaved, "I'm sorry for your loss, but are those crucifixes for sale?" Of course, you could say that, but it's more important probably how you say it.

Ben Smith:

That's right.

Curtis Worcester:

Whether processing the estate of a hoarding bookkeeper, disassembling the retro remains of an infamous haunted hospital, or conducting an impromptu appraisal during as Sheva gone disturbingly wrong, every day is a twisted treasure hunt for this 21st century antiques dealer. While digging deep into the basements, addicts, and souls of the most interesting collector's imaginable, traveling from one odd house call to the curious next, resale predicaments will confound your every turn.

Curtis Worcester:

So, today, our guest currently and his partner, Jeff, own the Broadway Antique Market, which is home to 75 top dealers. It's Chicago's largest multi-dealer shopping destination, and every bit the vintage department store they had hoped it could become. For collectors of mid-century design, BAM is a mini modern mecca. For others, it's a fun place to idle away an afternoon. People watch and/or try not to buy something. So, at this point, please welcome Duane Scott Cerny to The Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. Duane, thank you so much for spending your time today with us.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Hey, thanks for having me. Hey, Ben. Hey Curtis.

Ben Smith:

Hey. Hey. Well, Duane, of course, we're in Maine, you're in Chicago. So, what do people from Maine and Chicago have to talk about? We're going to discover that today, but of course, Duane, what we want to always do with all of our show guests as they come on is get to know you little bit and a little bit of your story. Love to hear a little bit about where you grew up and how did that influence your profession today?

Duane Scott Cerny:

So, I grew up in Norridge, which is a little suburb on the Northwest side of Chicago. And I'm a Czechoslovakian and Danish and it was a very heavily Polish and Italian neighborhood. So, I stood up. I was four feet tall, but I still stood up and it was hard to adapt to that. But pretty early on, I just have these ideas and one was I consigned the toys of my friends or neighbors on the porch, on my mother's porch. And I did that when I was like 10 or 11, something like that, and called it the porch store.

Ben Smith:

Okay.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Terrible name, right? Terrible name. People would come by and ask if I could recommend a good aluminum cider or somebody to do roofing. Here I'm consigning these toys for the kids in the neighborhood. Yeah. I've always had these little side hustles. I mean, I did a paper route for a week and I said, "That's too much work. I'd rather sell things." So, I was always just jumping around. So, as a kid, yard sales and secondhand stores and fleet flea markets, there was a nearby flea market. There was a drive-in movie theater. Anybody remembers those? It was great. I mean, it's just dusty and dirty and horrible and fantastic. I'd get all excited. So, that kind of thing's always been in my blood.

Duane Scott Cerny:

My first apartment was all the hand me downs from my parents' first apartment, all this '50s kitsch. I just loved it and gravitated towards it at a very early age. And then the whole design thing, I mean, lots of other people were doing that. I had no money, so that's the best way to be a motivator, but the whole mid-century modern thing would soon follow. So, I was into something that would later become popular. So, I was in the right place at the right time for any number of incidents in my life.

Curtis Worcester:

I like that. So, obviously, you just gave us a great background there of how you got into that world of selling and antiques, but if there was a moment or a point where you just truly decided that this was the profession for you, can you point to that moment?

Duane Scott Cerny:

Yeah. So, again, I knew nothing about antiques, nothing. There was a store in town. It was called Chicago Antique Mall. It was the first major antique mall in the city. On three floors, they had a hundred dealers and I was doing legal word processing at the time to for a living and shoot myself. But I would go there on the weekends and want to spend some money. And I always say, if you could stalk a store, that's what I did. I was just obsessed with it and the things would just come and go and come and go. And I saw this last week and now it's gone. My little eyes lit up going, "There is something here."

Duane Scott Cerny:

And I came in often enough that the owner's wife offered me a job to do their advertising and they couldn't pay me. They had no money and this is three blocks from Wrigley Field. So, it's like a great location, zillion people walking by all the time. And a lot of times, it's easier to market somebody else's business than your own. I'll throw that out there. You'll go, "You should be doing this." And you guys understand and managing people's money going-

Ben Smith:

That's right. Yeah.

Duane Scott Cerny:

... you'll go, "You should be looking at this." When you're doing it yourself, blinders, right?

Ben Smith:

It's too close.

Duane Scott Cerny:

So, they didn't have any money. So, they offered me a booth in the basement and anybody's in the antique business knows you want to be in the basement. Great place to be in the basement, because everybody heads downstairs for the deals. And I did not know what I was doing. And pretty quickly, I met Jeff Nelson. He was actually a dealer on the waiting list there. They had so many dealers who wanted to come in and I said, "I got to get somebody in here who knows what they're doing." And he was managing a very successful mid-century modern store in Madison. He's the manager. He didn't own it. He managed it.

Duane Scott Cerny:

But they were selling things to dealers in New York and LA and I was going, "That's what I want to do." And that's what you need to do. That's what we need to do. So, we started with this one little booth. And in six months, I think we had six or eight booths. And unfortunately, when that place closed, we opened up a 1,500-square foot store across the street. And then a year later, took another store and another store and then a basement. We just kept growing, growing, growing until then we moved. This is the Reader's Digest version of a very long story.

Ben Smith:

So, Duane, then maybe the segue there is, how is your business doing today? How is it structured today and then what made you decide to write a book?

Duane Scott Cerny:

So, two good questions. Let's take the second one. I would go to so many sales and I usually were invited in either before a sale to the public or after when these are the things that didn't sell. And I would just catch little whiffs of stories and then going, "Oh, my gosh, that's just incredible. This person was incredible. And how did I never hear of this person?" And I would just make little notes and not every story was fascinating. There were 500 boring stories for every one that was interesting. So, I would just take notes and I'd say there's really something to this and I need to do something with it. And I'd written lots of things, but I never wrote about what I do, because I didn't really think anybody would be all that interest to be honest. And it turns out I was wrong.

Ben Smith:

So, how's your business doing today? So obviously, you've grown and you're having booths.

Duane Scott Cerny:

I equate this really to the COVID economy. And much like restaurants, if you had a relationship with a bank, you might be able to get through this. And so, retail, just like everybody else, we were closed for three months, something like that. We actually closed two weeks before the city made us close, because I was just obsessed with keeping everybody as safe as I could, especially my employees, my customers going.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And being honest with you guys, I'm somebody who's lived through the AIDS years. And to me, this is an airborne plague. This is something really fricking serious and we took it extremely seriously. And we needed to be to get through it, which on my end was take care of my people, take care of my customers, take care of my finances. So, good relationship with the bank had to really pivot. And we were always selling online, but it was always like 5% of our business, something like that.

Curtis Worcester:

Got you.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Well, I got to turn this around. I need to keep all my people, because I have all these tenants. So, we just stopped collecting rents, just not taking any of your money. And I said, "Let me try throwing stuff out online for you. Let's see what sales I can get for you." We started a text and take concept, which was basically, we have to use 100 feet rather of display windows. They're just amazing because we're in an old furniture store. So, I piled all this stuff into the windows with the prices and the text number. And so, you want to buy it, text me. Just text me and we can do it over the phone. And then we had safe pickup. So, everybody's masked.

Curtis Worcester:

That's great.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And that worked. That really worked. I was encouraging other businesses at the time do this, because people would be all walking around outside, because it's safe, but they still want to buy something. I had other ideas that didn't work, but that was one idea that did work. And we've had been open to that point seven days a week since 1988.

Curtis Worcester:

Wow.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Think about that.

Curtis Worcester:

Wow.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Barring major holidays. So, when this came along and then being shut down for three months, we said, "You know what? Let's just open on weekends." So we opened very slowly, even though the public wanted it and the city said it's safe. I'm going, "I want to feel safe and safe enough for my people and my employees." And I didn't lose one dealer, which malls were just closing, like restaurants. You're losing their help, right? You're losing your staff. I didn't lose any employees. I'm just blessed, but I'm also worried about it every night going, "What else can I do?"

Duane Scott Cerny:

And I encourage people, not so much to worry, but to think, "What else can I be doing?" Well, crazy an idea is this and bounce it off with some people, because all you need is a couple things to do that work. And now we're only open four days a week, Thursdays through Sunday. We're closed three days a week, open four. And our sales are up 20%.

Ben Smith:

Wow.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Because we still have the online business. People still do the text and take and we've funneled the buyers into this timeframe. And it works because it also gives us a little time. We've been doing this a long time. We're tired. It's been a way to get through it. Dealers had a somewhat time adjusting to this because I had to change the rate, but I just made it so affordable for people. Basically, how we now run it is when they make money, we make money. Pretty simple.

Ben Smith:

Win-wins, yeah.

Duane Scott Cerny:

It's win-win. So, if you're not making money, don't stay here. I wouldn't make you stay here. And we also have no room. I've got a waiting list, which is crazy.

Curtis Worcester:

That's fantastic.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Yeah. We're in the [inaudible 00:14:17] seat and I really would not have guessed that.

Curtis Worcester:

Well, it's just great to hear and obviously, talk about taking a horrible situation that we all experienced to now looking back on it, obviously, you said you're doing better now and you have a few days off a week. So, that's just fantastic. So, I want to rotate, Duane, into the core of our show today, which is obviously helping people find that value for their stuff, right, or how do we navigate that?

Curtis Worcester:

So, certainly, one theme I think with our podcast has been just facing these head-on challenges that we all have in retirement or even just life. And one thing we hear consistently with an aging population like we have here in the United States and especially here in Maine, what are we going to do with our things? So. I just want to ask you to get rolling here, how should we pre-plan our things in our wills or trusts, essentially estate planning, that will allow us to get the most value for them?

Duane Scott Cerny:

Well, so, first off, I'd like to encourage people to take their possessions as seriously as they do like writing a will, which means I always say, get out a notebook and write down who you want to have what. Your niece, Sylvia, she's going to get the flatware. Your nephew, Bill, is going to get the outdoor cooker. Write it all down, write it all down. This is key. Don't show it to anybody. Maybe your sibling if you've got that relationship. If you don't, don't. And now after you're passing, they might be fighting over that cooker or the flatware. You don't care. You're dead. It doesn't matter. But if they're honoring your wishes, that's what you wanted.

Curtis Worcester:

That's right.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Okay. So, there, you can just make a long list as possible and why this is so good. Ugh, it makes it so much easier for those that are left behind. Death is always just so difficult for everybody that's left behind. You're dead. You don't care. You're on that high road to heaven, right? But it's difficult. This is really, really difficult.

Duane Scott Cerny:

So, I truly encourage people to do that and pay attention to those things that those are your requests. There's really no request that's too small. It may be difficult for your family to go and make sure that cousin, Helen, gets your stamp collection or whatever. It's like you want it, you need to come by the next 30 days and pick it up, because you wanted you to have it. End of story. So, I'm real basic with these kinds of things. So, now that's if you're preparing and you have the time to prepare. There are situations where you don't.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure.

Duane Scott Cerny:

There's no one size fits all for this topic, but I love this topic that we're talking about, because I have this conversation with customers all the time. What am I going to do with fill in the blank? Obviously, you can have estate sales in some places, if you have a home, though sometimes not in gated communities. Think about these things, right? Condos co-ops, some of them have rules about nope. Now, you still can bring in people privately, which is what I do through the estate and then you're selling to a dealer.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And whether you're having an estate sale or you are bringing in someone like myself or someone who does estate cleanouts, if I say one thing today that you take with you is that you are selling. You're actually now a salesperson. You are selling these things and not everybody is good at that at all, especially when emotions are attached to things. So, you might think you're good at it. You might not be, because it takes a lot of patience and you need to listen. Think about if you went to buy a car and you're getting that hard sell from Stanley to buy the Buick. You know what? I don't like this. I want to deal with this guy. It's the same thing. And here, you're trying to unload a dining room set or a kitchen set or Lord knows what.

Duane Scott Cerny:

You got to be extra nice. You got to just put on your hat and say, "I am going to be so kind and so benevolent and I'm going to listen." And that's tough. It's really acting for a lot of people, especially when you're grieving. And this might sound like a little thing. It's not. It's huge. I've seen this where there's incredible things. They're totally saleable. And that person needs to process this stuff because the mortgage is due or they're foreclosing or Lord knows what. The house is on fire. There's always some reason that things have to be done yesterday. They stand in the way.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Even the numbers are there, they stand in the way of it. Not everybody wants to hear the story about how important this bird cage was to your aunt elder. You just don't. So, it's just really think about, "Am I good at selling things?" I think you have to ask yourself that and be very honest with yourself. And I'll say in the beginning, I absolutely was not. I had a couple classes at Second City and that helped a lot, but not everybody can do that.

Ben Smith:

So, Duane, I want to jump in for a second though, because I guess the question I have and I think the core of what we're saying here is so when the things are my things, so I've collected them, right? I've bought them. I've learned. I've become educated about my things. It feels like I'm probably more predisposed to get more value from my things than if I had left it to the next generation and said, "Hey, guys, I'm passed. I'm not using this anymore. You guys figure it out." So I guess from getting value of probably I'm going to do better for the next generation if I sold them myself than if I let my son or somebody else take care of that when I'm gone, is that a true statement in your experience?

Duane Scott Cerny:

I'm going to use the John Waters' word, perhaps. Only in that, there are trends. And if somebody said come along 20 years ago and said, "I've got 10,000 pieces of vinyl, rock and roll, and blah, blah, blah," I'd say, "Ugh." Do I have to finish that story?

Ben Smith:

No, you got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Right? So, there are trends. Trends happen. Especially in the antique business, things go in and out of fashion, right? So I would say generally, yes, you're absolutely the expert, because this is what you collected. And it might be smart to either thin it out, splitting the baby in two, for lack of an analogy, that maybe the lesser things you should start thinning out and get some money for. The other thing though is you could sell off the entire collection. Don't put the money in Bitcoin, sorry. Put the money in whatever you, gentlemen, would suggest put the money on.

Ben Smith:

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Duane Scott Cerny:

But get liquid, just get liquid, because yeah, you're the guy who's going to know what's best about your sword collection, right? And then there's some things, unfortunately, that people bought and let's go... I can say this Franklin Mint. They were taken to the cleaners to begin with, and now, it's going to be very, very little money. If you collected Avon bottles and they won't think they're going to retire on it. Not going to happen. So, I'm agreeing with you, but it's that perhaps. It really depends on what it is and that's really simple by just looking into the marketplace.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Well, you can look on the eBay, obviously, closed auctions for free, but by a subscription to WorthPoint is fantastic, because that's looking at the auction results, the end auction results of what things really sold for, the real world of almost anything, of almost anything. And then you want to look at, in point of time, is that in the last three to five years? Where have the numbers been? You go, "Well, 10, 15 years ago, these things were doing better."

Duane Scott Cerny:

Are they going to come back? Depends on what it is. Native American things, yeah. Other things that are, let's just say, politically incorrect, there's that. There's a lot of moving parts to what can dictate value, but you could do your own research for very, very little money. So, you don't feel that some dealers are going to come in and rip you off.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure.

Ben Smith:

So, Duane, I think those are really great tips. And I know we'll talk a little bit about resources in a bit, but one thing I want to ask... So, again, where Curtis asked the question about, "Hey, these are my things and I might need to pare down and get value out of them." What about the opposite situation, right? We're taking care of mom and dad's things after they pass, somebody else, a relative, and they leave all of their stuff to us. We're accumulating our own stuff as we age.

Ben Smith:

And then now, all of sudden, we have a house full of things that we have now inherited and we're all busy, right? We have things that we want to do. And probably that was not the thing that we wanted to do was now all of a sudden, handle a house full of things that are suddenly ours. So, when people come to you and they say, "All right, I have this situation," how do you advise people they handle this? So, where do they begin, I guess is the big question.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Yeah. Well, I think part of it depends on really how much stuff there is. So, I mean, my partner and I generally buy furniture, which are big items and people are happy to get rid of them. We'll look at smalls, but smalls can just be overwhelming. I mean, we'll look at almost anything, but so I really would say, it depends on the volume of it, because people say, "Well, we have this house full and then there's stuff in the garages and stuff in the basement. And then I mentioned, we have three storage lockers about a mile from here."

Ben Smith:

Exactly.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Yes, you did mention that. I just keep driving. First off, there are other firms that can do this for you. So, that's something you could just pick up in the yellow pages of people who basically upscale reselling. And I always say there's hoarders from the TV show Hoarders, but that's low end hoard, but there are high end hoarders, those people who had money and collected things. He's got eight grand pianos. It's like great. So, the one thing I would say, which just covers the waterfront, is just take photos. Take good photos. And not every little minutia of he collected pens and here's one of them, there's a pen collection, take a couple pictures of the pen collection, whatever the stars of that are. So, always thinking categories, if you can.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Well, there's a lot of art class in this house. It can be almost anything. They like T trays. Good, people buy TV trays. If you're going to, you can bring in people individually and why I say have photographs is because you got to get a dealer there. And this is what people do for a living. So, somebody's going to estate sale. They will come to give you an appraisal of what they're going to charge, right? It may seem like a lot, but they're also doing the research and trying to get you the best money for it because they're getting a third or whatever, plus their fee. All these things are structured differently.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Again, like I mentioned about condos and co-ops where you can't have a sale, then people have to go out in privately and I'm one of those people. But then they bring in the book guy and the lamp guy and it just goes on and on, right? But the idea is to slowly, get the place emptied out. And that's really, I think, the best way as far as actually making money. It's funny. I've been doing this so long that I remember when... And they still talk about it and it's not really true. They'll say, "Oh, my kids don't want any of this stuff." It's yes and no. If you're folks had a bunch of chairs and sofas, they're going to be all over it. They'll be fighting each other over it or cool things from the '80s to the '90s.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And there was cool things in the '80s and '90s. I would say always better designed. Kids are savvy. I would say kids, but younger people are savvy. They're looking and going, "Wait a minute. I've seen that so fun on TikTok video. I want that. Don't throw that sofa out." So they're always dismissing. Oh, the kids don't want anything. I don't find that to be. Kids are pretty smart. They may not want your mother's 112-piece collection of ugly Franciscan China, because well, it's ugly. Young people don't entertain that way anymore. People don't have a dining room, let alone a place for it. China cabinets are tough to sell because there's China in them and crystal. So, all that traditional stuff is tough.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Absolutely, there are buyers for it, but it's going to be somebody in their 50s and 60s. They're high end collectors. They just have to buy it. There's a buyer for everything, but those things need to be priced sharp. I learned that expression from a realtor friend of mine. I love that, price something sharp. So, sharp is that it goes, that it's too good a deal to pass up, because you just move it along. Don't fall in love with somebody else's stuff.

Curtis Worcester:

Okay. So, Duane, you just teed up my next question perfectly. So, that was fantastic. So, I want to dive into estate sales for a minute. I know we've touched on them a little bit here in the last few minutes. To me, someone not the expert in the field, it does seem like the easiest way for me to just get rid of everything, right? So I know you've just expressed with condos or HOAs, for example. So, what are some issues that you do see with estate sales and then what can be done to improve selling things from an estate?

Duane Scott Cerny:

Like anything else, interview a number of people, at least three companies. Don't go with the first one. These days, everybody's got a computer in your pocket. You can go online. What are their Google reviews? What are their Facebook reviews? Sure. I mean, I think that's really part of the most important thing. And then the other is just your gut. You might just connect with somebody and for whatever reason, for whatever, that mojo that's out there and they've come into your life to help you. Just following your gut on that is, I think, often underrated. So, it's like, don't go with the person who just gave you the cheapest rate. That's not always the best way to go.

Curtis Worcester:

That's right.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Somebody's hit you that they're the most honest with you as opposed to, "Oh, I can get you big dollar signs." Don't be dazzled by that. I'd be more impressed with the guy who says, "All that stuff in the kitchen, I get rid of all that, all the canned goods, the aluminum wrap. There's stuff in the basement." You go, "Really?" Yes, I've got somebody for that. It might sound silly and it's not a lot of money, but the place has to be emptied.

Curtis Worcester:

That's right.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And they're doing the work for you there. So, I mean, I wouldn't make a major decision on aluminum foil, but you're making a hat. So, really look into who you're going to hire. What's most important to you? Generally, I think, if there's a vehicle involved, you should spin that off separately. You might have somebody who wants to like, "Oh, just throw that in and I can get you the best." Are they really a car specialist?

Curtis Worcester:

Got you.

Duane Scott Cerny:

So, yeah. And then you need to be honest with them too, because this goes both ways. And I'll just say, there's just also some really good toys, some really good tin litho toys. We'll just pick out something, right? And of course, the sale's going to be, "Whoa, wow. These will sell really well. I think we can get some good money on that and find them in the sale." And the estate sale people take pictures of it and post them all over the place because they wanted to get people do sale. And then you, as the seller, change your mind and you pull those items. It pisses off everybody, pissed off the public. They come in going, "Where are the tin litho toys?"

Duane Scott Cerny:

Now, they're in a bad mood. Maybe they weren't even buy them. Maybe they just wanted to see them, but they're not going to want to buy the aluminum wrap. They're just in a bad mood. The person who's running the estate sale feels screwed. They can't do anything about it. You changed your mind. People do this all the time, I get it, but truly decide what you are willing to part with, because inevitably the stuff ends up in a box. You end up taking it home. And three years later, you're calling me. It is, it is. I pulled this at the sale. What'd you do that for? That was the time to sell it. Quick story, once you hit a guy, Jeff and I sold lunchbox. It's crazy before the internet craze. And it was a whole side business we had just with lunch boxes.

Duane Scott Cerny:

So, you can think of every character cartoon, [inaudible 00:31:21] stuff, but we'd have Lost in Space and Star Trek and really good boxes, things that you could get lots of money for. And Jeff had a friend... He probably won't hear this, but we'll see, anyway. ... who had the best collection I'd ever seen, just absolutely the best collection. And for years, I begged him. I begged him, going, "Take out the lesser ones, give us the lesser ones. We'll consign them for you." We didn't do consignment for anybody. I wanted this collection. It was fantastic. It would augment the collection that we had. We were specialists in it, right? He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it. And I just gave up asking.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And when we were totally out of the market, not doing that anymore, onto the next thing, he decides to come along and say, "Okay, now you can sell it." I turned him down. We turned him down. It was the IRA from heaven. I mean, purely, he would've been set. He simply would've been set. And so, again, that timing of things is so important and I don't make the market. The market just happens. So, anyway, again, don't fall in love with things.

Ben Smith:

So, Duane, I think you're bringing up a really great point and I know you and I talked a little bit offline here about some of these, but especially from resources our listeners can use to get better educated on selling their things and figuring out what they might have a value, because you were saying like, "Hey, vintage '80s clothes right now is the hot thing," right?

Ben Smith:

I'm going, "Really?" You're going through your uncle's closet and he's got all the clothing from the '80s that he is never gotten rid of. That's the stuff that would probably just go over to Goodwill and say, "Take it." How can somebody find out that, "Hey, I just stumbled into '80s vintage clothing," which I assume is garbage? And then how would I then discover that that actually has maybe not just some value, but maybe a lot of value there?

Duane Scott Cerny:

I think the easiest answer there because it's the most relevant of websites is Etsy. There's innumerable '80s vintage clothing sellers for both men and women. And I don't sell, but a couple of my dealers do. The one gentleman who sells just men's wear, every once in a while, he's like, "Oh, I just shipped 20 ties to LA for some pilot they're doing and they wanted all these skinny ties." So, he's selling production people, which is a great contact, because once they find you, they know you're the guy and you've got the quality and your prices are good. You've got a customer for life there. So, this is beyond, we're all thinking, "Well, who's going to want this?" The media wants this. Media wants this. They're a big hungry beast.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And we've been propping stuff for 30 years, but I do limit every once. If I come along across some vintage clothes, I give it to him and say, "Here, what's good? What isn't?" But I mean, think of the '80s, think of all the shoulder pads, right? The '80s are all about designers and so many of the design, it's still... I mean you have a Versace anything, anything, a scarf, a belt buckle. I mean, it's sad what happened, right? But it was the same way of any kind of Warhol thing. It was merchandised the same way.

Duane Scott Cerny:

But all these people, they were stars. They're stars. They're personalities. People ask for this stuff and we don't even have it. We can't even keep it in, actually, because it sells for better money online. So, that's the other thing. I would want to say though, I caution anyone who's in their head going, "Well, you know what? Then I should become an Etsy dealer." or "Then I should sell on eBay." I would really think that over, because then it's your starting a business.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. That's right.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And if you really want to do that, fine, but you are starting a business and you need to think about what that really means. So, it's not a quick, short term solution. If you just want in and out, that's not for you.

Curtis Worcester:

That's good to know there. So, I guess I have a question about questions. So, if you had to answer, what questions do you wish people would ask about selling their things that maybe they typically don't even know to ask? If you had a couple silver bullet here, give us the secret sauce right now. What do we got?

Duane Scott Cerny:

That's really good. Well, first is to come in prepared, which means you have photos. I don't need 100-word description about how fantastic this hurricane lamp is. I've seen hurricane lamps. I need to see a picture of hurricane lamp. So, that's the first thing. People come from all over the country and shop us, which is great, but I don't need somebody from Arkansas telling me that I should come out to their barn and let's be realistic here, because it's always, you should sell in your area or go online and find a way that you could ship it to somebody. It's a waste of both our times, having that discussion.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Go back to do your research of what things are worth. I mean, people will come in with things and going, "I'm sorry. I don't have objects, but it's a lantern slide and this is a box of lantern slides like magic lantern slides." How specific is that? Well, I thought this was worth some money. Well, it turns out it's really not. So, don't come in and say, "I got to get $75 for this," and then say, "I've got this in a showcase for $25 and it's been sitting here for year and a half." And I'm not being a jerk about it.

Ben Smith:

No.

Duane Scott Cerny:

A lot of people are, "Well, mine's better." It's the same one. So, often, we're still talking about mass produced items for the most part, right? These are mass produced items. If you can look it up online, it's a mass produced item, but yeah. It's going to be sound like broken record. When you are trying to sell to me, you are the seller. So, you've got to be nice. Often, they're just not nice. I'm pretty tough. I am. I'm blunt. I would put it that way, but you need to be nice, because you're trying to sell something. So, making me feel bad about whatever it is you're trying to sell or you don't know what you're looking at. Actually, I do. You're dope. And so, often, it's funny how people come back, calling somebody dope or I will offer somebody money on something.

Duane Scott Cerny:

I'd say, "You know what? I would do 20 bucks on that. I'll do 20 bucks on that. But if you can get more money elsewhere, you should take it." And they come back, because I was honest with them. I was honest with them. I was in generally interested in it and maybe wanted to pay a little more for it, going, "That might help sell something else that's in the store or as a prop thing. It compliments." There's lots of reasons I might buy something. I might buy something because it's Thursday and I haven't bought anything for a couple days. And a lot of dealers are that way too and it's walking in the door. It's walking in the door. I didn't have to drive an hour into the suburbs to look at somebody's broken bicycle.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Because back in the time, it's money. So, it's being respectful. I do this for a living. In my new book, I've got coming out at the end of the week, Vintage Confidential. And I do a chapter just of the things that people say, just the comments that people say. There's so many. I don't want an appraisal. I just need to know what it's worth.

Ben Smith:

Ouch.

Duane Scott Cerny:

With a straight face. My mother is having this estate sale, but she doesn't know about it yet.

Ben Smith:

Wow. Well, that's good. She doesn't know she's got to be dead. Okay, cool.

Duane Scott Cerny:

There's about 100 of them in there. I'm selling a coffin that was only used once. I mean they would say these things and I go, "I got to write that down I could not come up with that on my own."

Ben Smith:

I'm just envisioning somebody going to a cemetery, digging up a coffin, and going, "This is still pretty good. This one would still work."

Curtis Worcester:

Lightly used.

Ben Smith:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I can describe this and sell it.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Yeah, go ahead, please.

Ben Smith:

Well, Duane, I want to ask about collections, right? Because I think, all of us and I know you've said this a little bit is we all have an element of collecting things in our lives, right? And some of it's like we're collecting it not only just because maybe we have an enjoyment of it, but also, we have the "these things are going to be worth something someday." And everybody points to the Honus Wagner or the Spider-Man number one or whatever the thing was where it's the first of the many. And all of a sudden, that becomes worth 2.4 million at some auction.

Ben Smith:

So, I guess the question is, when people say that these things are going to be worth something someday, they start the collection, how do you think collections have actually performed as an investment for those that have thought along those lines?

Duane Scott Cerny:

Really good question. Excellent question. Offhand, I would say poorly, because what was the motivating factor to buy it to begin with, right? So, I have a bunch of strange little collections. One is aquarium figures, vintage ceramic aquarium figures. I'm attracted to structures I think, right? And you know what that ends up being is a really good box lot at an auction. Somebody will buy that and they'll probably pay some money, but almost nothing. There's just a handful of things. I shouldn't say it that way. I go back to what men and women collect are just so different. So, guys, how many pairs of shoes you have? Unless you collect gym shoes or tennis shoes.

Ben Smith:

A dozen, two dozen.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Yeah, a dozen, right? Maybe not a dozen pairs of shoes. A woman, please. They like shoes. They like shoes. Let's not even get into it why they like shoes. And actually, depending if she bought designer shoes, though, you've got the size, which is an issue. So, that limits who's going to buy it because of that size thing. But guys like tie clips, tie bars, cufflinks. Guys will have hundreds of cufflinks. They don't know how many cufflinks they had, right?

Duane Scott Cerny:

Now, you could say both those things. Well, there are some cufflinks that are actually, if you're getting into gold fill and things like that, Sterling better cufflinks, designer cufflinks, those retain value. Those will be absolutely worth more than you paid for. Same with some of the shoes. But if the guy collected pens and that's a thing that's really consistent. I don't know, what's the gold standard of stocks?

Ben Smith:

Blue chip stocks type thing.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really never wavered if you bought good things. Watches are like that as well. So, whereas I remember years ago, I had Anthony Quinn came into the store and I was just mesmerized by him. And he bought every pocketknife that he had, just pocketknives, pocket knives, pocket knives. Now, he liked pocketknives. Maybe he spent $100 in pocketknives. Other than the fact that it was going to be Anthony Quinn's pocketknife at that auction, it's really not going to be worth anything. I go back to the vinyl thing. Well, who would've thought that?

Duane Scott Cerny:

So, there are these freaky things in the market that happen and you really can't predict what that might be or something happens. I remember years ago when they finally discovered the Titanic and then there was this huge interest in the Titanic memorabilia, right? Not that I looked through it, but you go through it when King Tut, when they discovered the tomb in 1922, and then there was this whole design movement that came out of it. It was a huge thing. It's a huge thing. And there's still big interest in Egyptian things because of that, because it's something that happened in 1922. So, that's why I really love history because it can reflect on the market.

Ben Smith:

Yes. So, Duane, just to summarize a little bit of what I'm hearing you say, it just sounds like there's a large element of luck involved. Because all of a sudden, I happened to buy vinyl throughout the '80s and '70s and held onto it. If I sold that in the late '90s and early 2000s, everybody's going to iPods and digital music and CDs. You're like, "Vinyl, this is huge. It's hard." And then now, you're in the late 2010s into 2020s and it's, "Well, it's got to warmth to the sound and we like that." All of a sudden, that just comes back. But if you dump that whole collection in 2000, you probably just took a bath, but you held onto it. You might actually probably have some value 20 years, but who knew, right? Who knew?

Duane Scott Cerny:

And if someone from the future had said, "Listen, they're going to like the hiss. They like the click and the hiss," you'd be like, "Go back to the future. Are you out of your mind?" They're like, "No, we want things to be perfect." Now, suddenly, it's the imperfect that makes it desirable. And that people come in and say, "I already have this record, but this cover's in better shape," right. Oh, this one has the poster with it or you can get into the annually retentive of almost anything, right?

Duane Scott Cerny:

I do actually have a guy who collects railroad lanterns and he is the nicest guy, but I don't want to spend any more time with him because that's really all he talks about, but he has an encyclopedic mind about it, right? He'll probably be okay with that, because he really knows his stuff when these things go up at auction. I'm not laughing at him at all. It's just that there could be the most obscure thing. I don't dismiss it anymore, because they say, there could very well be something to this.

Ben Smith:

But that's the definition of a market, is finding a buyer to the seller. That's all that is happening, right? It doesn't mean you have to have all the buyers and all the sellers. But if you just find one and one that are agreeing on the price, then I think you got something.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And it's that element of time.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure, sure.

Duane Scott Cerny:

It's that element of time. And it also goes back to... I made some notes before. What we're talking about before is like, "Well, what is your purpose in this?" To Curtis, I'll give you this one. This is one I always forget. People don't give themselves enough time. It happens every weekend. Somebody comes in and say, "No, you don't understand. I have to be out of the apartment in the next 15 minutes." And I'm not exaggerating it by much. And it's just like, "No, these things take time. I can do it. I can get people there."

Duane Scott Cerny:

Maybe you got to schedule a mover. Here we are mid-COVID, right? It's still hard to get things moving. So, give the potential buyer the opportunity of time, just because you're farting around. You're going to pay for that. You're going to pay for that. Things aren't going to sell as quickly and for as much money, because you didn't budget your time. So, that would be my other-

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah, that's really good. I'm glad you brought that up.

Duane Scott Cerny:

... point, because it goes by very quickly given the circumstances. The house is sold. The new people are coming in and then their problem becomes my problem. And I have to decide if I want that problem or not.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure. Sure. Yeah.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And I think I probably speak for hundreds of thousands of dealers who would say the same thing, because again, there's always more stuff to buy. The resale market is just exploding. I mean, look at that. I mean you're running a real reel on TV. There's ads. You're seeing vintage everywhere. It's in everything and it's reflecting society and for all kinds of reasons, younger people. It's green. It's less of a footprint. It feels right to buy something vintage.

Duane Scott Cerny:

We've moved away from that antiquey thing that it's got to be your aunt niece's coffee table or something. So, there's a better appreciation for these things. So, it's actually in a lot of ways, a better time to be stuck with this such a problem as it was. You have a lot more at your fingertips as far as information, but you need to be efficient with your time.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah. No, I like that a lot. So, I want to ask you a question here that I know I am very curious about the answer here. So, obviously, over the length of your career, I'm sure you've had some... Nightmare seems like a tough word, but I'll say you've had some nightmares and things that you've purchased that maybe you just simply cannot sell. You can't resell it. So, do you have a couple or do you have some items off the top of your head that you know you or other dealers you know just don't want to purchase from these types of experiences?

Duane Scott Cerny:

Good question as well. I don't deal in Black memorabilia anymore. I've got a lot of really good Black customers. I've got a paper dealer who would have slave documents. And I remember I had a young woman come in and she graduated from the art institute. And she came in with her parents and they said, "Well, what, what do you want in the whole store? Well, we're going to buy you something." And she wanted to buy a slave document. It meant so much to her. I love that story and she's come in repeatedly and bought other things, not Black memorabilia related, but we stopped carrying that. It just became an issue. Things changed.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Things changed. There's still a market for it absolutely. And Black people have some of the best collections of Black memorabilia, but it got thrown in with like you're selling Nazi memorabilia. Oh, my gosh. No, and then we don't. We wouldn't, right? So that comes to mind because a lot of times, I'm explaining to people why we don't carry it anymore. We used to have some really great stuff, but my definition of something objectionable isn't someone else's.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure.

Duane Scott Cerny:

I would put it that way, right? So I do not mean to say what that would be and getting it. I mean, really getting it, going like, "You know it's not right." Yeah. That I felt actually okay about. There are things I bought, which just took forever to sell. I write about a couple of those in the book. I'm glad we're not just talking about the numbers, because the numbers bore me if I could be honest. Because it's always like, "What is this worth?" And I'm not an appraiser, I'm just somebody with an opinion. I would just say things that I just loved, I just thought, "Well, this is the coolest thing." And it wasn't that I necessarily, I was wrong. I just might have been a little ahead of the curve, which I tend to do.

Duane Scott Cerny:

So, I was buying carnival banners back in the day and some people found those offensive. And now, I wish I kept them because I knew they were fantastic. And I ended up selling almost the entire collection to one other dealer. He came along and I said, "Yeah." They were side show performers and the banner art for it. Again, politically incorrect depending upon... It's a little person, not the M word. So, there's like little minefields here and there, but again, I recognize I'm selling history and history's complicated. History's changing before our eyes.

Ben Smith:

That's right. And it's being rethought and reimagined and all that. Well, Duane, I want to ask then the flip side of that question, right? So you talked about some nightmares of things that really you just can't sell. What are some things that people are surprised to find they're able to get some value out of, right? So things that they had assumed that be in the garbage pile, but actually, very saleable. I know we talked '80s vintage clothing a little bit. What things in today's world that you're seeing just like, "Wow," people are really not anticipating that they would get money out of?

Duane Scott Cerny:

Well, I'm 63. I'm throwing that out there. So, it'll be like Burger King glasses. Oh, yeah. I'd say a lot of the collectible stuff that was free, McDonald's. Yeah, a lot of the collectible stuff and that just flies out the door. It's affordable and it's got Chewbacca on it and it's 1988 or whatever. I get it. So, I guess I find that amusing. Once pot was legalized here... I don't know what's going on in your state.

Ben Smith:

Yeah, it is.

Curtis Worcester:

It is. Yeah.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And then suddenly, you can't keep a lighter in the shop and ash trays. People are asking for ash trays all the time. I need ash tray. I need a Las Vegas ash tray. I'm always like, "You should get one from a hotel that doesn't exist anymore." To me, that's cool. I want one that my parents stay at or whatever. A lot of this tends to be kitschy, let's just say, collectible, trash with a small T, because it would be things that you would throw out generally. Even down to oh, my gosh, packaging, just packaging, even not all that early packaging from food containers, especially when you had all the sports figures on there.

Ben Smith:

Michael Jordans and stuff.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Not the same thing, but we were selling... Peewee was hot, hot, hot. And we had this show and things would sell for insane money and just insane money. And then of course, it all collapsed like overnight. I had one of my dealers... This is great. This is how smart people can be. She sees this happen. She tracked down all the... Back then, there were Toys R Us stores, Toys R Us stores, right? She tracked down all the Toys R Us stores. And she would wait for them to throw out their garbage because they just cleared out the shelves. They just dumped it all, dumped it all. And I remember her coming in with a van full. What?

Duane Scott Cerny:

So, she gets it for free. It was brilliant. She made thousands and thousands of dollars. She sold every darn cherry and you name it, because then, it was over. Then, it was really over. Now, there's someone interested in Peewee online, but again, something happens in the ether of collectability. So, that one surprised me because it had an arc. Yeah.

Curtis Worcester:

No, that's great.

Ben Smith:

That's awesome. Yeah.

Curtis Worcester:

So, Duane, we've reached the concluding question of our show here and it's not directly related to the topic. I'm guessing it will be maybe in your answer, but so obviously, we're here on The Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. So, one question I love to ask all of our guests is how will you define your own retirement success when you get there?

Duane Scott Cerny:

Chaos?

Curtis Worcester:

Okay. I like that.

Ben Smith:

That's like the best answer I've heard.

Curtis Worcester:

I don't know if we've ever had that and I like that

Ben Smith:

I got to hear the followup of what chaos means in retirement success.

Duane Scott Cerny:

Because it still comes back to... I'm coining high end hoarder because I'm a high end hoarder and many, many, many dealers are. It's very hard to retire from the antique business. I know a lot of retired antique dealers that are still selling online or have a booth and an antique ball. I go, "How are you retired?" Very few people can draw that line. And my partner and I have been talking about it. Do we downsize the retail end of it? Do we just take a break from it? But the thing is, the calls keep coming, the emails keep coming. I'm doing a wonderful show like this and people reach out. There was another reason that I did the book. I thought it shows the backstory of this business.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And I thought, when I first looked into this, I could only find a book that was written in the '70s by some English guy about what it was like to be an antique dealer. And I was like, "Really?", because dealers have all these stories. Everybody's got something. So, I thought, "Well, I can, relate them here." Oh, my gosh, into a second book, because the first book hit. Yeah, I'm still going to say chaos because there's just so much to do. I think this is going to be and I'll do this here where I'm looking around at some of my art here. I think art will probably go to auctions, some of the better ephemera auctions for the books and things like that when I downsize of these things. I think a lot of stuff will probably go to auctions.

Duane Scott Cerny:

And then a lot of just lesser stuff, I have my own McDonald's glasses that I drink when I have coffee from every morning. So, going like, "Hey, that's still worth $10." But I'm hoping that I won't be as married to it as I have been. There will be time for it to go on and this is what I like about the business. I get emails or I see Facebook posts and people say, "Look at this. All this stuff came from your shop." And they're so happy with it. It's touching people's lives in a very direct way. And I never thought I would have that opportunity. So, I think my things can go on and make somebody happy.

Curtis Worcester:

I love that.

Ben Smith:

Well, Duane, that's a fantastic answer. And I really can't thank you enough for coming on our show because there's just so much in terms of the fascinating stories from your book. And I know you got a book coming out of Vintage Confidential: Retro Rattled, Tales Tattled, as well as coming out here next week as you said. There's so much here, I think, from our client stories and having these challenges that they're facing and you being able to give some tips and hacks and tricks to how to get all this stuff done. This is going to be really helpful for years to come for all of our clients and listeners to our show.

Ben Smith:

So, we really appreciate that. And maybe at some point, we can have you come back on, because I think there's probably going to be another echo of things that might happen from the pandemic. So, I think that might be another fascinating follow up. So, we'd love to have you back on at some point, but I really can't thank you enough. This has been fun.

Duane Scott Cerny:

This has been great. Thanks, guys.

Curtis Worcester:

Thank you.

Ben Smith:

Take care. So, really fun episode here today, having Duane Scott Cerny on. What a character that has, I'll say, a lot of stories, a lot of adventures there with antiques.

Curtis Worcester:

A lot of stuff.

Ben Smith:

Stuff, selling stuff. Again, his book is Selling Dead People's Things. If you come up with that title, I think you got a sense of humor.

Curtis Worcester:

That's right.

Ben Smith:

His next book is Vintage Confidential: Retro Rattled, Tales Tattled. I think, probably by the time we're published, it should be out.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah, I believe so. Yeah.

Ben Smith:

So, check that out on Amazon as well. Yeah. As you know, we always try to wrap up our show and do a little bit of things that we took away personally from it. So, Curtis, what was something that you took away from today's episode?

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah. So, I'm going to be lazy here a little bit and I'm going to use Duane's takeaway. So, early in the conversation, he referenced that he had one key point that he wanted our listeners to take away. So, I'll reemphasize that and the punchline is the person dealing with the estate or the leftover items, we are the salesperson. So, I think it's important that he pointed that out because it's something that maybe we don't do every day. He talked about how you have to look yourself in the mirror and say, "Is that something you're good at? Is that something you think you can do?"

Curtis Worcester:

Because there's people like Duane or people in the industry that can help you, that if you need to seek help to really accomplish your goals of selling or just getting rid of, whatever's left in these estate type situations. So, I just wanted to echo that from Duane. If you're a salesman, go for it, but I know I myself probably wouldn't do well. Even if you are a salesman, probably not in that field. So, I think it's important to assess yourself there and seek the resources that Duane highlighted.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. I think that's really good one. And I know just from my personal experience, working with this, and then also, professionally as our clients have been working through relatives and folks that have passed away and having to deal with it, it comes down to really three things. One is speed, right? You're going through a grieving process anyway and then you're left with these things.

Ben Smith:

And the more you look at the things, I think, the more it's reminding you of the grieving process you're going through. I think the more speed we approach with it because we're dealing with our emotions about the person that we lost, it might be a little bit more inverse to the value that we get, right? I think he was making the point of getting appraisals and finding the right buyers out there versus let's just throw this stuff on the lawn and on a Saturday, we got to get rid of everything.

Curtis Worcester:

That's right.

Ben Smith:

You're probably not going to get the value. How do I get the most out of it? Speed.

Curtis Worcester:

I would say time was a big one he talked about. I know when I asked him for the secret sauce, he said, "Just give yourself time." And like you said, that it's natural to want to probably get through it as fast as you can. But again, if that goal is value, then that may not helpful.

Ben Smith:

So, those are the competing forces, right, it feels like. Hey, I'm trying to get through it as quick as I can, but also, I want to make sure I get the most value out of it. So, I think from an episode today, I think, Duane did a really great job of walking through the intricacies of those two things, right? He said, "Hey, one person could take care of everything and maybe do it, but are they a car dealer?"

Curtis Worcester:

Exactly.

Ben Smith:

Do they really know how to handle a car sale?

Curtis Worcester:

Exactly.

Ben Smith:

Is that the best person to probably do? So people that are going to have their niche out there and what they work with and what they deal on a daily basis, it's just important to assess that and see how quickly they can get it done, but also how much value they can provide. So, I thought that was really a good back and forth in terms of debate to think through for today's episode. Yeah.

Ben Smith:

So, of course, we will have some more resources, including how to check out Duane's books. In some more about today's show, you can go to blog.guidancepointllc.com/66, because we're episode 66. And you can see more about our show there. Again, we always appreciate you tuning in. We're 66 in and we've been getting better every time. I think our guests continue to provide a lot of value about things that we work through in retirement. We really appreciate you tuning in to our show and can't wait to catch you next time. Take care.