M. Valdemar
Well-known
I just like the psychology of the person who hoards the stuff.
I've known several. It's like visiting a morgue.
I used to know a guy in Manhattan who owned buildings down on Suffolk Street. He was sort of an unofficial "fence".
When any neighborhood guy down on his luck, junkie or second story man had anything to sell, especially electronics, expensive tools, instruments, cameras, swag, you-name-it, this guy would buy it, especially if it was crazy cheap.
He stored it in the basements of his residential apartment buildings. His basements looked like those eBay photos, only MUCH more cluttered, filthy, packed. The thought of parting with something was worse than stabbing him.
Sometimes he'd approach me (whom he knew was knowledgeable), and offer to sell me something, like a camera. Usually, the price was outlandish, and I would refuse immediately.
If I DID accept his offering price, he became insanely peasant-suspicious, and REFUSE to sell it to me, even after he offered it. His reasoning was probably that if I actually agreed to his price, he figured he was pricing it too cheap. Then he'd ask again at a different, preposterous price, and I'd refuse.
Eventually, I refused to discuss buying anything from him, because it was all an exercise in comedic futility.
He'd buy a computer, for example, in 1985 for a thousand bucks, but in 1999 he'd want a higher price for the ancient heap that was now worth $2. He refused to part with anything without a profit.
He died a couple of years ago, after he became drooling senile. A 22 year old Chinese girlfriend took everything that wasn't nailed down before he died.
His idiot son got the rest, he had no idea what to do with it, and sold it all for a pittance, giving away unbelievable treasures for pennies.
This is him.
I've known several. It's like visiting a morgue.
I used to know a guy in Manhattan who owned buildings down on Suffolk Street. He was sort of an unofficial "fence".
When any neighborhood guy down on his luck, junkie or second story man had anything to sell, especially electronics, expensive tools, instruments, cameras, swag, you-name-it, this guy would buy it, especially if it was crazy cheap.
He stored it in the basements of his residential apartment buildings. His basements looked like those eBay photos, only MUCH more cluttered, filthy, packed. The thought of parting with something was worse than stabbing him.
Sometimes he'd approach me (whom he knew was knowledgeable), and offer to sell me something, like a camera. Usually, the price was outlandish, and I would refuse immediately.
If I DID accept his offering price, he became insanely peasant-suspicious, and REFUSE to sell it to me, even after he offered it. His reasoning was probably that if I actually agreed to his price, he figured he was pricing it too cheap. Then he'd ask again at a different, preposterous price, and I'd refuse.
Eventually, I refused to discuss buying anything from him, because it was all an exercise in comedic futility.
He'd buy a computer, for example, in 1985 for a thousand bucks, but in 1999 he'd want a higher price for the ancient heap that was now worth $2. He refused to part with anything without a profit.
He died a couple of years ago, after he became drooling senile. A 22 year old Chinese girlfriend took everything that wasn't nailed down before he died.
His idiot son got the rest, he had no idea what to do with it, and sold it all for a pittance, giving away unbelievable treasures for pennies.
This is him.
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