A true story about the benefit of fighting back against lowball offers for the things you want to sell.
My stepmom made this gorgeous stained glass panel for the door between a bathroom and the pool area.
My stepmom is an accomplished stain glass artist. For years, she produced stain glass artwork ranging from simple window ornaments like angels and snowmen to gorgeous window panes depicting wildlife like herons, dolphins, and horses. She was serious about her art endeavors and, over time, accumulated a massive inventory of raw materials — glass, soldering lead, lead cane — and the patterns, equipment, and supplies she needed to do the work.
This is about half the glass she had to sell. To the left, still covered in paper, are at least 50 very large sheets. And then she found a cooler (of all things) filled with more glass sheets. Even the scraps had value — and she had about 50 pounds of that.
She stopped working with glass a few years ago and, since then, all her materials and supplies languished in a shed off the patio and in various storage spaces around the house and garage. When I came by in late autumn on my way south, she talked a bit about selling all this stuff. When I returned in January on my way north, she had taken steps to do just that. She’d called the owner of a stained glass shop about 45 minutes away by car — we’ll call him John — and made arrangements to have him look at it and possibly buy it.
John warned her from the get-go that he would not be offering a lot of money for what she had, but he didn’t give her any dollar amounts. She and my dad decided that they wouldn’t take any offer under $1,000. There was a lot of stuff and it was all in excellent, if not perfect, condition.
The Offer
John drove up one afternoon with an assistant (presumably to help him carry everything out) when my stepmom was out but I was at the house with my Dad.
We showed him the shed full of glass sheets, some of them as large as 24 x 36 inches in size. (This isn’t the stuff you get at Hobby Lobby, folks.) There had to be hundreds of sheets of glass in there in a wide range of colors. He said, “Well, these are the colors your wife wanted,” he told my dad. “That doesn’t mean other people want these colors.”
My stepmom had several PVC tubes of 5-foot lead cane lengths that hung in the garage.
We showed him the PVC tubes full of lead cane hanging from racks in the garage. “No one uses this stuff anymore,” John said.
While not everything else was out (yet), there were bezels and patterns and kits and soldering lead on a table for him to see. He didn’t seem to care about them.
He turned to my dad and said, “I’ll give you $250 for all of it.”
My dad had some trouble keeping his temper. It wasn’t just a lowball offer. It was an insulting offer. I think that at one point he said that he could melt down the lead and sell it as lead bars and get more money than that.
John was not happy. Apparently he thought he’d be able to breeze in and get it all for next to nothing. He said, “I told your wife I wouldn’t offer much. Did you think I would pay retail prices? I came all the way up here to buy this.”
But my dad wasn’t going to budge.
John left. When he got to his car, he called my stepmom. She reported later that he offered her $350 and sounded angry. She said no and apologized for making him come so far for nothing.
John left, but it would not be the last we heard of him.
Facebook Marketplace
Need to cut glass? This bandsaw made for glass cutting was in like new condition with all instructions. There was also a grinder and cane stretcher.
As much as I absolutely detest Facebook, I have to admit that its Marketplace feature is a great way to sell stuff. My stepmom is on Facebook and posted a listing there later that day.
The responses started coming immediately. The buyers started coming the next day.
By that time, we’d gathered together everything she had to sell, putting it on folding tables inside the screened-in lanai. The shed with the glass was right there. So when people came, they could browse everything easily. After some uncertainty on how to price the glass, my stepmom settled on a price of $8/square foot. This was a lot cheaper than someplace like Hobby Lobby. And it was also cheaper than what John was selling it for in his shop.
We knew that because lots of the folks that came over the next week or so usually bought their glass at John’s place. Now they were buying it from my stepmom. Apparently, the glass colors she liked were the same glass colors other artists — including the artist’s that shopped at John’s place — liked. (Who knew? LOL.) As for no one using lead cane, well tell that to the woman who bought a whole tube of it — 30+ 5-foot lengths.
Although the first two sales were disappointingly small, when the real artists started coming, the sales got bigger. By the middle of the second day, my stepmom had already taken in more than John had offered for everything — and the shed full of glass looked as full as ever. (I took to yelling out, “Stuff it, John!” every time someone left with glass he could have sold.) Soon she’d taken in $1,000 and there was still a ton of stuff left. Then more than $2,000, with one woman buying $845 worth of glass and lead. Yesterday, my stepmom told me she’d taken in more than $3,000 and there was still stuff left.
Of course, all of these profits could have been John’s if he’d made a reasonable offer for what my stepmom had.
The Best Part
While it’s true that dealing with a constant stream of strangers coming to the house can be a pain in the butt, my stepmom and dad don’t really mind it. My stepmom is retired and is around the house most of the time anyway. My dad works part time and is home in the afternoon. They don’t have to have people coming through the house because everything is setup outside, on the lanai and adjacent shed. There were no weird characters. Everyone was a legitimate glass artist and everyone bought something.
And my stepmom and I think that my dad likes talking to the husbands that sometimes come along on the shopping trip.
My stepmom is happy about how things turned out. Not only is she getting rid of stuff she doesn’t need, but she’s bringing in good money to do it. Because she bought some of the glass so long ago, she’s actually profiting on some of the sales because the going price is higher than what she paid years ago. In the end, she might get back everything she spent on what she’s selling now.
And the buyers? They’re thrilled. They’re getting good quality glass at a good price. They’re chatting with my stepmom and learning from her. She’s giving away a lot of the pattern magazines she’s accumulated.
So it’s a win-win-win — for everyone except cheapskate John.
Stuff it, John!
This might be the only photo I have of my Honda and Toyota parked side by side. For years, the Toyota lived at whatever airport I flew my helicopter to most often: Prescott, Scottsdale, and, in this photo, at Phoenix Deer Valley.
