I’m a Nine-Lane Super Highway

This piece was written by one of our dear readers—a woman with something real to say. Each month, we handpick the best submissions for Dear Reader because we’re after that PROVOKED bite: truth, intelligence, and heart. These stories come from women our age—women who’ve lived enough to know better and still care enough to tell it anyway. Because being seen and heard matters. Because storytelling is how we stitch ourselves to one another. And because when one woman speaks her truth, another finally recognizes her own. — Susan Dabbar, Editor-in-Chief

The men I compete with have two assumptions about me. Both are wrong, and that’s how I make my money.

I once found Bettie Page, the iconic 1950s pin-up star, hidden under the stairs of a basement photographer. I bought the contents under those stairs for $6, thinking I was buying old photography paper. Then I discovered 13 black and white topless negatives of the Queen of Pin-up. I sold those negatives for $600 and haven’t forgotten Bettie since.

I’m a picker. Think American Pickers, but a sassy, petite, 125 lb, 58-year-old in ripped jeans, Harley Davidson tees, and Chucks. With one key difference: American Pickers have no competition.

I ended up in this world at 40, when I found my voice after a divorce. I had no job training and no college education, only a hobby that sometimes made money. I was told I’d never make it or that I should go back to school or I should get a “reliable” job. Instead I inserted myself into this arena, full of attitude. 

I quickly learned that the deeper I had to dig, the better treasures I found. The older men didn’t have the fortitude, and the younger men didn’t want to ruin their designer jeans. I always showed up dressed to get down and dirty. Maybe it came from my younger years of playing quarterback in backyard football games with the neighborhood boys. And maybe that confidence was just always there.

Where the Bidding Starts

For the past 20-plus years, I’ve attended countless estate sales and auctions searching for the next big score. So, when an online auction popped up a decade later for another basement photographer, of course I bid.

Auctions can be online or in-person. Online, I might be bidding in my pajamas against a guy in his tighty-whities. I prefer in-person so that I can suck up to the auctioneer and face my competition. 

“Going once, going twice, SOLD! To the lady with the skull on her shirt.”

This basement photographer was also a hoarder of Sears and JCPenney catalogs, the Christmas editions—the Golden Goose. Childhood toy enthusiasts sometimes grow up to be adult toy enthusiasts, mostly men, and they collect those toy catalogs so that they can revisit their childhood memories, perusing them like a Playboy magazine. 

This photographer did collect trains, but in reality, he collected and hoarded many things. I pass no judgment. These are the estates that reek of cash for people like me.

In an online auction, bidders have a few weeks to deposit bids versus a knee-jerk decision when the auction is in-person and expected to wrap up the same day. The pickup for an online auction is a few days later. I showed up to the photographer’s fortress bright and early to pick up my $800 bounty, along with dozens of men who smirked as I passed with my two-wheeled dolly in tow. 

Beating Them at Their Own Game

This is my life. I dig deep for the gold that makes me the big bucks, sometimes wading through decades of dirt, dust, and animal feces to find it. Yes, there are some women who do what I do, but they usually buy glassware and jewelry. Me? I show up at car part auctions, military memorabilia auctions, and yes, hoarding estates every chance I get. I also dumpster dive and crawl through attics for the vintage fabric I sell. 

As a woman over 50 in a predominantly male arena, I already have two strikes against me: I’m old and I’m female. I’m stuck in the middle of the retired men who’ve been buying and selling since before the internet and millennial men with smartphones who think that what I do is as simple as looking up the value of things online. But they typically lose their smirk the next time we meet and the men who know me treat me as their own.

I’m also still relatively cute. A male counterpart “friend” once told me some old-timers were looking up my shorts every time I bent over. He was an early confidant, someone who shared tips and gave me freebies that he found at other sales. Then he asked me on a date and I realized we weren’t exactly colleagues.

But I like when men don’t take me seriously. I’m not intimidated. I’m challenged. I outsmart these men all the time, finding the big money-makers that they overlook. No one knows everything about everything, and I’m smart enough to know that.

The best part? We all stalk each other on eBay to see who makes money and who falls flat. It’s when they know they got beat that the respect and familiarity grows. I once outbid an “electronics” guy on a 1970s receiver and set of speakers and my four-figure profit comes up in friendly banter every time I see him at a sale. Those are the best wins because I moved into his territory. Most of these men stay in their lane: I’m a nine-lane super highway.

I also once outbid a guy in a red plaid flannel shirt on a massive stack of new plastic seat covers for 1970s muscle cars. Disgruntled, he muttered, “You might make a little money.” I made a lot of money, actually. I never saw him again, but I’m sure that he knew.

The Take—and the Tell

I didn’t find Bettie Page again at this sale. I did take home a solitary roll of old film that brought $150 and dozens of those coveted Christmas catalogs, among other things. My pile was huge. It always is. The one good thing about people who stay in their lane is that they can drive a Fiat. 

I’ll probably always hear “I hope you brought your truck.” Most of the time I don’t need to say anything; a smile is plenty. They know me. And if they don’t? They will soon enough.