SecondMoonshot

 Traditionally knows as the Wolf Moon to Native Americans.  John

The year started off slow from a buying perspective with nearly no estate sales for the first 10 days, but was strong on the selling side - probably my second strongest month (second to September 2021 with the Stallion Boots). Over the last week, came into a visit to a warehouse an hour out of town by one of the team for JMS Estate Sales and walked away with some pretty good finds (and some not so good, but we wont worry about those…they go into the next Yard Sale pile).  Zabrina and I also went to a Steve Minor Estate Sale in Cary NC on Friday morning with some very nice and well cared items, many unique and will be listing all of these over the next week. We got in early (#3 and #4) and bought strong.  Here are some of the items we will be listing soon.  There is a lot more that cant be seen like some awesome Asian vases, Chinese granite etching, and Chinese large wall hanging scrolls (signed I think). I move from the 10’x20’ unit/warehouse/storage with Public Storage to the new 20’x

Small Winter storm coming through central North Carolina. While taking the pictures of the window, Zabrina looked and said she thinks these are antique Chinese measuring rice bowl. Sure enough. In great shape and not commonly found. Decided we will list them! Stay warm this winter. John

No pictures yet, but on January 22, 2022, I will be moving over to a larger 20’ x 20’ climate controlled storage unit, effectively doubling my storage capacity. More to come on the progress. This should cover me for 2022 and targeted growth. Shout out to Mike at Public storage at 12030 Stickman St, Wake Forest, NC. I will need to invest in 6 additional shelving units at about $60 each, but shouldn't need much else. Beard is coming in nicely too. John

Today sometime between 2am and 8a EST, SecondMoonshot crossed the threshold and has 100 followers on our eBay store. It took almost exactly a year. I am still enjoying this as much as when we first started. To celebrate, I ordered T-shirts for all the family members. The logo was designed by my daughter, Carrianne using the Adobe set of graphics tools. A small refresh on the logo: John

Zabrina trying her hand at some handmade candles. First batch came out very nice and professional. Will use as gifts for now but may list in near future. Thoughts welcome.  Zabrina is wants to keep the candles as natural as possible, using organic and safe oils and use recycled canisters where possible. She is using a high quality all-natural soy wax. She is experimenting with wood wicks although finding that they need to be primed in wax prior to adding the wax in the candle holder. John

Latest moon photos from Zabrina. Some photogenic cloud cover.   John

Updated with a YouTube video of the process (refined a bit). One of the things I like to sell is original art and signed / numbered prints or any interesting print for that matter. I find that I can sometimes acquire them at a reasonable price as many resellers will shy away from these types of items as they require sometimes complex and careful packaging to ship and considered risky. I personally find that to be an opportunity and have gotten to a solid level of experience shipping pictures as large as 36” x 48” or even larger.  There are a couple things that I feel are key, first is that in order to keep the glass from breaking, you need to package the picture such that it has minimal flex in the final box. Second, layers are essential and normal medium to large pictures will have 4 layers of bubble wrap and cardboard on all sides. Of course, it is a good practice to always use corner protectors which are very easy to make yourself and I picked that up through YouTube.  My process is

 I think I keep getting better looking every day! Thanks COVID. Well, wife wouldn’t agree.

Roy initially sold me my first Porsche, the 2016 Carrera 4S in January of 2018 and I have mentioned him a few times throughout my Blog. He sent me a note today with a link to his new Blog. Roy is the uncommon salesman and a quality person that I am proud to call a friend. He can normally be found at Southpoint Porsche pleasing many people on a daily basis and if not there, probably trying to talk his wife into letting him get behind the wheel to his recent Macan he purchased for her.  http://porschedrivesme.net/ Below is me picking up the car. This was my pre-COVID look obviously, have degraded over time. The shadow at the bottom of the picture is Roy’s silhouette. Update: Porsche had Roy pull the side down, so the link may not work. John