400

Last night I had my 400th sale in my etsy.com shop...holy cow, I really didn't think when I started out that I'd see that number in the "sales" space.

I opened my "shop" on etsy July 8th of last year and my hope was to have at least 365 sales by July 8th of this year. A random goal, I know, but I like goals (and lists, but that's another thing) and it seemed like a clear-cut way to say "Hey, maybe I'm doing OK at this selling vintage things on-line thing if I can make a sale-a-day."

So I am excited that I passed that goal and now wonder what my sales number will be at the one-year mark.

The actual 400th sale was...ta daA Regal coffee maker from the 70's. Who would have thought this was going to be the big seller?

If I have learned anything over this last year, it is that I'm often wrong about what I think will sell quickly and what will linger in my "shop" for months without a buyer, or maybe won't sell at all.

I bought the Regal coffee maker at a Salvation Army last week, and although I thought it would probably sell eventually, I didn't think it would go before some other vintage appliances I've had for sale for months like this Stainless Steel blender...Why was the "Autumn Gold" coffee maker a quicker sale than the stainless steel blender? A mystery that I think I will still be pondering at my (fingers crossed) 800th sale.

Neat Mixer...Neater Lady

When I went to the church sale on Saturday with my Aunt Joan, I found the most unusual mixer I'd ever seen. You can't tell from this picture but the base is actually triangular.
When I went to put it in the trunk of Joan's car, I noticed on the cover of the instruction manual (yes, it still has the instruction manual!) that there was a blender that went with the unit as well.

When I'd paid for my items, the woman who was tallying my order had mentioned that this had been her mother's appliance, so I went back inside to ask her if the blender part was still on a table somewhere in the sale and I'd missed it.

Immediately, she remembered she did have it in her basement but had forgotten to bring it to the sale. Without missing a beat, she asked for my name and phone number so she could call me when she'd found it so I could pick it up.

There was no hesitation that she was going to invite a stranger to her home, no hemming and hawing that it was just a pain-in-the-butt. She genuinely wanted me to have this missing piece and she was old enough to be of a generation that welcomed people - even (gasp) strangers -- into their homes without a can of mace at the ready and poised to scream "stranger danger" at the top of their lungs.

And true to her word, she called me the next day and I arranged to stop by her home on Monday. I found her home easily and was welcomed by three adorable little dogs and this lovely woman in a Christmas sweater holding her door wide open for me, someone she'd met for only a few moments two-days before.
She handed me the blender and then offered me a seat. We chatted for awhile as I looked around the room, where every square inch had been decorated for Christmas. She even took me to her bathroom where all was Kris Kringly too.

In the twenty-minutes I was in her home, this wonderful lady shared with me pictures of her grandchildren, some of the heartaches she had to endure in her long-life, and expressed interest in my own. An authentic, human connection made between two people who had simply been strangers before a 1950 Nutone Power-Maid blender introduced them.