Some of the best deals in the old car world never show up online. They happen in a crowded junk bus parked at a collector’s place, where a couple of pickers climb in, squeeze past stacks of stuff, and start digging. In this visit, two pickers named Mike and Chad did exactly that, and they left with a World War Two oxygen tank for five dollars and a porcelain sign for thirty.

The visit was filmed by @289filmco (289 Film Co.), and the host, a man named Autry, let the pair roam through his storage. The bus itself was the first stop. As one of them put it, they love going through a bus because that is where all the storage is. This one was so full it was hard to walk through.

Digging Through The Bus

It started with a bit of wishful thinking. Walking up, someone said they thought the bus said Cadillac, and that would have been perfect. It did not, but the digging paid off anyway. Inside they turned up an old coffee tin, sixteen inch lion’s head hubcaps, a complete set of ribbed hubcaps, a handful of old cans and some old bottles.

The cans got a close look. Someone pointed out that they had no barcode on them, which meant they were early, probably from the 1970s. That is a sound rule of thumb, since barcodes only started showing up on grocery products in the mid 1970s. The bottles were just as fun. One was an old grape soda bottle, another a Shorty that one of them guessed was from the 1940s, and another a Chocolate Soldier.

Back outside, one of the pair laid out a little pile: a skirt, a license plate, four hubcaps, some trim rings and that old tin. The asking price on the pile was sixty dollars. The counteroffer was fifty, and the answer was simple. Yeah, it will work. A deal on another set of sixteen inch hubcaps settled at forty dollars. A set of cab corners came up too, and the guess on those was anywhere from twenty to fifty dollars depending on condition.

The Five Dollar Oxygen Tank

Then came the find that gives this story its punch. A little tank sat with a price tag already on it that said one dollar. The question was what the owner wanted for it. The answer was that five would do. The buyer said okay, and that was that.

It turned out to be an oxygen tank from around World War Two. According to the pickers, they were made in several sizes, and a lot of the race car guys used them back in the 1940s and 1950s because there was so much surplus equipment after the war. Someone pointed out that the seller made four dollars over the tag, which was pretty good profit. The buyer said it would join the other forty tanks already in the collection, and joked that someday the plan is to set them out at a swap meet and give them away for a dollar, because nobody wants that stuff anymore.

Signs, Offers And One Polite No

In the garage, the talk turned to signs. One of the pair kept looking at a Firestone sign and asked whether it was half off that day. It was not. The host said the sign would stay put while the search for the other half went on, because it comes in two pieces. The host mentioned that a man named Dewey had the other half last year, but it was blue and smaller. A one hundred fifty dollar offer was turned down with a friendly line: ask me again when you see me at the swap meet.

Another sign was priced at thirty dollars. It was porcelain, a little abused, and it appeared to read Perkins Central Highway, with the word Agra on one side, two Agra and two Perkins. The buyer said they had never seen one before and took it for thirty dollars, and the sign changed hands with a joke about being a proud owner, not the last owner.

The host summed the day up well. He said he did not know what to expect when Mike and Chad came over. He figured they would want everything he did not want to sell, which was right, but they also wanted a lot of stuff he did not mind selling. It had been an exciting day, and they had a blast. Mike and Chad said the host was a really neat guy and that they all went to lunch together afterward.

What You Can Learn From The Bus

You do not need a trailer and a film crew to use the same playbook. A few lessons stand out from the way these deals went down.

• Bundle your pile. Notice how the hubcaps, trim rings, plate and tin were priced as one lot. Sellers often come down faster on a stack than on single pieces.
• Name a fair counter. Going from sixty to fifty got a quick yes. A huge lowball can end the conversation, while a small step usually keeps it friendly.
• Ask about the price tag. The oxygen tank had a dollar on it, and the owner still asked for five. Prices on old tags are often a guess from years ago, and talking it out costs nothing.
• Accept a no gracefully. The Firestone sign stayed put, and the invitation to ask again at the swap meet kept the door open.
• Look closely at porcelain. Porcelain signs are made by fusing glass onto steel, so they last a long time, but chips can show bare metal underneath and rust can creep from there. Condition matters a great deal to collectors.

The biggest takeaway is the one the host gave himself. Selling things you do not need to people who will love them makes for a good day for everyone. The seller cleared some space and made a little money, and the pickers walked away with a bus full of stories. Next time you see a crowded old storage building or a junk bus, remember that the person who owns it probably knows exactly what is in there, and may be happy to make a deal if you are polite and patient.

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