Well...it started out for me in meeting my eventual wife at church. Her dad, Vic opened Vic's Place or Vic's '66' as it is now known in 1991. I started to work for him in 1997 building repo gas pumps for a huge restaurant contract they had gotten. Just from being around the old pumps/signs/
globes/etc I soaked up enough knowledge to figure out what was hot. On the weekends, I started hitting the backroads & antique malls and immediately had success finding stuff. My mother was killing it on ebay with Beanie Babies, so I decided to put a porcelain coke button that I had found in an alley near my house up for auction. I had given like $40 for it and it went for $240! Needless to say, I was hooked on ebay. The following year, I quit my job and ebay'd full-time supporting a wife & 2 kids for about 30 months. In 2001, Vic asked me to come back and manage the catalog part-time (he was building a new house and needed the freedom) but I was still able to "junk" half the time. The following year, I bought the company and am in my 5th year as owner. Along the way, I've picked up some things (mostly local flavor) that I won't turn loose of ever. I also developed an affinity for double-bubble clocks. I have twice built a collection of 35-50 clocks, but have twice liquidated, once to pay for a baby and once to buy a piece of land. I just picked up an A&W the other day, and so another collection starts!!