you can make first-class profits with a secondhand business

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We've always resisted such temptations, however, and made a special effort to remain honest. In the long run, we feel, a Straight Arrow policy pays off better than tricks . . . and brings the same customers back time after time. Some games, though, are fair enough . . . like the gimmick of rearranging your merchandise. If something doesn't sell, don't let it sit in one part of the store. Shift it to another location, and the folks who overlooked the article before will discover it and think it's just come in.

It's also quite legitimate to take advantage of garage sales. Since you can select what you really need and leave the rest, this is a good alternative to bidding for whole lots that contain many unsalable items. Even if you make a tidy profit on some castoff later on, the householder did after all set his own price and can hardly claim you "stole" those old fire irons or whatever. This convenient source of stock has consoled us for the loss of our line in secondhand clothes, which we gave up when rummage sales started springing up everywhere and selling used garments for practically nothing.

One thing we do miss about the clothing end of the business is that we used to keep our own family dressed from the store's selection (while still making a profit on the articles we didn't want). The secondhand trade has many more fringe benefits of the same kind. There's scarcely a thing we need that won't show up if we're patient enough to wait for it: toothpaste, hair oil, canned goods, combs, permanent wave kits, even groceries. True, they may not be, the brands we prefer . . . but who can't switch if the price is right?

You may also have guessed that our home furnishings constantly revolve as we find articles we like better than what we already have and exchange them for our old things (which, in turn, become stock for the store). It breaks my heart to think of the new TV, washer and kitchen stove we bought shortly before we went into business. We could have purchased such equipment, scarcely used, at one-fifth of its original price if we'd just waited a little longer.

We recently enclosed our front porch with four large casement windows—framed, with screens to match—for which we paid $3.00 each. The boxing was odds and ends of boards we had accumulated, including some from the tops of several 250 tables. The doors were used, out of our stock. Even the paint was economical (we got it wholesale), since we're a dealer for the Old South line of preservatives.

One more extra: Our dealer's license—which cost nothing-comes in handy for private purposes . . . at auto auctions, for instance. Our '63 Plymouth station wagon cost us $650 in '65, and that sure beat the lot price.

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