A few years ago I wanted to de-clutter my life and so registered on Ebay. I had comics from my childhood, concert tickets and programmes, Beatles concert tickets, A ‘Happy Days’ board game, first issues of magazines, an ADIDAS bag from 1976 and dozens and dozens of things that I’d been moving from one house to another with some nonsensical sentimental value attached to them. Things that I initially wouldn’t have dreamt of parting with were eventually listed, sold, packed and sent to all corners of the planet. It just made more sense to me that I could turn something that had been in a box unappreciated for decades into some time for me to sit on a far away beach. When selling items I occasionally made use of friends who would bid against genuine bidders just to push the price up a bit for me. This only backfired once when I bought my own set of encyclopaedias. I may have got a bit carried away, since they knew me by name in the local post office, but I loved how uncluttered the house began to look. I didn’t buy anything, only sold. It sometimes amazed me how much people would pay for things, especially when a brief internet search would reveal that they were available cheaper elsewhere. Why would anyone pay for an autographed picture of Trevor Brooking from 1978?
More recently, Marianna has been gathering together clothes, shoes and bags which she no longer wants and we had begun listing them and selling them on Ebay with some success. Still selling and not buying.
Then, a few weeks ago, we went into a bar in Kenilworth. The décor was amazing. Or rather, the chairs and sofas and tables and sideboards were wonderful. It was like being on a ‘60’s film set or inside a Matt Monro song. Characteristically, Marianna asked one of the staff where they sourced all of the furniture and the answer was Ebay. The bar’s owners bought the chairs, reupholstered them and revitalised the woodwork and put them in the bar looking as good as the day they were made fifty years previously. So, a few hours later we were searching on Ebay for retro furniture. Our first purchase was a glass topped G-plan coffee table for £26. After seeing clients in Birmingham I drove to Walsall and collected the table from a very lovely man, who was a full-time Ebayer. I met him at his home and then we walked the 150 yards to his mother’s home where he kept his stock. She seemed to be in very poor health and I’m not sure if it counts as abuse that your son fills your house with items he bought for a pound in a charity shop and is selling for many times more on Ebay.
Next, was a chair which Marianna was particularly keen on. It looked like the sort of swivelling office chair that Reggie Perrin’s boss would sit in. The seller was fairly charmless; “I’ve had this chair for forty years. It’s in my garage and is in the way. Ron” is what it said on his Ebay listing. We noticed that he only lived ten miles from my parents so I did have a little plan for how it might be collected. We were the lucky winners for this quality item for a mere £1.02. Surely, this could only be a bargain. Within 24 hours he contacted me saying “Are you going to collect this chair or do I need to re-list it?”. He was operating at a level of social skills I professionally refer to as 'Greggs employee'. Marianna spoke to my dad to ask how he would feel about collecting it but it turned out that he was collecting a brand new car that day and wasn’t sure if wrestling a chair into it was quite how he wanted to christen this new purchase. After a few emails to Ron to ascertain the chair’s dimensions dad finally agreed to go and get it. He arrived at this house in the middle of the fens to find the chair in the driveway surrounded by four rather aggressive dogs (Have you seen Deliverance?) but it turned out that Ron was perfectly pleasant and even lifted the chair into the car. Once home dad sent me a text saying that it may have been overvalued.... by a pound.
Then, on our way to Bath on the 19th we happened upon an antique warehouse which had lots of proper antiques for obscene amounts of money that were of no interest to me but there were two 1950’s Wassily Marcel Breuer chairs. Cooler than a close up of Steve McQueen but far from cheap at £365 each. Marianna made a note of the name and a few days later looked them up on Ebay. There was another pair, already with a number of bids, at £100 each and yet to reach their reserve. The auction ended at £220 and the reserve still wasn’t met. I thought about contacting the seller to see what they might accept but we noticed that there was another pair of chairs ending the next morning with a starting price of £89 for the pair. The next day I entered my first bid of £89 and a few minutes later the auction ended without another bid being made. Something I could have bought for £715 purchased for £89. That’s the beauty of Ebay. The chairs were in York so five days later, after seeing a client in Hull, I headed north to collect them. The sellers turned out to be a firm of architects. I said hello and shook hands with Matt, my contact, took the first chair and put it next to the car and returned for the second. “I thought you’d have a bigger car or a van. Will you be able to take both of them?”, he said. “Oh,yes, there’s nothing won’t fit into the back of a Peugeot 206” I said confidently although I’d already noticed how much bigger the chairs looked next to the car than they had in the antiques warehouse. As I left I just caught Matt’s colleague say “This will be interesting to watch” and felt a little bit of pressure mounting. After some seconds looking at the chairs and the space inside the car I tried various ways of putting them and had it figured out on only the third combination. There was no way I was going to carry one of them back into their offices and admit defeat. I’d have put one on the roof and pushed the car or eaten one before I did that.
When I logged onto our Ebay account on the day of my successful £89 bid I noticed that Marianna was ‘watching’ several sofas from the fifties, sixties and seventies. They all looked thoroughly lovely, well maintained and completely of their time. The auction for two two-seater sofas of orangey, cubist, stainless steel loveliness was ending in only a matter of hours. Marianna was at a meeting. I sent her a text; “Would you like me to bid on these sofas?”. An hour or so passed and there was no reply. I sent another text; “The auction closes in 30 minutes. Shall we bid?”. No reply. Ten minutes later I called her mobile but she didn’t reply and I left an anxious message. And then I began bidding. The starting price was £100 which at £12.50 per buttock seemed very reasonable. There was an intense bidding war in increments of two pounds with two others but I won for £122. I was very pleased with myself although, obviously, I’d never have parted with that amount had this been a real auction. It felt like playing a video game. Marianna was less pleased when she returned home. She explained that ‘watching’ items was like pointing out something in a shop window as you walked past. It meant that you liked it or found it interesting and perhaps wanted to show it to your other half. It didn’t mean you were going to rush into the store and write a blank cheque for it. I hung my head. She also wondered how I planned to get two two-seater sofas from central London to the midlands. My shoulders dropped. I felt that she was raining on my parade (but had a point. A very good one).
The next morning I rang around eleven courier companies and men with vans to get prices for the collection. None were less than the amount I’d paid for the sofas. Suddenly they looked a lot less bargain-like. How could even this have become stressful? Where was the excitement of “Congratulations, you’ve won this item” now? I finally found ‘Green man with van’ (Justin) who would do the job in an environmentally sound way for less than the price of the sofas. I gave the sellers details to him and his details to the seller (ignoring the “Did you tell him I’m on the fourth floor?” comment) and returned to work and earning money to pay for our expanding furniture collection. During the late evening I received a text from Marianna; “I’m still working in the library. You need to start bidding if you want that other sofa”. We hadn’t discussed this but if that’s not carte blanche I don’t know what is. I feel a little too ashamed to tell you how much I finally won this item for but it was 21 bids more than the £50 starting price. When I won I didn’t feel the excitement of the day before it was more like dread; “Oh shit, what have I done?”. Marianna came home an hour or so later and in the midst of discussing what we’d done that day she asked; “How much did that sofa sell for?”. I told her. “How much was your final bid?”. I told her and she quickly noticed how similar these figures were. She explained that I needed to set myself a limit and then not go beyond it. The thing was I had done this but like Natalie Cassidy’s calorie intake it just went higher and higher. My limit was £70 (and not a penny more) but then someone bid £75 and suddenly my limit was £75 (and not a penny more) but then someone bid £80 and I couldn’t stop myself. I told her the good news that I’d found Justin so it would be no trouble for him to collect this sofa since it was only eight miles from the other two.
I rang Justin the next day and told him about the third sofa. He, who didn’t even know me, said I was clearly finding Ebay a little addictive and wondered if there was some health reason why I needed to sit down so much. I gave him the seller’s details and contacted the seller with Justin’s details. He rang later; “That woman with the sofas lived on the fourth floor and there was no lift”. “No! Really?”. He didn’t think he’d be able to come up that afternoon but would be over with all three sofas the next day, Sunday. He called on Sunday to tell me he’d collected the third sofa but wouldn’t be with us until after eight o’clock. Since we had plans to go out I wasn’t pleased by this. I thought about leaving a key somewhere or asking Brian to let Justin put the sofas in the garage but decided that I’d just stay in and wait for him. Justin rang again at five having realised that travelling from London to Leamington Spa and then to another job in Weston-super-Mare that evening was insane. He’d be with us in the morning. So we went out after all. At 8.40am he and his colleague, Adam, appeared with their green recycled biodiesel van, their wild surfer dude hair and our sofas. The sofas looked great. My “Congratulations, you’re a bidding genius” happiness returned. Martin saw us carry them into the house and may, possibly, have wondered why we were buying furniture when we don't have carpet or many working lights or heating. Not an unreasonable thought.
The kids from Grange Hill warned you to ‘Just say No’ to drugs but no one warns you about Ebay. It’s more addictive than heroin and a damned site more expensive. I haven’t looked at the website since my last successful bid but it’s tempting. I've spent more on sofas than Marianna made from selling clothing, bags and shoes made by designers I've never heard of. That wasn't the plan. However, I notice that Ebay now make recommendations based on previous purchases. I may have another look but only with a responsible, supervising adult present.
More recently, Marianna has been gathering together clothes, shoes and bags which she no longer wants and we had begun listing them and selling them on Ebay with some success. Still selling and not buying.
Then, a few weeks ago, we went into a bar in Kenilworth. The décor was amazing. Or rather, the chairs and sofas and tables and sideboards were wonderful. It was like being on a ‘60’s film set or inside a Matt Monro song. Characteristically, Marianna asked one of the staff where they sourced all of the furniture and the answer was Ebay. The bar’s owners bought the chairs, reupholstered them and revitalised the woodwork and put them in the bar looking as good as the day they were made fifty years previously. So, a few hours later we were searching on Ebay for retro furniture. Our first purchase was a glass topped G-plan coffee table for £26. After seeing clients in Birmingham I drove to Walsall and collected the table from a very lovely man, who was a full-time Ebayer. I met him at his home and then we walked the 150 yards to his mother’s home where he kept his stock. She seemed to be in very poor health and I’m not sure if it counts as abuse that your son fills your house with items he bought for a pound in a charity shop and is selling for many times more on Ebay.
Next, was a chair which Marianna was particularly keen on. It looked like the sort of swivelling office chair that Reggie Perrin’s boss would sit in. The seller was fairly charmless; “I’ve had this chair for forty years. It’s in my garage and is in the way. Ron” is what it said on his Ebay listing. We noticed that he only lived ten miles from my parents so I did have a little plan for how it might be collected. We were the lucky winners for this quality item for a mere £1.02. Surely, this could only be a bargain. Within 24 hours he contacted me saying “Are you going to collect this chair or do I need to re-list it?”. He was operating at a level of social skills I professionally refer to as 'Greggs employee'. Marianna spoke to my dad to ask how he would feel about collecting it but it turned out that he was collecting a brand new car that day and wasn’t sure if wrestling a chair into it was quite how he wanted to christen this new purchase. After a few emails to Ron to ascertain the chair’s dimensions dad finally agreed to go and get it. He arrived at this house in the middle of the fens to find the chair in the driveway surrounded by four rather aggressive dogs (Have you seen Deliverance?) but it turned out that Ron was perfectly pleasant and even lifted the chair into the car. Once home dad sent me a text saying that it may have been overvalued.... by a pound.
Then, on our way to Bath on the 19th we happened upon an antique warehouse which had lots of proper antiques for obscene amounts of money that were of no interest to me but there were two 1950’s Wassily Marcel Breuer chairs. Cooler than a close up of Steve McQueen but far from cheap at £365 each. Marianna made a note of the name and a few days later looked them up on Ebay. There was another pair, already with a number of bids, at £100 each and yet to reach their reserve. The auction ended at £220 and the reserve still wasn’t met. I thought about contacting the seller to see what they might accept but we noticed that there was another pair of chairs ending the next morning with a starting price of £89 for the pair. The next day I entered my first bid of £89 and a few minutes later the auction ended without another bid being made. Something I could have bought for £715 purchased for £89. That’s the beauty of Ebay. The chairs were in York so five days later, after seeing a client in Hull, I headed north to collect them. The sellers turned out to be a firm of architects. I said hello and shook hands with Matt, my contact, took the first chair and put it next to the car and returned for the second. “I thought you’d have a bigger car or a van. Will you be able to take both of them?”, he said. “Oh,yes, there’s nothing won’t fit into the back of a Peugeot 206” I said confidently although I’d already noticed how much bigger the chairs looked next to the car than they had in the antiques warehouse. As I left I just caught Matt’s colleague say “This will be interesting to watch” and felt a little bit of pressure mounting. After some seconds looking at the chairs and the space inside the car I tried various ways of putting them and had it figured out on only the third combination. There was no way I was going to carry one of them back into their offices and admit defeat. I’d have put one on the roof and pushed the car or eaten one before I did that.
When I logged onto our Ebay account on the day of my successful £89 bid I noticed that Marianna was ‘watching’ several sofas from the fifties, sixties and seventies. They all looked thoroughly lovely, well maintained and completely of their time. The auction for two two-seater sofas of orangey, cubist, stainless steel loveliness was ending in only a matter of hours. Marianna was at a meeting. I sent her a text; “Would you like me to bid on these sofas?”. An hour or so passed and there was no reply. I sent another text; “The auction closes in 30 minutes. Shall we bid?”. No reply. Ten minutes later I called her mobile but she didn’t reply and I left an anxious message. And then I began bidding. The starting price was £100 which at £12.50 per buttock seemed very reasonable. There was an intense bidding war in increments of two pounds with two others but I won for £122. I was very pleased with myself although, obviously, I’d never have parted with that amount had this been a real auction. It felt like playing a video game. Marianna was less pleased when she returned home. She explained that ‘watching’ items was like pointing out something in a shop window as you walked past. It meant that you liked it or found it interesting and perhaps wanted to show it to your other half. It didn’t mean you were going to rush into the store and write a blank cheque for it. I hung my head. She also wondered how I planned to get two two-seater sofas from central London to the midlands. My shoulders dropped. I felt that she was raining on my parade (but had a point. A very good one).
The next morning I rang around eleven courier companies and men with vans to get prices for the collection. None were less than the amount I’d paid for the sofas. Suddenly they looked a lot less bargain-like. How could even this have become stressful? Where was the excitement of “Congratulations, you’ve won this item” now? I finally found ‘Green man with van’ (Justin) who would do the job in an environmentally sound way for less than the price of the sofas. I gave the sellers details to him and his details to the seller (ignoring the “Did you tell him I’m on the fourth floor?” comment) and returned to work and earning money to pay for our expanding furniture collection. During the late evening I received a text from Marianna; “I’m still working in the library. You need to start bidding if you want that other sofa”. We hadn’t discussed this but if that’s not carte blanche I don’t know what is. I feel a little too ashamed to tell you how much I finally won this item for but it was 21 bids more than the £50 starting price. When I won I didn’t feel the excitement of the day before it was more like dread; “Oh shit, what have I done?”. Marianna came home an hour or so later and in the midst of discussing what we’d done that day she asked; “How much did that sofa sell for?”. I told her. “How much was your final bid?”. I told her and she quickly noticed how similar these figures were. She explained that I needed to set myself a limit and then not go beyond it. The thing was I had done this but like Natalie Cassidy’s calorie intake it just went higher and higher. My limit was £70 (and not a penny more) but then someone bid £75 and suddenly my limit was £75 (and not a penny more) but then someone bid £80 and I couldn’t stop myself. I told her the good news that I’d found Justin so it would be no trouble for him to collect this sofa since it was only eight miles from the other two.
I rang Justin the next day and told him about the third sofa. He, who didn’t even know me, said I was clearly finding Ebay a little addictive and wondered if there was some health reason why I needed to sit down so much. I gave him the seller’s details and contacted the seller with Justin’s details. He rang later; “That woman with the sofas lived on the fourth floor and there was no lift”. “No! Really?”. He didn’t think he’d be able to come up that afternoon but would be over with all three sofas the next day, Sunday. He called on Sunday to tell me he’d collected the third sofa but wouldn’t be with us until after eight o’clock. Since we had plans to go out I wasn’t pleased by this. I thought about leaving a key somewhere or asking Brian to let Justin put the sofas in the garage but decided that I’d just stay in and wait for him. Justin rang again at five having realised that travelling from London to Leamington Spa and then to another job in Weston-super-Mare that evening was insane. He’d be with us in the morning. So we went out after all. At 8.40am he and his colleague, Adam, appeared with their green recycled biodiesel van, their wild surfer dude hair and our sofas. The sofas looked great. My “Congratulations, you’re a bidding genius” happiness returned. Martin saw us carry them into the house and may, possibly, have wondered why we were buying furniture when we don't have carpet or many working lights or heating. Not an unreasonable thought.
The kids from Grange Hill warned you to ‘Just say No’ to drugs but no one warns you about Ebay. It’s more addictive than heroin and a damned site more expensive. I haven’t looked at the website since my last successful bid but it’s tempting. I've spent more on sofas than Marianna made from selling clothing, bags and shoes made by designers I've never heard of. That wasn't the plan. However, I notice that Ebay now make recommendations based on previous purchases. I may have another look but only with a responsible, supervising adult present.
Orangey
These poor chairs had been surrounded by architects for decades. I rescued them and gave them a good home.
