Is hoarding helping our hobby and actually, what is hoarding?

LOL, hoarders often have saved the stuff from being scrapped the first time. Kind of a moot point if it gets scrapped out for real after they hoarded it for 20+ years, isn't it? Easy to point fingers, but every part has a different story... and I know for a fact that stuff has been "collected" from scrap yards by hoarders. Really makes no difference if it gets crushed at a later date.... if not for the hoarder that bought it, it was essentially melted down years prior.

Folks, there just isn't enough buyers to go around for all the parts that exist. Except scrap dealers, of course. So, naturally, most of the parts were sold to scrap yards over the years. The fact that a hoarder's hoard ends up going to the crusher may not have anything to do with the REAL reason the parts are hard to get. Which is, that perhaps nobody wanted to give anything for it in the first place and so it went to a scrapper. At least a hoarder may have tried to preserve something for the next couple decades.

Just food for thought, not any kind of blanket scenario. Every item has a story.

Want to keep stuff from getting melted down/ Then start buying up all the stuff that hits the junkyards. But then you'd probably end up with tons of stuff, money problems, and eventually a scrapper would get the stuff anyway because not enough buyers would step up with real money when the time came. It's just the way of the world. I've been observing this phenomenon for a while...

 

"I told my wife that when I die I want a big hole dug and all my tools thrown in with me on top. That way I will still be with them and they won't end up in a garage sale sold for $19..."

Gee, that's kind of a sad and irrational way to view your legacy. Hope you rethink and change your mind so that your stuff benefits others.

 

I've dealt with quite a few car hoarders collections after the owner passed away.

Generally, once news of the death spreads, the 'Vultures' descend on the widow, or family members, saying the owner had promised this and that, or bothering with constant visits and phone calls from dealers wanting to cherry pick the good stuff, and leave the junk behind. You can understand the family members not wanting to deal with these people over and over, as they don't know the value of individual cars. Therefore a scrapper is often called in to clean up everything.

Other instances are when the hoarder has become somewhat of a hermit, and passes away, suddenly a distant family member that is the heir calls in the crusher to clean the property up to sell it for fast cash in the pocket, with no regards to the value of what is being destroyed.

Case in point- I had found five mid to late fifties DeSotos on a property in southern Oregon several years, and got the owner's phone number from the neighbor, as the owner was not home. After returning home, I called the owner many times over the course of a couple years, but he always said he'd get a look and call me back with prices, but never did. I got a call from the neighbor, as I'd given him a card that first visit, and he said the old fellow had passed away, and his brother had come to town to clean up the property to sell it. He had already dragged two of the cars out to the road. The neighbor gave me the number of the brother that was staying in town at a motel, so I called him up.
He said he had been offered $1000 for all five cars from a local scrap dealer, and they were to be gone by midweek. I told him what I did for a living, and also asked him, would your brother really have wanted these cars to go for scrap? He said then, " If you can get all the cars out by the end of this weekend, you can have them for the same price offered." It was Friday already, but I rounded a few friends up, and brought all the cars here on schedule.

---John

 

This thread could actually be a wake up call,I am a card carrying member of the pack rats anonymous,,but I tend to hoard Deuce parts,,always expecting to use them on that next Deuce.

Weather or not that ever happens one thing is for sure,,my wife knows what this stuff is worth and knows how much I paid for it so no one will take advantage of her after they read about me in the obituaries.

A suggestion is to write down what you have and put it in a safety deposit box or a safe and let the boss lady or a family member know about it.HRP

 

I am a middle-aged dude (43) who builds rods and kustoms for a living. I am watching the industry and the hobby, from the inside. I am also watching laws and regulations tightening regarding all aspects of our hobby, from the paintbooth to the tailpipe. These laws and regulations are only, over time, going to get tighter. We are declining in ranks, and those who are opposed to what we do are growing at a geometric rate. With the help of those who have the wherewithal, finances, and time, we can hold-off the demise of our hobby, for a long time, BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE, that demise is on-the-way.

At my age, I can, sadly, and I hate to say it, see the point when what we are doing has been effectively legislated out of existence. Sure, it might be “possible” to still have a rod, but the expense might keep all but the most extremely affluent from them.

Holding on to more parts than you need, in the immediate future might not just ensure that they end up in the recycle bins because your children are not interested, but because, even if they were interested, they would not be able to utilize them.

Holding on to more parts than you need, in the immediate future makes it more difficult for those who are truly dedicated to preserving this hobby, to build well-made cars. This is NOT helping grow our ranks. It is discouraging people from building at-all, and WORSE, it is encouraging people to build less well made cars. That is screaming in the opposite direction of helping.

Holding on to more parts than you need, in the immediate future makes building a good car seem like an insurmountable task to someone who is just entering the hobby, and may discourage that person from bothering to go into it at-all.

Holding on to more parts than you need, in the immediate future creates scarcity, and causes prices to rise. In some cases, they are at patently absurd levels.

Fewer cars, fewer well-made cars, higher prices, and fewer of us.

I am seeing this play-out at the shop-level too. If you just shelled out $1200.00 for a pair of high-clearance Wide-5's, you now have $160.00 worth of wheels, and $1040.00 less in your budget to spend on getting anything else done.

I am under constant pressure to figure out how to get things done for less-and-less money.

We can't discuss politics here, so leave this alone, but just to state a simple piece of well-documented, factual statistical information: wages in the US are stagnant, if you are lucky, if not, falling. What does this mean to our hobby? Buying power is shrinking, and income that can be dedicated to non-essential items is on the decline. Driving prices higher is not going to help our hobby survive under these conditions.

I am no longer surprised to see so many shops go out of business, even when they were doing good work. I am not shocked anymore to find out that shops are paying fabricators $15-17/hr. People just don't seem to have a ton of cash lying around.

There is likely not much I can do, along with the other guys with shops, to fend off licensing, permitting, and environmental cost increases, etc, or real estate prices, for that matter. There is just not enough manpower, time, or money, to lobby at every level, in every jurisdiction.

There are a ton of forces, actively and passively working toward causing our demise. By hording, YOU are one of those forces.

If you can't use it, find someone who can, and sell it to him or her, at a reasonable price.

By reasonable, I don't mean $1300.00 for one of the four 4-71 SBC manifolds you have.

 

Sure, we can sell the parts to others.... but there's still not enough buyers. Therefore, there's still going to be someone sitting on piles of parts. Could even be the guys you sell your excess parts too. They buy them, and bam... they have excess parts as well. So they are now the ones who have excess stuff. Maybe they could sell them to someone who has no parts, but those folks with no parts are not into the hobby at all. So the hobbyists tend to stash parts... for God knows what.

And no matter what, it costs valuable money to store parts. Buildings and property cost money, which is increasing all the time. and the parts get forced out of a location suddenly, and not enough folks step up to the plate. So off to the crusher it goes.

This is the way it is, it simply cannot all be saved.

And yes, I would be surprised if the hobby even exists in another 30 years. I think massive changes are coming to the world in less than 20.

 

The sky is falling,,,the sky is falling!

I said the same thing in back in the 80's,,there will always be someone building and tinkering with cars & trucks.

Granted the hobby has grown by leaps and bounds,,a lot of us started with junkers back in the day,the advent of muscle cars was almost a death nail to hot rods but they made a comeback,due in part to the organizations like NSRA & Goodguys and no doubt the passion and vision of Ryan to start the Hamb has helped in the huge growth in the Traditional hot rod and custom world.

Times will evidently change and there may very well be a mass exodus from hot rods or in the government may very well be ban our chosen activity in the future.

What does this have to do with hoarding,,absolutely nothing just like it doesn't have any impact on the hobby,,eventually all the parts will be on the market and I seriously doubt anything worth saving will end up at the crusher,,there is just too much exposure to think otherwise. HRP

 

Maybe not, but I still see tons of stuff going to the scrap yards. You think SPECIFIC PARTS can be hard to obtain now, just wait. 20 years from now, it might simply be too difficult to get a decent car actually scratch-built because certain parts just cannot be located. When that becomes the norm for most average folks (it ain't that far off even now), then you'll simply have fewer folks than ever trying to scratch-build cars. Naturally, with a decline in the demand for parts (not so much "demand", but more in the way of how much work a seller has to go to in order to find a buyer), then the parts become worth even less to hobbyists. Meanwhile, scrap prices will likely have continued to climb over the years.... so once again, the scrap buyers win.

On a side note, hoarders have often not only helped keep the stuff from getting crushed years ago, but they have also often helped keep the price of the parts high enough that the parts are worth more than scrap. But when the scrap prices exceed the hobby-value of the parts, guess where they frequently go.

I don't think it's a game that can be won on the big scale. Most obviously not. Just some smaller victories... which often turn out to be only temporary.

 

Im a hoarder. My hoarding has been a great source of fun and a accumulating of wealth over the decades. I sometimes do sell stuff. Ive just become Jaded at Lookie loos and time wasters.Ive got to the point that if you are not pulling a trailer and have a $1000 in cash to show me you arent gonna get in the gate. You arent wanting to buy a project car. Also the problem wiyh selling stuff is you soon spend the money and then you dont have the money or the stuff. I like to call it a collection. you dont have to do anything with a collection to enjoy it. Like guys that collect arrow heads they dont need to make bows & arrows and shoot them to enjoy the arrowheads. I used to work at the scrap recyclers. Ive saved(hoarded) lots of stuff from there. Now years later the price of scrap has greatly increased and Im hauling some of it back to the scrap man. Just this week I sold $916.00 worth of aluminum wheels at 75 cents per pound.I hauled it all the way to McCoys at Springfield MO. Cost me $60 in gas. The fact is there are not very many buyers with cold hard cash who are willing and able to pay more than scrap price. Since I havent had a job since November of 2011. Selling my hoarded sitting and rotting junk has provided a comfortable living. In fact Ive made more than when I was driving Truck. Every week My hoard diminishes. The great thing about living in our Republic. The wishes & wants of the many cannott trample & infringe upon the rights of the few. Even if the few is just Me and the many is everyone else.Those who lament about what other,s are doing with their own stuff need to mind their own buisness get their own life and their own stuff. Im really enjoying being a Old Fart Curmudgeon.

 

Yeah, that's the problem. I know a guy that has a big garage full of the coolest stuff. Tons of parts, a 70 cuda funny car, about 60 intakes (a McGurk 6 x 2 ive been after for years) and tons of other cool stuff. Very, very rarely sells any. Doesn't use any of it either. Doesn't even have a running cool car to run around in and he has plenty of them.

 

Im not worried at all about my little gold mine being sold off for scrap or sold cheap. I have educated my oldest a 17 year old girl, on the value of everything i own.
She knows how to cruise around on the hamb, ebay and other internet sources. She is very familar with hemmings motor news and swap meets . My kid has a 4.0 gpa, can research dam near anything and probably cant wait for me to kick the bucket. !!!!!!!!!

 

I could be a hoarder. I have lots of stuff. But, everything I own can be bought. Some cheap, some not so cheap, some stuff is probably priced unrealistically. Some stuff I want to sell - and it's amazing for all the bitching about hoarders not selling how when I want to get rid of something, I can't give it away to save my life.

 

Without having read the entire thread, a few thoughts.

I think a lot of "hoarding" is just holding onto the stuff one has collected for a project one lives in perpetual hope of being able to finish - or even to begin. Right now my Model A project comprises an unrestored firewall, a Deuce shell, two MGB wire wheels, some bits and bobs, and an endless series of design drawings. I feel a bit embarrassed to call it a project, even; but I am fairly sure that there are lots and lots of other guys out there who are in the same situation.

If I'd been in the US it might be different, but I don't stumble upon Deuce radiator shells, original or repro, steel or plastic, every day. When one came up (advertised in a club newsletter as a "radiator cowling" revealing the seller's complete ignorance of the desirability of the part) I jumped at it. I'm not going to sell it because I have no confidence that I'll get another at a comparable price when, and indeed if ever, the time comes.

And of course there is every possibility that the time will never come. And in itself, in the scheme of things, my project isn't all that important. But giving up on the project - the only condition under which I should summarily get rid of what I've collected - would imply giving up on something much more important. That is something I require of no-one, and should be glad of the same courtesy.

This is all to do with ascription of value - deeming as important - as exercise of liberty, in stark contrast to the current culture of discarding which the psychological opponents of "hoarding" seem intent on enforcing. Good citizens don't keep stuff; they throw it away and buy new crap. I'd recommend to anyone Aldous Huxley's dystopian classic, Brave New World, wherein a dictatorial total state has consumption-oriented slogans like "Ending is better than mending". And that is as political as I intend to get on the HAMB today.

In a broader sense, the stuff we "hoard" is often quite durable, but often irreplaceable. It is a finite but, to quite some extent, non-perishable resource. I hate to see it going to waste; I hate to see even relatively undesirable old stuff getting sold as scrap. The mere grandfathered status of old stuff represents a positive value, no matter what it is. But there is no point to being tight-fisted with stuff one has no intention (however fancifully) to use: let there be lively exchange of goods between those who value it.

 

Went to a hoarder estate auction on Saturday and made out like a bandit.Items I dont need will be sold to others that do and the cycle starts again.

My wife and I will be "cleaningup" a couple areas at home that could be used for better purposes this summer.When I have to rent space to store stuff,then its time to do something about it.Ive been around this block before and to get from under it will be very nice.

 

What is hoarding ? True hoarding is a mental illness which has very little to do with cars or the hobby we enjoy.

This picture brings it all together, the fact that the cars are there is secondary.

Hoarders will save everything including garbage and even their own feces in some cases.

Like I said, it's a mental illness and it's as simple (or complicated) as that.

 

(fixed) A hoarder won't sell you somthing even if you really need it and they don't.

 

LOL, nice! There's a lot of truth in this post, really.
It cracks me up too, people complain about parts getting scrace... and then you put some up for sale for SCRAP price, and people just come over and waste your time...
Of COURSE the scrap guys getting the stuff back when that happens.
Meanwhile, the increasing scarcity of the parts should dictate that the parts increase in value significantly. But the reality is... if you can't sell them to a hobbyist at scrap prices, then apparently the parts weren't something to be worshiped in the first place. Yet, along will come someone who will say "shame, shame" over the scrapping.
It cracks me up.
You know what they say about money talking and BS walking....
And we're only talking about SCRAP PRICES here.

So what about the stuff that's worth more than scrap, as in, a LOT more? OK, scrapping and hoarding has apparently helped bring the value of THOSE parts high enough that they will "never" get scrapped. That should be a win for the hobby, right?
But no... someone will complain about the high prices.

Cracks me up.

 

I've had similar experiences.

 

I'm not a hoarder, but only because I ran out of room to put anything!

I do have a habit of saving small pieces of rubber hose, old nuts and bolts, and other garbage that most just toss away. I live a ways out of town and nothing slows down a project like having to run into town to get a piece of hose or a couple of bolts!
I have a small collection of "stuff" but it is mostly left overs from past cars or abandoned projects and I have not taken the time to try and sell yet. When I need some funds for a current car or project I look thru my junk and see what I can sell off to help support my habit.
(I should be listing some stuff this week!)

 

To me hoarding is when you accumulate such a high amount of things that you do nothing with.
Collection is a different story. . a better one I'd say!

 

Another way to look at it:

Some folks get their enjoyment from collecting whole cars. Maybe they like the thrill of the hunt, and then they can enjoy the trophies of the cars by imagining all the history each car has seen.

Some folks get their enjoyment from collecting parts. Maybe they like the thrill of the hunt, and then they can enjoy the trophies of the parts by imagining all the different cars that could be built with those parts (and they often actually "plan" on doing those cars someday).

Some folks get their enjoyment from collecting baseball cards. Maybe they like the thrill of the hunt, and then they can enjoy the trophies of the cards by showing them off to their friends while reciting each player's stats that they memorized.

Some folks collect stamps.

To each his own form of enjoyment. In that regard, it really shouldn't matter if someone chooses to own a bunch of parts.

 

Spent most of yesterday going through a huge disorganized pile in my shop, honestly meant to get rid of a bunch of it. In the end almost nothing went away, it just got a little less chaotic, catalogued and packed tighter. I think all I really did was make room for more..