Danna Crawford: Hey, everybody, welcome to the Power Selling Podcast. I’m your host, Danna Crawford, the power-selling mom. Today, I’m honored to be joined by someone I’ve known and worked with for a long time. Wayne Jordan is a retired auctioneer, antique dealer, writer, editor, and advocate for antique tourism.
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We’ve been colleagues for many years, and we’ve done over 80 episodes of a podcast that we used to do together called Flip It or Skip It, which is still available on all major podcast players. We had an excellent run with that. And we had moved on to other opportunities in our world. And that’s what’s so wonderful about both of us being entrepreneurs. We can move on to new adventures, and that’s what we’re doing today.
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Wayne Jordan: That’s right. New adventures, new opportunities. Or, as my wife says, can’t you keep a job?
Danna Crawford: Well, it was said. I like that, Wayne. So please tell us where you’re at today. Bring us up today.
Wayne Jordan: Well, of course, I’ve been in the antique business dealing with antiques for 40 years, and About a dozen years ago or so, I wrote for an antique trailer and about a dozen years ago. I wrote an article for them titled Antiques Tourism, and That article is still around.
You use the keyword antiques tourism, and I’ve been on page one of Google for years for a couple of reasons. One is that only a few people are writing about it, but it stays up there. It keeps getting hits. I’ve joined and teamed up with my hometown’s Main Street America program.
Are you familiar with that? Main Street America has been around for about 20 years, and it provides matching grants to small towns like the one I live in to help revitalize their downtown area and village.
Danna Crawford: Oh.
Wayne Jordan: It takes a couple of years to get approved even to be in the program, so we’re in the planning stages. I’ve also hooked up locally with the tourism department here in town and the local region, and I’ve just become enthused about tourism. As you know, I was an auctioneer, an art auctioneer, on cruise ships.
I love traveling. My wife and I have traveled a lot. She’s a former flight attendant. So we get around, we’ve gotten around. And I love to travel, I love antiques, and it made sense to try to put the two together. So, I put together a blog. There’s not much to it because we have yet to launch. It’ll be launched in a couple of weeks.
The blog is antiquestourism.com. And on that, I talk about antique towns and places and the principles of antique tourism. And I talk about cultural and heritage tourism. And the plan in the future is to talk about cruises. and train trips, and motor coach tours.
For example, Antiques Trader hired me to do a series of articles on antique tourism. And I just finished writing one and interviewing a woman who goes by the Antiques Diva moniker.
Danna Crawford: Nice.
Wayne Jordan: she’s been around for a while. And… She lives in Venice, Italy, but she does customized one-on-one tours with antique dealers, hoteliers, and interior designers. And she takes them. All over Europe, she’s in about 15 different countries.
She does some things in the United States, but she’s lived in Paris, Amsterdam, London, and Berlin. She has a whole network of dealers and antique people over there. This week, I just got an email from her. A text, I mean, about an hour ago, she was on her way from Italy. to the High Point North Carolina Furniture Show, where she’ll be speaking. She’s got her line of furniture. I mean, it’s
Danna Crawford: Wow.
Wayne Jordan: quite a story. The article I’m writing won’t be published for another month, but keep your eyes out for it. It’s a fascinating story. But she’s an Oklahoma girl. She’s from Oklahoma. And she told an interesting story that I’ll share with you.
When she was a girl, she said she was fascinated by the response of fire ants to flooding. You know, they have fire ants in Texas and Oklahoma. It’s an invasive species. And what happens when they get these sudden flash floods in that part of the country is the fire ants link their limbs together. legs, arms, whatever the scientific name is for them.
But they link them together in a great big mass, and between the legs and their air pockets. The air pockets provide buoyancy and hold them up. They can move in just enormous masses of ants across the water. Boy, can you tell I’m a DC boy? Water.
And she’s fascinated by that. She compares that to antique dealers in that it’s essential for antique dealers to support one another, link up, stay close, promote their businesses together, and form associations in their local towns. And to work together. She’s a big supporter of that, and that’s one of her main focuses. As soon as she started telling me her story and talking about fire, I was sold because I was right there where she was.
I don’t say it as eloquently as she said it.
Danna Crawford: That is a fascinating story. What a fascinating person. What fun to write about her
Wayne Jordan: Yes. And there will be more articles to come. The first one I wrote was in Frederick, Maryland. They participated in the Great American Main Street program. They… Theirs was like a lot of towns like the town I live in. It’s an old factory town, blue-collar, too many empty storefronts, that sort of thing. But they’ve been working their program for 13 years or so. It’s not uncommon for people to just keep with it for years.
And they have a beautiful… downtown area. They have about a dozen antique shops that you can walk close enough to one another and a couple of big antique malls. It’s just a nice, you know, it’s a lovely little town.
Antique tourism is rooted in what’s known as cultural and heritage tourism. And cultural tourism is… as the name implies, it’s about the culture, the arts, the, you know, the overall aesthetic of the town and heritage is the place, the history, the museums, that kind of thing. And what’s fascinating to me is that worldwide tourism is enormous. It’s one of the biggest industries in the world.
I mean, you have the big corporations like… airlines and hotel chains and that sort of thing. But you also have a lot of smaller players. You have the individual towns and their tourism departments and travel agents.
There’s just a whole network of smaller entities going on there. It takes up about half of the cultural and heritage tourism. About half of the people traveling are traveling for cultural heritage reasons.
Danna Crawford: Wow.
Wayne Jordan: They want, well, to think about it. They want more than that. When they leave town, they want to see something different. And if you’re going down the highway, and all you see are from one city to another, the same fast food restaurants, the exact auto service change, there’s a sameness about all of it. And that’s why people leave home.
Danna Crawford: Yeah,
Wayne Jordan: So they want something authentic. They want to go to a town and eat the local food, hear the local music, and listen to stories from the local people. That’s what people are craving these days, especially after being locked up in their houses for two or three years with COVID.
Danna Crawford: Yes.
Wayne Jordan: So I just love it. I love the concept. I love being involved in it. And… I’m going to keep doing it.
Danna Crawford: It’s just so fascinating. And you keep learning, as I always say; if you stop learning, you die. So you keep learning, and you keep enjoying the heritage, the local, the interesting facts that are next door that you didn’t know about.
Wayne Jordan: Right. Here are some interesting points about the antiques section of cultural heritage tourism. Antiques can cross to culture and heritage, mainly in the heritage realm. People will travel. Let me back up a little bit. In Antiques Tourism, there are primary trip generators and secondary trip generators. Let’s talk about the primary.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: Now, you go to various shows yearly, don’t you?
Danna Crawford: Oh yeah.
Wayne Jordan: What was the last one you went to?
Danna Crawford: Brimfield.
Wayne Jordan: Okay, good. A good example is Brimfield. Now, when you go to Brimfield, tell me about your expenditures. From start to finish, what did you pay to go to Brimfield, get your inventory or whatever, ship it, and come back home? Start to finish.
Danna Crawford: Well, you mean like with airlines,
Wayne Jordan: Yeah, from the start…
Danna Crawford: hotels.
Wayne Jordan: right.
Danna Crawford: Yeah, so you have to book your airline and hotel tickets, and you try to get as close to the event as possible. And in areas like Brimfield, it’s easier if you want to stay at a motel.
You don’t have fancy luxuries, but I was okay with spending one night at a motel and enjoying the local culture. What I also enjoyed was going to a local restaurant, Mom and Pop for breakfast,
Wayne Jordan: That’s right.
Danna Crawford: that had a local Boy Scout troop selling popcorn.
Wayne Jordan: Wow.
Danna Crawford: It was enjoyable and cheap. The breakfast was cheap. So that was the kickstart to setting you up for that hometown’s culture, the feeling of the local vibe.
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: And then going to Brimfield is incredible. I love Brimfield. It’s got to be my favorite place to hunt for antiques and treasures. And I did drop $400 on a stereo while I was there.
Wayne Jordan: Really?
Danna Crawford: And yeah.
Wayne Jordan: We’ll have to talk another time about that. You know, that’s right up my alley.
Danna Crawford: I know.
Wayne Jordan: Yeah.
Danna Crawford: I’m so happy because I just got it running. And it’s got disco lights, and it’s a turntable. It also has an eight-track tape player, and it all works.
Wayne Jordan: Wonderful.
Danna Crawford: I’m so excited. So, I paid about $600 to ship it home. That was an expense paid $400.
Wayne Jordan: In addition to the 400?
Danna Crawford: Yes.
Wayne Jordan: Well, that’s a pretty hefty investment, Danna. So you’re going to have to change your moniker.
Danna Crawford: Ha ha ha!
Wayne Jordan: No more power-selling mom stuff. You got to be Disco Danna.
Danna Crawford: Yeah, I just had to have it. I had to have it. So
Wayne Jordan: I understand. I understand.
Danna Crawford: yeah, it was something I wanted.
Wayne Jordan: So you had to make travel arrangements. You made, did you rent a car?
Danna Crawford: I did rent a car.
Wayne Jordan: You rented a car, you found lodging, you got to the show, you spent $400, you spent another $600 on shipping. What did you eat when you were at the show?
Danna Crawford: Um, the local pilgrim food.
Wayne Jordan: Pilgrim sandwiches,
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: right? Turkey and dressing and Cranberry sauce. One of my favorites, one So, illustrates my point about a primary trip.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: You decided to go to Breifield. Brimfield was on your radar. But there are towns all over America known for their antique district. Adamstown, Pennsylvania, in Lancaster County in Amish country, you know, where you see the horses and buggies.
Danna Crawford: I love that.
Wayne Jordan: However, the tourism website says they have 5,000 antique dealers. I’d have to see it to believe it. I know not just antique stores, but they have flea markets and weekend vendors. So overall, they might have 5,000 people involved in it, but you can’t go there and shop 5,000 stores. But it’s still worth going to, and many people do.
And big markets everywhere. You have Long Beach and Round Top, and the list goes on.
Destinations that people go to for antiques. But… There’s also all of the ancillary money that they spend, and the breakdown That I’ve seen is that for every dollar someone spends On antiques the reason they went for every dollar, they spend $4 on other things now you spend $400, but you spend 600 on shipping, you bought airline tickets round trip. You had hotels, you had food. I think for that particular trip, you probably spent more on ancillary expenses than you did
Danna Crawford: Yeah,
Wayne Jordan: In primary, right? Okay.
Danna Crawford: Sure, sure.
Wayne Jordan: The other thing with the antiques is that they could be a secondary revenue source, a secondary trip generator, and that people will get to a town to see other things, like, for example, oh last summer my wife and I went to a Monticello, you know, Thomas Jefferson’s place outside of Charlottesville, Virginia.
Danna Crawford: Nice.
Wayne Jordan: It was excellent and historic, and we just walked around and said we were completely worn out. It’s a lovely place, and I highly recommend it. But people often go to a site like that and do not want to leave. They’ve seen the attraction they went there to see, but they want more. And for cultural heritage travelers, antiques are high on the list.
They’ll see an antique store, district, or mall and want to go. They’ll spend another day. So they will extend their stay for antiques. So they’ll go there in the first place for the antiques, or they’ll open their visit for the antiques. Either way, for cultural heritage, tourism antiques play a big role.
Danna Crawford: Wow. I didn’t mention that I enjoy finding unique things that I may want to keep, but I also like the challenge of finding something to flip to help pay for my trip. So that’s another angle I do when I go to things like that.
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: So I did find a couple of lamps.
Wayne Jordan: Mm-hmm.
Danna Crawford: And a valuable clock that I still need to list because I am enjoying their presence in my home, but I do plan on selling it, and they will add up to enough to pay for my trip.
Wayne Jordan: Right, right. And that’s how it often is for dealers. If I wanted to get a motor coach or an RV and hit the road, I could probably pay for everything by picking antiques.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: But I don’t want to work that hard anymore. I’m retired.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: Let someone else do that.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: I don’t do too much. buying and selling anymore. If I’m out and I see something that I think is just killer and the price is right, and it will be a good investment, or I’ll be able to get my usual markup when I flip it, I may go ahead and buy it. but I’m not out beating the bushes for inventory
Danna Crawford: No, of course not.
Wayne Jordan: And listing, you know, a thousand items in an eBay store and using multi-platform like List Perfectly so I can be sure to hit all the marketplaces.
Danna Crawford: Yep, you’re at a different level. You don’t have to do that anymore, right?
Wayne Jordan: Yeah, well, I always figured I’d be rich and handsome when I got to this age.
Danna Crawford: Well, one out of two
Wayne Jordan: I’ll let you guess which one.
Danna Crawford: Yeah, one out of two is alright. Ha ha ha. No, but I think that… Tourism is so fascinating, and I, you know, went to an airline travel college. I love to travel too, and I love the experience, like you said, of the locals and the heritage, just learning and absorbing it all.
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: The other day, I had a guest who does motor coach tours to thrift stores.
Wayne Jordan: Oh wow.
Danna Crawford: and yeah.
Wayne Jordan: Let me write this down. This sounds like the seed of an article here.
Danna Crawford: Yes, it was fascinating to speak with Patty Clark. She’s on an episode here at the Power Selling Podcast. She does motor coach tours from Ocala, Florida, to Naples, Florida.
Wayne Jordan: Mm-hmm.
Danna Crawford is planning on doing more, but she has a bus with 50 people and fills it every Thursday. And it’s impressive. But my point is there’s a thrift store. You know, you go to a thrift store. Many of my friends are resellers and thrifters, and you don’t expect to see antiques, but I’m amazed at how many there are because. A lot of times, the thrift stores need to learn what they are. However, sometimes they overprice them because they’re antique.
I went into a thrift store in Fort Myers, just like St. John’s Hope, thinking I would look for clothes to flip on eBay. And here, there were cases and cases of antique porcelain dolls, corkscrews, and all kinds of genuine antiques.
I was amazed; here we were at a little thrift store I never dreamed of. And then I even asked him if this was a consignment store. Because it seemed so well put together, but it wasn’t. It was there for a charity shop. So you never know. The thrift stores may have sections on antiques.
Wayne Jordan: Right. Well, antiques get a bum rap these days because they’re… You say antique, and you think, you know, old and dusty and brown furniture and mold—you know, the deal.
But I’ve always been an antique guy. I prefer antiques. Collectibles only do a little for me. They’re here today, gone tomorrow. Most of them get wrapped up in a bubble that eventually bursts. I’m just not into NFTs, trading cards, and that thing.
Danna Crawford: Right.
Wayne Jordan: But give me a nice, well-put-together piece of furniture or handcrafted… porcelain or glass, and I’m over the moon. I love to see that kind of stuff, and you can still find things like that around because people aren’t used to looking for it anymore. They need to find out what it looks like. The knockoffs are so commonplace and so good these days that you have to know how to approach glassware or something, you know, what
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: It smells like it feels in your hand and is translucent. You have to use your senses to do that. That’s why I like antique stores. We’ve talked about this before. I owned several stores, and we sold musical instruments and music-related antiques and collectibles.
We had an extensive restoration shop. We did. antiques and pianos, and our work were in governor’s mansions and museums, and that was my thing in those days When I was young enough to work that hard. Something nice about stores is you can go in and pick items up, touch them, feel them, and turn them around in your hands. feel the heft of it. And that’s something that you can never do in online selling.
Danna Crawford: That’s right.
Wayne Jordan: You also can’t interact with customers as well. Customer interaction and customer care when someone walks into your store are getting to be lost art. I wrote, once I heard, there was a time when I was in a department store. This was a few years back when department stores were a thing. You know, you.
Danna Crawford: Mm-hmm.
Wayne Jordan: Go to the mall, and you go to the department store. And a woman was walking around with, in the men’s department, which is where I was, the mother holding the four-year-old’s hand, and the sales clerk came up and said, Can I help you? And the little boy said, No, we’re just looking. And it just floored me. I was four years old, and his mother trained him. He just did this because he’s her at her stand.
Danna Crawford: Yeah, of course.
Wayne Jordan: So I didn’t know what to be shocked about—that came out of a four-year-old’s mouth or the clerk said, “‘Oh, okay,’ and turned around and left.” You know? And I see that all the time. I was at a big Hillsville, Virginia, with a vast flea market on Labor Day. People come from far away as Texas; you know it’s enormous. And you’ll have to check it out sometime.
Danna Crawford: Yeah, I will.
Wayne Jordan: There was a charming antique display. It was a tented area. They had artificial turf over the ground there. It was all well-merchandised; they had everything tagged, and my wife and I walked in, looking around and seeing if anything caught my eye, crickets from the husband and wife sitting there watching us walk around. I picked up a tag and looked at it, and the first thing he said to me was, My first contact with that dealer was, those prices are negotiable.
So right away, what’s he telling me? First of all, he ignored me when I came in. Secondly, he said his prices are a fantasy,
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: because that’s not what he’s gonna get for it. And he never got up out of his chair. I mean, you know, give me.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: a break. That often happens in retail stores because people don’t know the process. And… Antiques dealers and folks with an antique store have such a significant edge. When people go into an antique store, most of them go into browsing. Some of them may be collectors looking for particular things. But most of the folks going in are there to browse. Those are your very best people to try to make a sale to. because they’re not looking for something specific; if they come in, they say, do you have a Framistan off of a Gibson guitar? And you say, no, they’re out the door.
Danna Crawford: Mm-hmm.
Wayne Jordan: But if someone comes in, I greet them when they come through the door. Hi, thanks for coming by. Take the time to look around. I’ll be with you in a minute. That’s even if I’m doing nothing.
Danna Crawford: Mm-hmm.
Wayne Jordan: I’ll be with them in a minute, give them a chance to walk around, and notice what they pick up and what gets their attention. And then once they’ve settled on something, I’ll approach them with, gee, that’s nice. Did you used to have one of those when you were a kid? Oh yeah, we took this down to the stream, and we would float these things on the water and shoot at them with our BB guns, and my friend hit his eye out, you know. But
Danna Crawford: Start a conversation.
Wayne Jordan: Let them settle down and start a conversation with them because if you don’t do that if they pick up something and say, what’s the best you can do on this?
Danna Crawford: Right.
Wayne Jordan: Instantly, you’re in a dicker. Nobody wins a dicker. A dicker becomes about price. That’s what I don’t like about online selling. I do it, but it’s all about price. I mean, you can
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: write descriptions until you’ve written War and Peace. It will still come down to price, but you can draw someone out in an antique store. Get them reminiscing. bring nostalgia into the picture
Danna Crawford: Mm-hmm.
Wayne Jordan: because people don’t biologically, they are bi-emotionally.
Danna Crawford: Mm-hmm.
Wayne Jordan: The bi-emotionally, they justify logically. So if they’re holding this thing and telling you the story, you can capitalize on it. He says something, and you repeat it back to him, and he just keeps on going until he goes home without that thing because it means so much to him.
Danna Crawford: Sure.
Wayne Jordan: And then… there will always be a negotiation on price, but then it becomes a matter of value, not
Danna Crawford: Mm-hmm.
Wayne Jordan: price, but value, the value to him. Why
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: does he value it? Why does he want it? And what’s it worth to him? For example, I was a huge baseball fan as a kid. This goes back to Washington Senators Day. I grew up in D.C. and… I went to the old Griffith Stadium before the new stadium was built. I mean, this, we’re talking 1950s. And so I like baseball. I especially like the Senators, and I’m not a card collector.
But if I came across Camillo Pasquale, a Senators pitcher, and saw a card like that, I might be willing to pay $50 or $60 for it because… I, and that guy, Camila Pascuales, a pitcher, only ever hit a home run, one home run in his career. He hit it into the left-field bleachers, and I was in the left-field bleachers with my best friend when that ball hit, and my friend got it.
Danna Crawford: Oh.
Wayne Jordan: So if I saw that card, it’s valuable to me because there’s
Danna Crawford: Sure.
Wayne Jordan: a story that goes along with it. Now, if the dealer thought this card could be worth 20 bucks. I’d pay him 20 dollars in a heartbeat. But he could
Danna Crawford: Mm-hmm.
Wayne Jordan: I would have gotten 60 if he’d talked to me about it.
Danna Crawford: Mm-hmm.
Wayne Jordan: You know what I mean?
Danna Crawford: see.
Wayne Jordan: And that’s why it takes some interaction. You’ve got to uncover their values and why they want something. And you can only do that if you’re in an antique store, in a one-to-one situation. You could
Danna Crawford: Sure.
Wayne Jordan: do that in a show, of course, but in concerts, you’ve got so many people to deal with.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: It’s an entirely different process there. But this is what I like about antique shows, and I am a sucker for a good salesman and an excellent antique dealer. Because if he starts saying what I would have said, he’s got me, I’m done. Ha ha.
Danna Crawford: I love that. That’s, you know, it’s something that sellers probably overlook, you know, as part of their marketing plan because
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: you don’t; you just think about the sale and the money
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: and you need to think about the interaction.
Wayne Jordan: Right. Well, consider for a minute why we call it shopping. We’re going around looking and comparing, and that’s shopping. If we weren’t out looking and comparing, we’d be buying.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: So we’re shopping. That’s different. It’s
Danna Crawford: Mm-hmm.
Wayne Jordan: Shopping provides a different level of satisfaction for people. How many people do you know who refer to shopping as retail therapy? That’s why it’s therapeutic.
Danna Crawford: Yeah, a lot. You know, because it is therapeutic. And that’s why many of these people also go on this bus trip. Because they mingle with people and shop. And some
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: Of them, there is no direction. They want to look around and have a good time. But you have your other people who are resellers. and they’re going because they get discounts at all these
Wayne Jordan: Right,
Danna Crawford: stores.
Wayne Jordan: sure.
Danna Crawford: So they get a 75% discount.
Wayne Jordan: Wow.
Danna Crawford: So it’s a significant discount. And
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: Many resellers will pay $70 to go on a bus trip to get the discounts at all the thrift stores, but they’re looking. There’s one guy who collects military memorabilia.
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: another one collects fishing gear, and they’re on a mission. So
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: It’s so interesting that there are just so many types.
Wayne Jordan: That’s true. When I was actively dealing, I saw… My wife used to tease me about it. We’d go somewhere, and I’d eye something, and she’d raise her eyebrows and go, ooh, income opportunity. Because I saw everything through that lens, you know.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: I’d see; what will I pay for it? How am I going to market it? Who’s going to buy it? That was all top of mind because
Danna Crawford: Yes.
Wayne Jordan: I was in that groove. I was out looking for inventory, and that’s what I was doing. But now I like this phase of my life.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: Where do I not have to do that anymore? If I find something that’s killer, I will buy it because that’s what I do. But I like taking my time and examining something.
Danna Crawford: Sure.
Wayne Jordan: I appreciate the craftsmanship and that sort of thing. And Well, once I’ve done that, if I want to flip it, I’ll flip it.
Danna Crawford: You’ve come a long way, Wayne. I mean, thinking about auctioneering and repairing furniture and, you know, going through all of the cycles of your life. And now it’s like, okay, I wanna buy it, I’m gonna buy it. And,
Wayne Jordan: That’s right.
Danna Crawford: You know, I don’t have to flip it. If I want to flip it, I will, but it’s still just a little more relaxing.
Wayne Jordan: Well, quite a bit. And now the pressure’s off.
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: I mean, I didn’t grow up to be a gazillionaire,
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: but I live comfortably. It’s my wife and I are kids, are grown and married, and have our own families and
Danna Crawford: Yeah.
Wayne Jordan: they’re self-supporting. I mean, it’s a nice spot to be in,
Danna Crawford: Sure.
Wayne Jordan: but by golly, I earned it.
Danna Crawford: That’s it—the circle of life.
Wayne Jordan: That’s right.
Danna Crawford: And you earned it. That’s it. I do have to tell you, I went into a Salvation Army and looked around. I needed to go to the restroom, but I was in a hurry, and I thought, no, I’m just gonna keep looking some more. And then
Wayne Jordan: make depends, you know?
Danna Crawford: So I spot this giant… Coca-Cola bottles were about 24 inches tall. There were six of them, and they were in a big wooden box, and the box was marked as some amusement company. And here it was like a ring toss game from a carnival.
Wayne Jordan: Wow.
Danna Crawford: and it had the wooden rings laying
Wayne Jordan: Mm-hmm.
Danna Crawford: on the bottles, it was up very high on a shelf. Excuse me. And I thought, OMG, I gotta have that. I thought, so I hurried up and looked it up online, and I thought, $500, easy. Because this was whatever amusement it had on it, and it was a rare item from an amusement park from the ring toss.
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: And it had the Coca-Cola brand all over it. And so, looking around, I need help finding someone to help me. And I said, okay, I have to go to the restroom. So I went straight to the bathroom. I hurried back, and as I returned, a lady was pushing her cart with the Coca-Cola bottle set. And I was like, no, no. And I didn’t know how much they were either. And so I’m angry at myself. I like it, and I already have a cart full of clothing items. So I was like, okay, let me leave.
I’ll get behind her. So I got behind her in the checkout line and just waited. And she goes, looking at him and me. Yeah, those are pretty cool. And she goes, I go. I’ll be honest with you. I wanted them, but I had to go to the restroom.
Then she goes, oh, oh, I’m sorry. And I thought, yeah, I’m sorry too. And I said, what are you going to do? them. She said, oh, we’re having a party this weekend, and I’m just gonna have them out so that people can, we’re gonna do for shots, you know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna toss the rings to have pictures of tequila. And I was just like, oh.
And so I wanted so bad, I just froze; I didn’t know what to say. Here’s my card when you’re done playing. Can you call me for tequila shots? I’ll buy them from you. And I didn’t know how to handle it because
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: part of me, do you know that’s worth a lot of money? And part of me didn’t want to tell her.
Wayne Jordan: Right.
Danna Crawford: And so I froze, and then she went to check out, and the clerk said, where’s the price tag on that? And she said, oh, it’s right here, it’s 24.99. And I almost threw up.
Wayne Jordan: Well…
Danna Crawford: So it’s like, okay, wasn’t meant to be, wasn’t meant to be. Think of the badge. When I went to the restroom, I already had it in my mind, and I wondered how I would ship it in a giant Charmin toilet paper roll box. So I had it all figured out, and I would list it and ship it. And I never dreamed that it would have gone that fast. So
Wayne Jordan: Yeah.
Danna Crawford: snooze, you lose.
Wayne Jordan: And it happens, and it has happened to all of us.
Danna Crawford: Yes, but there you have it. There’s a very cool item found in the Salvation Army. So Wayne, as far as traveling goes, are you gonna get to travel, or will you just be interviewing people?
Wayne Jordan: Well, I doubt that I’ll be traveling. Pardon me. I probably won’t be traveling for the publications I write for because
Danna Crawford: Okay.
Wayne Jordan: what they pay for articles won’t pay for the trip.
Danna Crawford: I see.
Wayne Jordan: But if I’m already going somewhere, I’ll take advantage of it. Right now, I’m working with the. Oh, I’m trying to remember what they’re called. It’s the Blue Ridge Travel Association in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. It comprises five or six counties.
I’ll travel regularly to little Blue Ridge towns, writing about and blogging about them. So, for this summer anyway, I’ll be traveling up and down the 460 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the little towns along the way. So mind this summer, it will be mountain culture and that thing. And I’ll be putting those on the Intiqs Tourism website as well.
Danna Crawford: That is gonna be fun. Now, your wife will go with you. You can make
Wayne Jordan: Oh, I don’t go anywhere without her.
Danna Crawford: aw. That’ll be a fun adventure.
Wayne Jordan: Right. Yeah, it should
Danna Crawford: Yeah,
Wayne Jordan: should be. We’ve lived here for quite a while and hit most of the high spots, but there are so many places that we have yet to go. Festivals and wineries. We have a world-class cheese maker right here in Galax. They win competitions in France, and it’s,
Danna Crawford: Wow.
Wayne Jordan: you know, it’s a local mountain cheese company. So, there are lots of cultural and heritage activities here. This is the Galax, where I live, and it is deemed the world capital of all-time mountain music. This was around before bluegrass. So, you know, it’s the absolute classic stuff and everywhere. oh, and not to mention the moonshine capital of the world, a couple
Danna Crawford: Really?
Wayne Jordan: of counties over and in Franklin County, Virginia, written books and movies about that and And I, you know, it might be more fun if I still enjoyed moonshine, but boy,
Danna Crawford:Hahaha
Wayne Jordan: that stuff will eat your stomach and your throat and everything along
Danna Crawford: haha
Wayne Jordan: the way, so I don’t mess with that.
Danna Crawford: Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty toxic.
Wayne Jordan: It makes tequila look like milk of magnesium.
Danna Crawford: There you go. Oh, my goodness. Well, any final words, Wayne?
Wayne Jordan: Yeah, let’s see. Antiques are relevant. They’re fun. Traveling to embrace antiques as a part of cultural heritage tourism is the best way to go because getting there is half the fun.
Danna Crawford: Perfect. All right, well, thanks for joining me today, Wayne.
Wayne Jordan: Sure, sure.
Danna Crawford: I wish you all the best for continued success. And
Wayne Jordan: Well…
Danna Crawford: maybe I’ll run into you in an antique store soon.
Wayne Jordan: Oh, well, we’ll be talking again.
Danna Crawford: All right, I can’t
Wayne Jordan: Alright, bye-bye.
Danna Crawford: Bye.
Connect with Wayne at: https://blueridgetales.com/
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