Page 62 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

phone in their orders after five-thirty, when he returns home from making his
canvass of the district. An average of two sales daily is turned in by these
women, which, with Angle’s personal sales, brings daily profits between $14
and $19.

Antiques Are Coming Back

J

ACK OVERHAUSS drove a truck for a Chicago retail furniture dealer. One
day he was instructed to take the truck over to a railway warehouse and pick
up a spinning wheel, said to be an expensive antique the dealer had difficulty
acquiring. Later when he unpacked the spinning wheel, Overhauss recalled
having played with a similar spinning wheel, when a boy, in the attic of his
mother’s home at Jackson, Minnesota. He mentioned this to his employer.

“If you know where there’s another spinning wheel like this and can get it for
me,” the dealer told him, “I’ll pay you fifty dollars.” Overhauss promptly
replied he knew where there were at least a dozen near Jackson, and was told
to get them. Overhauss went up to Jackson, inquired among his mother’s
neighbors about their spinning wheels, and in less than a week obtained seven
at an average cost of four dollars each. Before returning to Chicago he
secured a total of thirty-nine spinning wheels from residents of Jackson and
surrounding territory, who were glad to dispose of them at the price
Overhauss offered just to get them out of the way.

During his stay in Jackson, Overhauss kept on the alert for other items. While
seeking spinning wheels, he noticed a number of articles in the attics and
barns of the homes and farms he visited, such as flint lock pistols, flint lock
muskets, bowie knives, bows and arrows used in Indian warfare, spears,
hatchets, unique caskets, and other objects which had been kept by the
families for many years but which no longer possessed sentimental value for
their owners. Overhauss listed these articles and sent copies of the list to
several furniture and antique dealers. Within a few days he received an order
from one dealer for the entire lot and realized a profit of over $300.