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least break even. By 1:00PM on Sunday, I had not sold many of the
remaining bottles and many of the collectors had already left for home. I
was getting nervous. Then my old friend from New York approached me
and asked me what I would take for the rest of the bottles. I said $10,000
and he countered with $8,000. He and two of his
friends from New York were interested in the
collection because they all collected different spirits
and there were plenty of what each of them
wanted. I countered with an offer of $8,000 and
they take possession of the bottles right there at the
show or $9,000 and I would cover the shipping to
New York. They chose the $8,000 and it was the
wrong decision. They each gave me a check for
one third of the $8,000 but before I consummated
the deal, I called my good friend Tony Natelli in
New York to ask him if he knew the other two guys
and if their checks were good. Tony gave them the
"thumbs up" and I consummated the deal.

Then the trouble began. The fellows loaded up the bottles in our U-Haul and we took them
to the airport and they had sky caps unload the bottles at the airline they were flying. There
were about 70 boxes left. I am guessing that they bought about 8,000 bottles that day. We
then went to return the U-Haul truck and took a taxi back to the airport. It took us about two
hours to do all of this. By the time we got back to the airport. Lo and Behold, there were the
guys still trying to find an airline that would take the boxes of bottles as freight. As it turned,
none of them would. One of the guys owned a business in New York
that had a truck and he ended up sending his truck and one of his
employees on a round trip from New York to Chicago and back to
bring the bottles home. It cost them more than $1,000 to do this.

The final result......

$17,000 loan paid back in 10 days. No interest paid.
$3,000 profit

1,100 great bottles added to my collection.

Many other collectors found bottles for their collections that were
extremely hard to find.

All in all, a real success story.

I am not encouraging anyone else to do something this crazy but sometimes you just get
lucky. And have a great wife! (but Mary is long suffering! – Ed.)

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