The Little World

Start with a large fortune and go there to sell model goods.

Well, you knew that punchline was coming when you started reading. You should have stopped then. Too late, you have to finish reading this article now.

Going to the Big Local Model Exhibition at Cannington Central with goods to sell is a sure-fire way to spend a weekend. Saturday and Sunday will be right there for you and you’ll be right there too. The awkward part of it is when goods that arrived with you on Saturday leave with you on Sunday. But then that’s day to day retail, eh?

Yep. Day to day is one thing, because you may be able to shift something tomorrow that languished today, but it becomes a different story when it is an annual event only and the day to day becomes year to year. Think of it in bakery terms; today’s fresh bread rolls may be drier tomorrow – but still saleable. In a year’s time you could use ’em for rock fights.

This was never so evident as with the sales stock of a friend of mine. I’d seen the goods on offer in 2018. They may have been set out again in 2019, but none of us went to a fair in 2020 and 2021 only brought discount buyers. The capital tied up in the goods did nothing good in four years.

It’s a tough call to know exactly what to sell, exactly when, and exactly where. If the where is fixed, and the when is annual, the what needs to be very carefully thought out before a penny is spent on the stock. I suspect that as hobbyists and enthusiasts we are carried away with our own lusts and buy up what we want to own without thinking whether others would share that emotion.