PSA: Spending $300 on a barn find 'barn find' is a waste

Everyone says buy the car not the story, but I sank $300 into a 'rare' 1972 Datsun pickup that the seller swore was untouched in a barn for 30 years. Turned out the floors were Swiss cheese and the engine was seized solid from sitting in a leaky shed, not a dry barn. Anyone else get burned on a so-called dry storage find that was actually a rust bucket?

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2 Comments

nancy3913mo ago

Right, "buy the car not the story" is the golden rule, but my problem is people apply that same logic to everything now. It's like the whole "farm fresh" label on eggs at the grocery store, you pay triple the price for a story about a happy chicken but the eggs are still just eggs from a factory farm. Same deal with my friend who bought a "vintage" lamp at a flea market because the seller had some tear-jerker tale about it being from a old theater, but the wiring was all wrong and it was just a cheap reproduction. Everyone loves a good story, but you gotta check the floors, not the barn.

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wilson.claire3mo ago

@nancy391 I get what you're saying but I think the farm fresh egg thing is a slightly different problem. With eggs you're paying for a label that's basically marketing, not really a story from a person. The lamp thing is more about trusting a stranger's tale over your own eyes. In my experience, you can usually spot a cheap reproduction if you look at the hardware or the way the joints are put together. Stories can be fun but they don't replace actually checking the thing yourself.

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