When we first dove into all of this, we called ourselves “pickers”. Recently, we’ve learned that not all of us fall under the term given popularity by Mike Wolf and his show American Pickers. I happened to purchase Wolf’s book Kid Pickers to see how he went about teaching kiddos to pick. We have our own ideas . . . yep, that’s coming soon. However, while reading through this super fun book, I quickly learned that what we are doing does not really define us as pickers, so we had to come up with a new word: doubler. Allow me to define the difference to give you a better glimpse into our life.
Picker – In his book, Wolf says a picker is a finder of antiques (anything older than 70 years) or the vintage (before you were born). Pickers don’t always flip or sell their item for a higher price than what they originally paid, sometimes it’s all about the history or a specific collection.
Our Jack is a bit of a picker (but also an amazing doubler–I’ll get to that in a minute). He has an old soul, collects Coca-Cola memorabilia, Mickey Mouse, and old tools (and melt my heart if he didn’t get excited that The Andy Griffith Show is in black and white). When we travel, he usually lands in an antique store and walks out with whatever has touched his soul that day, like the vintage roller skates he found in Midway, KY.
Me, I’m the picker of the bunch. I’ve loved old things ever since I was a little girl, not necessarily antiques, but the industrial, the useful, or the once practical. My collection spans every room of our house and includes a wooden tool box, fishing net, trunk, a set of black badly chipping shutters (I kept them that way), and the vintage mail bag my dad bought at a flea market for the purpose of carrying his sheet music . . . to name a few. I very rarely look for something to double when we are out and about. Truthfully, I don’t enjoy digging for the flip, but I’m more than happy to tag along just to be with the family. I like to hear about their finds, photograph the journey, share our adventures on social media, write it all up, and stick it on our website. So, I’m the picker and definitely not a doubler.
Doubler – A doubler purchases an item (used, new at a discount, or in need of minor repair, etc.) and sells it for at least double the purchase price. Often times, said doubler will use the profit to purchase more “doublable” items. (I’m pretty sure we are totally making up some of these words because my spell checker is going bonkers. Note: A doubler is also an electronic device that doubles the frequency of an input signal.)
Jamie is all doubler. He’ll take the old, only if he can double his money . . . like with the machinist’s tool box that made me drool–it was old, rusted, and super cool–but he could easily double his purchase price, and I had nowhere to put the amazing piece of history. (Luckily, it went to a good home). Jamie has honed the craft, developed an eye for finds and has gotten to the point where he has even mentored a few people in the art of doubling!
Kensi is also a doubler . . . when she wants to be. It’s not her gig, and we get it. She really doesn’t enjoy the whole yard sale scene, but if she needs the money, she’s ready to invest, knows how to research items on her phone, and has an eye for what to buy.
Having a house of pickers and doublers makes our monthly family trip to the flea market pretty exciting with all us having our minds in different places. Like the time I found the goggles for $5 . . . oh, my soul . . . those goggles! Jamie looked up how much they were worth; I stuck them on my flying pig.
The Doubling Project is about doubling . . . it started as a fun way to get to a million with just one dollar! We got a bit sidetracked when we realized we could use the side account–the anything we earned over and above in each round–to take trips, eat out a little more often, buy those fun things we would put on our ‘wait until we have enough’ list, and do it all as a family. We haven’t given up; we’re still on our mission to a million . . . as a family of doublers . . . and pickers.
Check out our progress to a million HERE and be sure to follow us on social media!
