I came home yesterday to find one of my wife's friends looking through the state "shopper" -- Uncle Henrys. Once in a while she would stop, pause for a minute and then circle the ad. Finally, I asked her what she was doing and she replied that she was checking out prices on woodstoves since she was planning on selling her woodstove.
Of course this caught my interest so I asked her what brand of stove it was . . . to which she said she didn't know. I then asked her how big the firebox was . . . to which she had no answer. I then asked how old it was . . . this time around she stated that it was about 10 years old.
I stopped asking questions until she started reading an existing ad which stated that the stove was just like new and the advertisers were hoping to get $250. After reading the ad she declared that she thought her stove could also get $250.
Curious, I told her I might be able to give her a bit of an idea of whether her stove was worth that much . . . and so we went back to her house.
I'll cut to the chase here. First off, the stove was built by Crane Stove Works . . . not exactly a Jotul, vintage Vermont Castings or Morso. The date? 1981 . . . which my wife noted made this stove a bit older than "10 years" and more like 27 years old. The entire stove (inside and out) was covered in rust. The door handle and ash clean out door handles were held on with a few nuts that even a blind man could tell were not original to the stove as they were loose and slopping all over the place.
In the end I dashed her hopes by telling her that I told her I suspected she would be lucky to get $25 for the stove and not $250 as she was hoping.
Of course this caught my interest so I asked her what brand of stove it was . . . to which she said she didn't know. I then asked her how big the firebox was . . . to which she had no answer. I then asked how old it was . . . this time around she stated that it was about 10 years old.
I stopped asking questions until she started reading an existing ad which stated that the stove was just like new and the advertisers were hoping to get $250. After reading the ad she declared that she thought her stove could also get $250.
Curious, I told her I might be able to give her a bit of an idea of whether her stove was worth that much . . . and so we went back to her house.
I'll cut to the chase here. First off, the stove was built by Crane Stove Works . . . not exactly a Jotul, vintage Vermont Castings or Morso. The date? 1981 . . . which my wife noted made this stove a bit older than "10 years" and more like 27 years old. The entire stove (inside and out) was covered in rust. The door handle and ash clean out door handles were held on with a few nuts that even a blind man could tell were not original to the stove as they were loose and slopping all over the place.
In the end I dashed her hopes by telling her that I told her I suspected she would be lucky to get $25 for the stove and not $250 as she was hoping.
