I read an article this morning in the New York Post detailing someone’s big find in a storage locker auction: half a million dollars worth of Spanish gold. The auctioneers (Dan and Laura Dotson) are the same people who are star on the A&E tv show, Storage Wars, although the find was apparently not caught on tape.
According to the auctioneer, the previous owner of the Spanish gold was a lady who paid a few hundred dollars a month to lease her storage unit. When she passed away, her credit card payments stopped being made, and the abandoned locker was auctioned, sight unseen.
As much as I enjoy watching Storage Wars, my mind wandered a bit when I read the article. I instantly thought about the domain names I own that are automatically renewed annually and paid for via credit card. If/when something happens to me, my credit card will be cancelled or expire, and it will be up to someone else to renew my company domain names. Should they fail to do so, the domain names will expire and likely be auctioned.
There are a couple of lessons in this I suppose. First, I like to have my best domain names renewed for a number of years in advance. At least this would buy time for whomever is responsible for my domain names when I’m gone. Second, you should have a continuity plan for your business should something happen to you. This is especially important if you have advertisers on your websites.
Domain Guardians (I wrote about them when the company started) is one company that can advise you on how to protect your domain assets when you’re gone. You can also speak with an attorney if you prefer to deal with it privately. It’s not a fun issue to discuss, but if you happen to have valuable domain names, it’s a topic that needs to be addressed before something happens.
If I spend over $100 on a domain, I have no hesitation to spending another $70 to max out the registration at 10 years.
Storage Wars is good entertainment and has some similarities to domaining. When will Domain Wars come out?
Good reminder in regards to domain names, but, as far as storage wars goes… don’t believe the hype.
Storage Wars is 100% fake. Similar auctions do happen, but, the type of ‘treasure’ found inside these lockers is much different. Unpaid storage lockers are full of junk. Often it costs less to pay for the cheap introductory rate of your first months storage that it does to pay to take your garbage to the dump.
The things the actors find in their lockers on storage wars is planted for entertainment. It looks like this latest find will prove to be a good publicity stunt for the show and another nail in the coffin for second hand store owners that once had a chance of buying junk for cheap and reslling it at a bit of a profit.
Having attended quite a few of these several years ago, I saw quite a variety. From the first locker I ever bought (for $35) which contained a British Enfield Bayonet I sold for over $200 on eBay to the large locker stuffed to the gills (for $100) that contained a complete workout machine (sold for $450), and a new outdoor patio set ($300) and black porn collection (left it there :).
I’ve seen garage sized lockers full of new furniture, one full of pro power tools, and lockers full of sealed totes.
Bought one with sealed fire safe and assorted stuff (for $15). Nothing in the safe, but got the combo from the manufacturer for $30 and sold the safe for $120.
But along the way were the lots MikeH described. These are primarily at the local uHaul where they offer no deposit, $15 dollar move in on occassion and people just take garbage there and walk away. Literally bags of broken concrete, non working appliances and such.
The biggest problem with these auction is the number of storage wars viewers that show up and over bid on everything. Two or three of these clowns show up an get in bidding wars with each other and the regulars just walk away from most of the units.