Month: January 2010

(June 4, 2013 update, found 3 more packages)

Over the years, the Vintage Ronson Wired Wick has become one of my favorite Things, and it will always hold a special place for me in the Fell-Through-The-Cracks Department.

My original professional pursuit was in distributing candy and tobacco products and within those lines we handled Ronson (as opposed to Zippo, which was probably more dominant by the time I came along in the mid 1970’s). We sold some flints, some lighter fluid, but it was a slow line for us and we maybe turned a couple of orders a year from the manufacturer.

Before my time as a buyer of these products, somebody bought a case of wicks which proceeded to languish in our warehouses forever. At the time, wick-type lighters were taking a huge hit from disposables, like Bic.

Not a big deal, probably, but it drove our computers crazy that the things didn’t sell. They knew that while the wicks cost very little, they weren’t racking up any sales. Computers hate that.

By 1995 we had sold the distributing business, but still not the wicks and they moved to my Dad’s garage, still asking for nothing to eat, but still sticking out in plain sight as something that wasn’t going anywhere.

Originally I failed to see the promise but eventually I sold some at a surprisingly vigorous rate at eBay. At surprising prices. You can still buy wicks like these, but EVERYBODY’S computers still hate them and you can’t FIND them anywhere.

After a while I got tired of paying fees for selling something I could easily see was an exclusive, so I moved the wicks to my own site. This was my first complete migration like that, and it succeeded. My original Agora Cart only handed me sales on one product, but the wicks were it, and I had proved to myself I could stand alone and sell something.

Earlier this year I replaced that cart with my present Zen Cart, which gets found better on the Internet, especially if you support it with a blog like this. The wicks became my best seller (in numbers, not dollars), and I enjoyed a nice steady business on them until the last ones went out this afternoon, which was probably also my last sale before Christmas (since it is already Christmas Eve 2010 at the time of this edit).

I’m gonna miss the Ronson Wicks-they’re a true Hall Of Famer around here. No, I never banked millions, but I learned a VERY valuable lesson about spotting Things that fell through the cracks, and it means everything to me to actually understand what I’m doing.

Realized $3.99 x 4 12/24/10
Realized $2.99 12/4/10
Realized $2.99 10/7/10
Realized $2.99 x 7 9/24/10
Realized $2.99 x 8 8/20/10
Realized $2.99 x 2 8/3/10
Realized $2.99 x 2 6/29/10
Realized $2.99 x 4 5/29/10
Realized $2.99 x 2 3/12/10
numerous ebay sales prior to moving to Thingery