Best Season for Fan Collecting

[Jean Lemieux]

I wanted to do this thread since last summer and now with some of the posts in Cole S recent thread make me think that's it's the perfect time to post this as the discussion already started over there.

I was wondering if you have noticed that a season or a portion of the year seems to be better for collecting fans in your experience and in your area than other seasons. Is there one season or one time of the year that you just happen to always find more fans in this specific part of the year?

I've been collecting since January 2009. In my experience and in my area, southern Québec, autumn is definitely the best season. It's after summer, a lot of people are getting rid of their fans for various reasons. Early winter trends to be pretty good too and sometimes late summer too so in general between September to Janurary is the best time for me. November is probably the best month of all.

The second half of winter and spring are medium and summer is usually the worst season when of course fans get used the most. People are keeping their fans in the summer. Even though there is all the people moving in June and July which can create a surplus of fans for sale on local ads, it's still usually the slowest time for fan collecting in my area and in my experience.

[Max C.]

Interesting topic of discussion, Jean.

I imagine it could vary widely depending upon the area.  For BC, it seems as if the month of January, Spring and Summer are all exceptionally decent (almost every cool ceiling fan that has come into the ReStore showed up during these times).  The January thing is likely due to the thinking "new year, new look."  Spring and Summer are explained by all of the shiny, new fans in Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Rona and (now) Lowes flyers

[fancollector12]

In my area, not a lot pops on on Craigslist and there's no fans at Goodwill in my area during the fall and winter months. Where I go to hunt for ceiling fans, though, there's always fans. I typically only go one place for fan hunting anymore, as I attend FanFair and the AFCA Museum Meet in the summer. I only hit up Goodwill when I'm near there or need to make a donation.

[Tais]

hmm.. intereting topic!

based on my experience and obtaining of fans, i usually get the most fans in around august and april, but february and september are the lowest on average..

the best years i had for collecting fans are in 2012, 2013 and 2015! in 2016 i slowed down pretty much since i was drafted and i didn't get time to get the fans and my main scrapyard areas have been permanently shifted and i lost contact with all dealers except one.. that one that i am dealing with stores any fans he gets, particularly SMC, union and OX fans.. 2017 has been a hard year with collecting that there were several months i didn't visit the scrapyards, mainly due to financial situations, fatherhood responsibilities, and lack of storage space, 2018 may be like 2017 as i am predicting, but my search will never stop


duizzle has nothing interesting popping up, and abandoned houses and villas are being much more secured and riskier to enter, and they are much less than those times when i started collecting fans.. plus work is keeping me away from abandoned building explorations

[Tais]

Feb 11, 2018 23:36:50 GMT -5 Jean Lemieux said:

I wanted to do this thread since last summer and now with some of the posts in Cole S recent thread

I've been collecting since January 2009.

interesting! we apparently started collecting at the same period! i started collecting in February 2009!

[Parkman]

Spring/Early Summer. People seem to start to tackle their DIY projects, clean out a shed/garage/basement that has something NOS. They sell them at a yardsale, donate, or throw it out in the trash.

As for Goodwill and other thrift shops it seither hit or miss with them any part of the year.

[Cole D]

It depends I guess, but this time of year is usually the best for me for two reasons:

1) the snowbirds come down to FL from up north which means are more people at the flea market starting in the late fall through the winter. So that means possibly more fans.

2) February is when the AFCA Florida meet is in Sarasota, which brings the best opportunity to find fans in one place and for good prices usually.

I go to Goodwill every Friday but I never see anything other than tower fans or small modern 6" or USB fans that you could get in a store. And they rarely have any ceiling fans. That's pretty much the same at other stores. Once in a while I see an older box fan at Habitat for sale. They do get some good ceiling fans from time to time but they don't seem to sell very well even on the display.

I used to see fans once in a while at garage or estate sales but lately it's only newer ones for several years.

[Cole S.]

There used to be some trending times of year around here, but in recent years it's been more unpredictable. Spring/early summer used to be great, I assume people were 'upgrading' to new fans for the summer heat. I used to find a lot more NIB stuff through the winter, into early spring, as I think during those months people clean out the stuff sitting in the basement, closets, and such then have the thrift stores come pick it up. The kind of stuff you do when you stay in on a cold winter day, or for spring cleaning. There were also a few weeks between late September-early November, depending on how the weather was changing, where I think again people were changing out fixtures after the summer heat. This is all very based on Habitat/thrift stores locally, CL and other such things have never really been significant sources here. Of course there's also Cleanup Week first week of May, that doesn't really count in this context, but it is by far when I pick up the most stuff over the entire year.