Interweb Strength Training Equipment Stories

I’ve been taking advantage of some of the deals you can sometimes find online. My experience has been that people either want retail prices on their used stuff or they’re giving it away to get it out of their house.
Today was a new one for me. A guy was selling a flat and incline bench on the book/marketplace. I asked what he’d want for just the bench and he says $100. More than a fair price but I respond and apologize explaining I have two racks/adjustable benches and would have nowhere to put it (my entire garage stall is full). So then he one ups me and says I can have the stuff if I come get it out of his garage lol.

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Best deal for me was 800+ lbs of plates for $150. He was asking for more and I low balled him, he took it! And helped me load them :joy:

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Best one I’ve seen was when a friend of mine bought an entire high school weight room at auction for $600.00.

We hauled out about a thousand sq. ft. of rubber floor matting, an entire run of pairs of dumbbells up to 120 lbs. and a couple thousand lbs. of plates. The machines and other random stuff got scrapped and into the dumpster.

He was the only bid.

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This is my “Not For Drugs” story.

The year was 2015. I had been competing in strongman for 2 years, and like any good strongman, I was constantly searching Craigslist for kegs and cheap lifting equipment. One day, during my daily searches, I see the word “Ironmind” on an add. Not believing it, I click on the craiglist add, and see the following for sale

Ironmind Buffalo Bar
Ironmind Squat/dip/chin rack
Ironmind Pillars of Power spotting system.
Ironmind bench
Ironmind belt squat
Ironmind neck harness
2 Ironmind loading pins
Ironmind rolling thunder.
Rogue Axle
Rogue Farmer’s Walks
2 barbells (non-name brand)
An EZ curl bar
A bunch of Rogue locking collars/spring collars/screw collars
4 45lb plates
4 35lb plates
4 25lb plates
4 10lb plates
2 5lb plates
2 2.5lb plates

All for a sum of $1000. For those of you unversed in all things Ironmind, that’s effective 1/3 of the total cost for that stuff.

What I REALLY wanted was a buffalo bar, and since those go for $700 new shipped, I sent the guy an e-mail asking if he’d be willing to part with just the bar. Approximately 13 minutes later, I sent him another e-mail saying “Nevermind, I’ll take the whole thing”.

This guy lived 1.5 hours away from me, but thankfully I had a minivan and zero sense of danger or self-preservation, so loading 800lbs into the back of it and driving on some backroads was of no concern for me. HOWEVER, I was newly relocated to the area, and had no local bank. This presented a problem, as acquiring $1000 in cash was to become somewhat tricky.

Ever the resourceful one, I simply withdrew the maximal amount from my ATM on a daily basis until I had $1000 in $20 bills. Yes; fifty $20 bills. I couldn’t just carry that in my wallet though, so I obtained a mail envelope, stuffed the cash in it, and was ready to go.

But it dawned on me that there existed a possibility that, in the span of my 1.5 hour drive on windy backroads I had never traversed before, the potential existed for me to get into a vehicle crash. And WHAT exactly would the cops think when they find my crumpled body next to an envelope with fifty $20 bills? Exactly: drugs. So, I did the logical thing and wrote

“NOT FOR DRUGS”

In big bold letters on my envelope. That way, if the cops found it, they’d know.

However, half way en route to my deal, the horror struck me: what if the seller thought I was telling HIM not to spend the money on drugs? I mean, who am I to judge him for what he spends his money on? I, myself, am no saint.

So now I’m sweating. What if the deal goes south because of my perceived judgement? So I resolved that, upon arrival, I’d take the money out of the envelope and hand it straight to him: no questions asked.

And seriously: no questions asked. I have no idea WHY this guy was selling this great gear for so cheap, and I’d rather not know. That’s how you get an “aiding and abetting” charge. So I roll up, ask him if he’s the guy, silently load all the gear into my minivan, and VERY slowly and carefully drive it back to my garage gym, unload it all, and lock all my doors for the next 2 weeks and keep a watch out for police lights.

I still have a photo of what my van looked like after unloading HALF of the gear

image

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Haha! I wonder how many times people have told you that you think too much

Rarely ever accused of it!

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Now that’s interesting

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That is one hell of a score.

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For serious. I posted about it on the Starting Strongman facebook group when it first happened, and I’ll still have people come up to me at a contest and be like “Aren’t you the guy with the craigslist score?!”

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