A brand-new handmade quilt, priced between $60 and $120, sold for $1, then $4, then $5. The host of The Jebus Family looked at the screen and said it out loud: “We are just giving money away.”

The quilts came from one of the storage units the family had just won. The first, which they picked up the day after bidding, cost “$600 and something dollars,” and it was one of four units they bought that week.

Gun Cases, A Leather Tube And A Hidden Public Storage

The first stop was a Public Storage facility the host has driven past for five years without ever winning there. He calls it a “really weird off the beaten path hidden one.”

The drive took about twenty-five minutes through peak fall color. The unit was number 124, and the host fretted about the gate code, since sometimes nobody is on site and the code simply fails.

From the auction photos he could see a few gun cases and a thin leather case. “I can’t tell if it’s a pool cue or if it’s an old shotgun,” he says, adding that he would be “happily surprised” if it were a shotgun.

The Red Tag Was Missing From The Door

When they arrived, something felt off. The red tag that normally marks a unit as sold was not on the door.

“I’ve never had the tag just not be there like that,” he says. They checked and found the cases he remembered from the photos, so it looked like the right unit and did not appear to have been touched.

Down the row, he points out another unit with the lock ripped off. “Whoever got that one’s going to be disappointed,” he says.

He teases the video that follows only briefly, saying the unit was “absolutely incredible,” though not for the reasons he expected. That full video was due Sunday.

A Three-Suitcase Unit And A Short Video

Later that day they cleared a second unit, this one holding three suitcases. He promised that it would be a short video, and he said in the vlog that he “made money before I even opened a suitcase.”

It was a typical day for them, which includes filming, driving, selling, editing and doing it again. They would film the last of the four units the next day.

Then The Live Auction Started

Back home, the family went live on Whatnot with 20 seconds to spare. The items came from the new units, and the prices were all over the map.

A brand-new boxed necklace marked S925 started at $10 and climbed to $35. A Star Wars item opened at $16 and went with no bids. A Black & Decker drill with a bag of tools sold for $20.

A Sony Handycam with a charger and a wireless mic reached $38. That one had sold before, but the buyer’s payment failed, so the host ran it again, saying “Can’t beat that deal.”

“A $60 Blanket Sells For $5”

Then the quilts came up. “Another one of those handmade quilts that were brand new from that unit. These are all priced between $60 and $120. And it’s going to sell for $1.”

The price crept up to four dollars, then five. “And look at that. $60 blanket sells for $5. Cannot beat these prices tonight, man. We are just giving money away.”

A brand-new Texans figure from the same unit sold for $14, and the host called it “free money day.” The whole show took 39 minutes, and the host noted that if you were a buyer that night you got a bargain.

The Odd Rule Of Blanket Auctions

Afterward the host shared a surprising lesson. Buyers had paid between $4 and $7 for blankets that he guessed were worth $60 to $100.

“The blankets in the comics, the better condition they are in, the worse they sell,” he says. “If they’re like clean and new, sell terribly. If they’re used up and dirty, they sell great.”

He has no explanation. “That’s just the market, man. It’s an auction, but it’s like so consistently the same way.”

The family treats the auction as one stage in a long chain. After the show they edited a short video about the suitcases, then the main upload, then a full-length unit video planned for Sunday.

With four units in one week, plus filming, selling and editing, there is little room to hold anything back, and a quilt that goes for $5 is one less thing to store.

What Live Auction Sellers Can Learn

His night shows both the thrill and the risk of selling by auction. Prices can swing wildly from one lot to the next, and even a good item can sell far below its tag.

• Run a lot that failed to sell, or whose buyer did not pay, again in a later show.
• Bundle smaller items, such as a drill with its tools or a camera with its mic and charger.
• Do not count on condition to raise the price, since this family finds that blankets in rougher shape often sell better.
• Start at a low price that fits your cost, and be ready to let some items go cheap.

The host ended the night at 10:30 p.m. still editing. The quilts had gone for pennies on the dollar, but the unit had plenty more to give, and there were three more videos still to finish.

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