My name is Chrissie Anderson Peters and I’m a Duranie. There is no 12-step program for us. I’ve looked from time to time, ‘cos heaven knows it isn’t easy or cheap to be dedicated to this band!
What you may not know about me is that I sell Duran Duran stuff on the side. Writing doesn’t pay much, but selling vinyl and memorabilia, even though not on a daily basis, is a lot more lucrative than my particular brand of writing. It’s very involved, though, and requires a great deal of research into the pricing of items, photographing items, descriptions of items, adding each item to inventory lists, and then the actual showing it on my Duran Duran page on Facebook, which is where I sell my Duran Duran goods.
Oh, and packaging it and shipping. A lot of my customers live in foreign countries – this week alone, I mailed and got price quotes for UK, IRELAND, AUSTRALIA, FINLAND, NORWAY, and will mail out to CANADA on Monday. That means customs forms and lists of contents for those packages, as well as their monetary values for each of those packages, too. But overall, I enjoy selling the Duran Duran stuff. It’s a common bond with people I’ve gotten to know, some over the past 4-5 years, since I’ve been doing this side business. A few times, things have gotten lost or damaged, which is always disappointing for both the customer and for me. If it got lost, it was typically the receiving post office at fault, so there was nothing that I could do. Same with damage. And I have learned that USPS insurance is certainly a joke. I pray over every package that I send, and that’s no lie. Once, a package went all the way to the UK and made it back to me because the customer didn’t pick it up at the address he had supplied – I’m currently waiting for it to get to him at yet another address (the third mailing address in two business transactions).
My friend Andy “Durandy” Golub called me a couple of Sundays ago and let me know about a lady in Charlottesville, VA, only bout 4 hours away from me, who was getting rid of her entire collection. He had made arrangements for part of it, and I made arrangements for the bulk of it and Russ agreed that it made sense to pick it up while we were halfway there, in Roanoke, having my lasik surgery done on 5 November. So, the following day, Friday, we drove up to Charlottesville and I met Christy, the previous owner, who helped us load up Rupert with about 10-12 boxes of vinyl, CD’s, DVD’s, etc., and two big trash bags full of t-shirts. There were about 80 shirts in all and I spent most of this week hanging them up, inspecting them, photographing them, and putting them up on the Duran Duran page for three nights, then mailing for two days. There are 22 t-shirts left – if you or someone you know or love wears a size Small or Medium and adores Duran Duran, let me know and I’ll happily hook you up! I also posted a bunch of what I call “Miscellaneous” stuff one night before the onslaught of t-shirts. I’m working on adding the ‘leftovers” from that to my inventory sheets this weekend. It’s a lot to keep up with. It’s a challenge to be a “crazy little woman in a one-man show,” which is what I call myself in this particular endeavor. But the friendships and stories make it worth it. And seeing people find duplicates of items that they had during their formative years, or things they always wanted, but never had. And the money helps pay the bills. Those 10-12 boxes are waiting to be tackled. But they’ll need to be patient. I have some writing projects that have been waiting longer.
In case you want to check out the Facebook page, here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/Chrissies-DURAN-DURAN-Items-for-Sale-145671162799431
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