A boring story:
At 9:55 AM, I clicked over to my craigslist weber search page and saw an add for a "weber type grill" ($30).
I opened the advertisement, saw a non black rolled handle grill, and dialed the number at 9:56 (This is how I know the timeline, my call history on my phone). I told the guy he was on the other side of town from me, but give me the address and I will plug it in to the phone and go, and to expect me within 45 minutes. At 9:57 I was on the road for the 32 mile trek. (64 miles round trip.......)
I got there alittle after 10:30 due to a route primarily on the Interstate and an anxious driver.
So a man that I will place at 60 years old (plus or minus 5 years) greeted me and showed me the weber style grill. He said, "You are one of the charcoal people huh?".
He proceeded to try and sell me on the grill saying it was hardly used and worked well. He said it was probably used less than 50 times, and that personally had a newer kind for a while but with his you could move the charcoal grate up with handles(umm ok?). Anyway, It turns out his father passed away this week, and he was just clearing out items. Unfortunately, he did not know where his dad got it or when, but I got the impression the son had never seen it.
Ironically, it looked like he had one of those new STOK grills that we were talking about in the other thread, with the cast iron grates. If I were smarter I would have tried to grab that for a deal for the grate, but he wanted 75 for the Stok according to craiglsist.
In any case, the inside is in good shape, the charcoal grate is fine, I may or may not try to rescue the grill grate. Based on the inside, you would say this grill was in fact "rarely used".
But.
There is always a but. It is 45 years old at this point. If the grill was used 50 times, the lid was dropped 49 times. There are several LARGE chipped spots that have rusted. What is worse, someone tried to paint over them with primer at some point and it has created a mess on the rust spots, as well as speckled drops of primer/paint all over the lid.
The handle has the typical rusting where it joins the lid and the paint has been long gone. The bowl is in great shape. I do not think there are any chips on the bowl, just one dent that I do not mind at all.
In any case, I drove 32 miles (64 round trip) and I was not leaving empty handed, even if this was more "rough" than "diamond". In my very tough nosed negotiating style, I said: I am leaving with the grill regardless, but will you take $20? He said $25 and I loaded it in my car. I was back home, lighter by almost 4 gallons of gas and 25 dollars, and late for a meeting I was supposed to call in to at 11 AM.....
The rest of the story:
The first thing I did (after dialing in to the meeting I was late for) was to fire up WKC and post this thread. I looked at my PMs and noticed a fellow WKCer had sent me an request to be his pick up agent for this grill. Unfortunately, his PM was sent at 9:59:55.
Topic: I may need a two rivet handle (Read 5936 times)