- Editor’s
Note:
-
- This
column is a regular feature in the Wayback Times in which my
husband takes interesting people out to lunch … and sends
me the bill.
-
- (It's
a tough job, but someone has to do it!)
-
- Send
us an e-mail if you have someone in mind for one of Peter Neilly's
interviews over lunch.
|
|
      
-
- Peter Neilly is Out
to Lunch
- Breaking bread with
interesting people
-
- Out to Lunch!
- with Peter Neilly
- Today’s
Out to Lunch guest is John Cosway, a semi-retired journalist
and our Wayback Times webmaster. John has an interesting history,
involving the newspaper business, eBay and web design. When given
the opportunity to pick a location for our lunch, John’s
original choice was an extremely high-priced restaurant in Las
Vegas. The Warden (Sandy) politely refused. His second choice
was the Waddell Inn’s Trattoria Gusto restaurant in Port
Hope. Good choice John. I love Italian food.
Peter: You first got your feet wet in the newspaper business
as a youngster with your own Toronto Star paper route. How did
you end up with a career at the Toronto Sun?
-
- John: While employment can
be a lifetime struggle for some people, I have been blessed with
a smooth ride, with new jobs coinciding with new interests. From
Toronto Star paperboy, to Globe and Mail copy boy, to reporter,
thanks to Robert Turnbull, the Globe’s city editor.
Paid my dues at smaller dailies and weeklies in Ontario and B.C.
before hired by the Sun in January of 1975.
-
- Peter: Two of my favourite
Sun writers were Paul Rimstead and Christie Blatchford.
What was it like working with them?
-
- John: A large part of the
Sun dream job was working in a newsroom full of fascinating,
talented and selfless people like Rimmer and Blatch, Jerry
Gladman, Andy Donato, Mark Bonokoski, Gary
Dunford, Peter Worthington, Doug Creighton,
George Gross, Mike Strobel, Gord Stimmell
and many others. Jerry Gladman said it best when he told a neighbour
he wasn't going to work, he was going to be with friends. Rimstead
was only 52 when he died in 1987, but what a life he crammed
into those years. He was a natural, but taking his copy over
the phone from bars was often a challenge. The Sun lost a winner
when Blatch moved to the Globe and Mail.
-
- Peter: You say your three
passions in life have been newspapers, buying and selling and
poker because they always involve something new and challenging.
When did your buying and selling begin to interest you?
-
- John: I've always been fascinated
by the rescue of neat stuff that might be valuable, beginning
in the late 1940s as a youngster wandering laneways in my Bathurst
and Bloor neighborhood in midtown Toronto. But actual buying
and selling began when I got sober in 1974 while at the Richmond
Review in B.C. and began selling records and other items Sundays
at the Richmond Drive-In flea market. It was mostly packrat stuff.
-
- Peter: We first met in 1994
and you later introduced Sandy and myself to eBay. You were among
the early Ontario sellers. How did you start on eBay and what
was it like back then? I remember getting up with Sandy at 2
a.m. some mornings to watch what prices our auction items would
close at.
-
- John: Well, first let me
tell you about the transition from fulltime newspapering to buying
and selling. In 1991, a cousin, the late Craig Johnson,
suggested I go to auctions. My first auction was a Les Brittan
Tuesday night sale in Hastings. Filled up the car for $27.50
and Les was a hoot. Then came Friday night sales at Don
Corneil's in Little Britain, Neil Bacon's Wednesday
night sales and numerous other auctions. Sometimes, four or five
sales a week.
-
- Peter: Do you remember your
first sale of items purchased at auctions?
-
- John: While still working
at the Sun, I brought auction finds in and set up a corner of
my desk for passersby. Fellow employees started buying CDs, radios
and other stuff and they affectionately nicknamed my microbooth
Cosway's Corner. At about the same time, Doug Creighton,
the Sun’s beloved founding publisher, was ousted and the
mood quickly changed. The buy and sell bug and the Sun’s
buyout offer couldn't have been better timing.
-
- Peter: So in January of 1994,
you are out of newspapers for the first time since 1963. How
did your buying and selling evolve?
-
- John: The Internet was in
its infancy and a lot of people were trying to figure out how
to make money on the Net. This was before eBay, but there were
newsgroups where you could post items for sale with no fees.
Quickly sold a Leonard Cohen video for $50US to a woman
in California and dug in for more sales. eBay was launched in
1995, but didn’t take off until 1996. Linda Alexander,
a Corneil’s regular, turned me onto eBay in early 1997.
We were among a group of Ontario sellers invited to meet eBay
founders in Toronto for a Q&A, where we shook hands with
future billionaires.
-
- Peter: How was eBay in the
early years?
-
- John: It was amazing. The
Canadian dollar had bottomed out, so every $100US in sales was
$150 Canadian. eBay had limited server space so there were evenings
when you had to wait until after midnight to post items because
they maxed out. While eBay is now a household word, the stronger
Canadian dollar, stifling posting rules and restricting payment
by buyers to PayPal have dampened the early excitement.
-
- Peter: What is the story behind
your YourGuide website?
-
- John: In 1996, I approached
Jim Yates, a Sun colleague who got squeezed out after
being with the paper since Day One, with a website proposal.
We launched YourGuide.net, a directory and news outlet for antique
markets, stores, flea markets etc. Jay Telfer, founder of the
Wayback Times, came aboard with WT. But Jay later decided to
go it alone with waybacktimes.com and Jim Yates had to bow out
because of cancer, so YourGuide was no more.
-
- Peter: And your return to
the Wayback Times?
-
- John: Call it fate, destiny,
whatever, but after going it alone with auctions and eBay for
six years, your better half, Sandy, decided to buy the Wayback
Times from Jay in 2006. Was I interested in writing for WT and
creating a web page? You betcha. Once again, in a life filled
with perfect timings, it was perfect timing.
-
- Peter: What do you try to
provide at waybacktimes.com?
-
- John: Mostly, a reason to
return again and again. We invite people in the biz to provide
community happenings for our BUZZ page. Writers with diverse interests keep the site
current. Our online
calendar
for shows, auctions and other events is the most visited page.
The classifieds are popular, as are
the how-to articles about medals, postcards and other collectibles.
We also try harder to accommodate print advertisers, with a free
online
business directory, free e-mail and website links, free
show listings, free classified listings.
-
- Peter: You have managed to
grow the Wayback Times website into an amazing service with well
over 100,000 hits a month. We should put up a sign like Macdonald’s,
“OVER ONE MILLION SERVED” per year. We get e-mails
from all over the world and I get great comments from lots of
people at the many antique shows we attend. You should be very
proud.
-
- John: Thank you for the kind
words and lunch, Peter. I was packed for Vegas, but enjoyed the
red snapper in this Waddell Inn eatery. Glad to see new life
in the former Lantern Inn. With record 40-page editions of the
Wayback Times this year - thanks to the efforts of Editor
Sandy - it is gratifying to see the 15-year-old antiques
and collectibles newspaper reach a new audience on the Internet.
It is readership without borders. Wayback Times writers report
receiving e-mails from around the world and the website is attracting
advertisers beyond Ontario’s borders. The paper is always
open to reader feedback, so don't hesitate to drop us an e-mail
with suggestions for the website and the print edition at webmaster@waybacktimes.com
|
|
