Episode 5. Our guest is Rev. Resale — David Wheeler, Pastor D in his hometown, full-time pastor at Porterdale Baptist and part-time reseller the rest of the week. Ryan and I have both been watching his stuff for years, and the Facebook shorts he’s been putting up lately are the reason this conversation needed to happen now. This one ran an hour and twenty-four minutes and it earned every minute.

The “exposes someone who did him wrong” in the title is two stories. There’s Brian at the post office — Rev’s nemesis. And then there’s the part where Rev turns around and exposes me for a pair of driving shoes I sold him years ago. Both worth your time.

Pastor first, reseller second

[1:15] Rev introduces himself. Full-time pastor, part-time reseller, part-time content creator. He used to run Rev Restoration — taking old Fords and bringing them back. “My first calling is pastor, but after that I got a lot of hats I wear.”

The pastor schedule plays surprisingly well with reselling. Wednesday and Sunday nights at the church, otherwise he’s free to take off mid-day if a deal of Hot Wheels or comic books comes up. Ryan called it the perfect two gigs to pair if you’re going to do this part-time, and I think he’s right.

Why he stopped Rev Restoration

[18:00] Rev’s old-cars channel had real numbers behind it before he stepped back. The reason he stopped is the reason a lot of small creators stop and don’t say so out loud: viewers started showing up. People stole parts from his dad’s place. A guy knocked on the door looking for his daughter, by name. “It got a little too too personal for me.”

This hit close. I told Rev — without naming names or going into details — that I’ve had people show up at our house too. Ryan jumped in: same thing on his end. None of us went deep on it, and that’s intentional. Worth knowing if you’re a small reseller weighing whether to put more of yourself on camera. The trade is real.

Records sold for $8 and up — and the listing system that makes it work

[8:00] Rev has a spare bedroom Nikki T let him convert into a record room — three or four thousand vinyl records, sorted A through Z twice over. “I don’t try to sell them any cheaper than $8.” He uses an AI lister and can get two or three hundred records up in a day. Discount listing strategy: G+ or better, photographed front and back, the record pulled out a couple inches in the cover photo. Sells 10 to 20 a day. Volume play, not top-dollar play, and on his catalog it works.

If a record is scratched or scuffed and worth less than ten or twelve bucks, he won’t ship it. Old Pudding — his 1968 Ford F-100 — has hauled a thousand records at a time to the landfill. The good ones get played on the record player in his study before they go up. He half-jokingly repented for that on the call.

The packaging PSA — the real one

[32:00] The Facebook short Ryan wanted to play first. Rev gets a buyer message telling him how to pack a stack of comic books — board them, sandwich between cardboard, bubble, comic mailer, oversize poly bag for moisture. Rev plays the whole thing dead serious on camera, packs it exactly the way the buyer demanded, with the running gag of “oh no, they are not boarded at all” in increasingly thick deadpan. Then the punchline drops — straight to the camera:

“Here’s your public service announcement of the day. Experienced eBay sellers are so excited when we get instructions about how to pack the packages.”

Sarcasm so dry I had to watch it twice the first time to catch it. Ryan was the same. The bit Rev is sitting on top of, though, is the one that earned the PSA: a buyer who tells you how to pack got hurt by a previous seller who didn’t, and they’re trying to keep it from happening again. Once you reframe the message like that, it stops being an insult. Rev’s framing of that — “we want them to get exactly what they ordered, exactly how they ordered it” — is the whole job.

Gratitude vs. pouting (about promoted listings)

[38:00] Rev’s other Facebook short is the one set on the toilet — a parody of every reseller (myself included) complaining when a sale comes in marked promoted. Then the actual point: “If you’re promoting your item to a point that if it sells under promotion, you’re going to be upset… don’t promote it at that price.” Promote a flat fee you can stomach. Be grateful a sale happened. “I’m not going to pout about a sale.”

This is one I needed to hear. I complain about the new eBay promoted-listings fee structure as much as anyone, and Ryan and I have talked about working on it. Rev framed it cleaner than either of us has: the fee is the fee, you decided to use eBay, you decided to promote, the sale came in. “Hurrah, I made a sale.” That’s the move.

Brian at the post office — the man who did him wrong

[45:00] The headline-of-the-headline story. Rev is at his bigger-city post office with three bags and his scan form on a clipboard — the sheet you get back stamped, that you keep for proof. Brian behind the counter takes the scan form off Rev’s clipboard, won’t give it back, says he’s giving it to a lady behind in line who needs to print a label, and when Rev pushes back, Brian folds the sheet and throws it in the trash can. Eye contact and everything.

Rev — full preacher, in a town where he pastors a church — said one word. “Wow.” Walked out, called the postmaster directly on her cell, and the postmaster met him in the parking lot and made Brian dig the sheet out of the trash and walk it to the door for him. Rev gave Brian an old deuces through the glass, got in Old Pudding, drove home.

He hasn’t been back to that post office in over a year. “Brian, if you watch this Lonnie and Ryan podcast, I forgive you sort of.” That’s the line that earns the title.

Then Rev exposed me

[1:05:00] “Changing the story just a little bit. You probably don’t remember this.”

Years ago, on a Shed Flips video, Candice and I were showing off a pair of green suede driving shoes we’d picked up — heel wraps around to the back, made for working a clutch and a gas pedal. I talked them up on camera. Rev watched the video, decided he needed driving shoes, went to my eBay store, and bought them. Size 12. Between $40 and $50.

“Them were the worst shoes I ever bought in my life.”

Italian sizing — twelves but I think they were in millimeters not inches, was the bit. Threw them away. Held the grudge for years. “Lonnie, if you remember that years ago…” I don’t. I owe him driving shoes and, by his demand, a Bible. Negotiated live on the podcast.

I told him I had no idea I had so many beefs to squash in this world. The fact that this was the first time he’d ever brought it up — silently throwing the shoes away rather than messaging me about a return — is its own little parable about how many quiet grudges resellers are walking around with.

The $100 deal he had to defend

[1:11:00] An estate sale at a pastor’s house. The family was clearing the contents — and the room with all the books and Bibles, including a real stash of Swagger Ministries material, was marked free. I told the lady running it: “How about we just give you $100 and we just take all the books.” She said that sounds awesome. We left with about 500 pounds of books.

A reseller listening to that — and there are more of them than you’d think — would tell you the right play is to take the books for the price advertised, which is zero. Rev’s defense of the $100 is the part of the conversation worth listening to: the seller is happy, the buyer is happy, and the people looking for those specific books on eBay months from now would never find them otherwise. Reselling moves things from where they aren’t wanted to where they are.

He also reframed the broader morality of reselling cleaner than I would’ve — “everything you have ever purchased has been resold.” If you bought it at Walmart, it was resold. The chain has always been there.

Bibles, Ouija boards, and the line

[1:13:00] Ryan asked the question I knew was coming: does Rev sell Bibles on eBay. Yes — “the Bibles that’ll sell.” He won’t take the free Bibles at a yard sale because he believes the people who pay for a Bible are the ones who’ll read it. He’ll buy one to resell, and when somebody from his church needs one, he’ll just give it.

Then I asked the harder one: would he sell a Ouija board? Quick answer was no, then he caveated himself with the parable of the unbeliever donating a million dollars to the church — “I’d take the devil’s money and use it for God’s glory” — then walked it back to “probably wouldn’t.” It’s the closest the episode came to a real theological aside, and he handled it gracefully without making it heavy.

Closer

[1:24:00] Wrap-up. Rev’s competitive — he wants more views than Kevin (Commonwealth Picker) got the previous week. Help him out. He’s coming back to YouTube before too much longer with Nikki T, and the Facebook shorts he’s running right now are, in my and Ryan’s read of the field, the highest-quality short-form reselling content out there. Original. Acted well. Two camera angles. The cinematography is real.

Subscribe to Rev. Resale and tell him Lonnie & Ryan sent you. I owe him a pair of size 12 shoes and a Bible. We’ll see y’all on the next one.