I couldn't stop thinking about the words my friend said to me,
"...Shells - brass - selling - money - lots of money...!"
Maybe he was pulling my leg, or he'd made it all up. I pondered for a long time. Again and again I passed
my shiny, clattering cartridges from one hand to the other, until I decided I would actually go to the
scrap dealer. It was always possible at first to just make careful inquiries. He stood, as he could often
be seen, in our road with his red old three-wheeler vehicle and called out above all the other noise,
"scrap paper, scrap metal, old clothes"! To make even clearer what he wanted, he rang a big bell.
I approached him hesitantly. "Well then boy, what do you want" he asked with a friendly smile. I told him
about my brass shells and received the brief and simple reply: "If they're all empty then bring them to
me and I'll give you 70 pfennigs for each kilo" (kilo > 2 pounds). Well goodness me, how many were there
in a kilo then? I had hoped that he would perhaps buy from me individually, like coins or single stamps.
Well, no matter, I had to get back home quickly. Back at home, I let my Oma know what I was planning to do.
She immediately packed the "damn things," as she contemptuously called the shells that were especially
valuable to me, into a paper bag and then weighed them on her kitchen scales. With a testing look I watched
as she laid several small weights onto the empty side of the scales. There were, as I knew very well,
almost three hundred pieces to my collection, and they weighed a good four kilos! So, four times 70
pfennigs... that made almost 3 marks! The thought made me feel quite dizzy. I rushed as quick as a flash
to the window, and thank God, the dealer was still standing by the open loading area of his little truck.
I carefully took the bag in both hands and ran towards him. The rest was all over quite quickly. The bag's
contents were checked and weighed again. I then received 2.80 marks from his blackened hand. I'd never
possessed so much money all of my own, and all in one go!
Beaming with delight, I proudly went back over to my grandparents and straight away offered to treat us
all to a meal out. I always remembered how they would, very rarely, stop off at a small restaurant with me
if we had been out for a walk. I envisaged my favorite meal of sausages with potato salad and coke for all
of us! Laughing, they declined. Would the money have been enough? To be quite honest, I didn't know. But
what an awful feeling when I went back to my play corner only to find a gaping void, for all but eight of
my blank cartridges were now gone. After such euphoric delight, I suddenly had very mixed emotions. My first
properly completed deal showed me that everything in life has two sides. For such a long time I had kept
myself occupied with my shells - the big pile of brass had now turned into a couple of coins. But it was
no use feeling sad, what was done was done.
My unusual hobby
