The Fairhope Arts & Crafts festival kicks off this week and many locals are seeing a huge payoff due to the event. According to numbers being published from the driftwood market the value of driftwood and driftwood art pieces have risen 600%. Tom Boonen, a Fairhope native, looks to have hit the Jackpot after the turn of events.
Tom lives off of county road 1 and he spends every weekend cleaning off his waterfront property of the pesky driftwood washed ashore. He throws the collected wood in a storage shed out back as it used to cost more money to dispose of it than to just keep it himself. This weekend, with the Arts Festival many travelers from across America discovered many works of art made from the driftwood including: painted driftwood, driftwood furniture, driftwood shaped as animals,etc. The list goes on like Bubba describing the shrimp selection at Market by The Bay.
The "Snowbirds" began looking for driftwood for sale for their own projects to make at home and it became a game of supply and demand. The S&D 500 (or, the Seashells And Driftwood 500), a lesser known stock index began to see a sharp spike upward with Driftwood stocks doubling, tripling, then seeing gains of 600%. by Friday. Tom decided its time to clean house. The wood in his shed fetched nearly 3.3 Million dollars on the open market today and quickly too.
TFI spoke to Mr. Boonen about what he'll do with his newly earned millionaire status. Apparently, Tom plans to use his money to move a few miles north up Scenic 98 where his cash may work as a good deposit on a home there. He also plans to "make it rain" on The Grand's breakfast buffet.
The S&D 500 is seeing driftwood prices start to settle down already though for those planning to sell their wood saving. Analysts do speculate however, that paintings of sand dunes with sea oats and a sunset will gain value fast this next week. TFI is putting all of our money on beach paintings.
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