My garage.

I’m getting ready for a garage sale today. So much stuff. So much stuff! It’s a strange process, deciding what you can let go of, what you can’t. Even stranger when you start getting into the question of what your belongings are worth. It’s obvious to me, at this point, that financially, I would do a lot better if I started selling all my stuff on eBay and spent as long as it took to do that. I posted an ad on Craig’s list for the sale last Sunday and the emails just started flying in. It motivated me to start looking stuff up and ugh, it’s so strange to see what stuff sells for.

The ugly Victorian pottery that’s been in my family for over a hundred years? Basically worthless. No surprise, it’s ugly. My great-grandmother’s china that I was comfortably ready to sell, believing it basically worthless? Not quite worthless. The sugar bowl and creamer sold for $20 on eBay. I suspect I’ll be lucky if I can get $10. If I tried to sell it on eBay, I’d have to list it and wait and pack it and ship it… such a hassle, and no guarantee that it’ll sell. Ah, but a new idea just struck me — I’ll try to sell it at the garage sale for reasonable prices and if it doesn’t sell, I can list it on eBay instead of giving it to the thrift shop. Perfect compromise.

Meanwhile, the Legos and Playmobil? Argh! So many people emailing me about buying them and of course they all want the bargains and they all want them now. I really hope that I don’t have people sitting outside my house at 7AM tomorrow, waiting to grab the toys out of other people’s hands. I also sort of wish I’d looked up all the eBay prices before I listed prices online. I thought I was setting fair prices — and I am, I suppose, by standards of garage sales of 30 years ago — but online auctions change the market. People know that they can sell this stuff on eBay so probably they do.

And then the books… wow, I have so many books. They’re piled up in bags under tables in my garage. There’s no room to put them anywhere else, at least not yet. I’m envisioning the Playmobil all disappearing in the first twenty minutes and then me lining the table with books. But my guess is that most of the books won’t sell. If they’re selling for .01 online, I can’t exactly undercut that price (except, of course, that all those penny books come with a $3.99 shipping charge.)

It’ll be interesting to see how it goes, anyway. Ironically, I scheduled the day because a friend wanted to bring some stuff to the sale and I knew he was going away for several weeks. As it happens, he can’t make it tomorrow. It may be a long day running it on my own. And I guess I should get back to pricing! Wish me luck. 🙂