Scenes from this weekend's yard sale

Deb, I would go crazy with some of your furniture as I love to redo something to modern it up.

The lines and workmanship make it so worthwhile or even restoring a piece to it's original beauty is satisfying.
 

Deb,
I think that junk is too harsh a term. I would call what you have unwanted collectibles. Over the past number of years people's attitudes have changed. Nobody does afternoon tea. Very few people hoist large dinner parties. Many homes have no place to store or display their collectibles.
People want things that can go in the dishwasher.
The basic question is how much time are you going to waste each weekend putting that stuff out, as opposed to getting your new house in order. It is obvious that all that stuff you put out will not fit in your new home. At some point you are going to have to get rid of all of it.
 
Deb, if you are bound and determined to sell rather than donate you might try next week running your ad under antiques and collectibles.

Price it low with "make and offer" signs or maybe ......drum roll

.................buy one get one free
 
That dealer that came to look at my roll-top desk told me to take my price tags off of EVERYTHING and just take whatever the first person offered. I wonder how that would work in the grocery store?
 
Lee said:
Deb, if you are bound and determined to sell rather than donate you might try next week running your ad under antiques and collectibles.

Price it low with "make and offer" signs or maybe ......drum roll

.................buy one get one free
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I just don't have antiques. 70% of my sale is household items. I was surprised nobody as interested in these old newspapers - most date in the late 1910's to early 1920s, one is from 1862 (Lincoln was alive then).

newspapers2.jpgnewspapers5.jpgnewspapers8.jpg
 
Deb, so if 70% is household items then do it the same, buy 1 get 1 free

While they are looking for the free item they could find something else too, offer that at half price.

Or you could do what some of the thrift stores do.....give them a bag and tell them to fill it up for $5 $10 off a table marked as such.

They sell clothes and curtains with the same method of stuff a bag. The more they stuff the more you do not have to move.

I know this is hard, we all have things that we think should be worth more, but if time is running out we do what we have to do.
 
If I was closer I see a lot of stuff I would give good $$$ for. Especially the butter churn. I would have given you the $150..00 for it. The red glass things. Also a blue teapot I think. I see a lot more than I can remember as your post is too far up the line now. You have a lot of very good things.
My wife & I use to go to garage/lawn sales here before she passed. If it was a lawn sale I would always ask them how much are you asking for your lawn? We always had fun & bought many good things.

We did go to some what I would call junk sales that were in town. Broken glasses, bent teapots parts missing from things, shoes with holes worn in them. Same with clothes lots of rips & stains. One place had depression glass that was all glued together.
 
debodun said:
I have a big display of free items and no stipulation that anyone has to buy anything to take any free things. I did see a few people take a thing or two, but 90% is still there.
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If nobody wants it, even for free, dump it.
 
bowmore said:
I just looked up a similar churn on eBay and they wanted $189. Instead of putting all that stuff out every weekend for lookie loos, You might be better off learning to list things on eBay.
After my wife passed away, I disposed of her Swarovsky crystal animal collection as well as a bunch of other stuff. The only thing is you have to pack and ship the stuff.
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That's easy. Just take it all to a UPS store in your area & they will pack it, label & ship it for you. I've done this a lot. My UPS store is about 20 miles from me but will work it, as I don't have to find or buy boxes labels & take them somewhere to get shipped.
 
Tom 86 said:
That's easy. Just take it all to a UPS store in your area & they will pack it, label & ship it for you. I've done this a lot. My UPS store is about 20 miles from me but will work it, as I don't have to find or buy boxes labels & take them somewhere to get shipped.
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That is a great idea, Tom. I have done that. However, before I retired, I worked in a company that had a shipping dept. I got aall my boxes and packing material there. I paid for the shipping.
 
Still, shipping costs add significantly to the price. Difficult enough to get people to buy in person for in-hand prices. Say it would cost $200 to ship the crocks and the price of the item itself is $100. That gonna cost someone $300. Who would pay that?
 
Tom 86 said:
If I was closer I see a lot of stuff I would give good $$$ for. Especially the butter churn. I would have given you the $150..00 for it. The red glass things. Also a blue teapot I think. I see a lot more than I can remember as your post is too far up the line now. You have a lot of very good things.
My wife & I use to go to garage/lawn sales here before she passed. If it was a lawn sale I would always ask them how much are you asking for your lawn? We always had fun & bought many good things.

We did go to some what I would call junk sales that were in town. Broken glasses, bent teapots parts missing from things, shoes with holes worn in them. Same with clothes lots of rips & stains. One place had depression glass that was all glued together.
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The asking of ,how much for your lawn ??, cracked me up.!!!. great sense of humor , young man..!! :LOL::ROFLMAO:
 
debodun said:
Still, shipping costs add significantly to the price. Difficult enough to get people to buy in person for in-hand prices. Say it would cost $200 to ship the crocks and the price of the item itself is $100. That gonna cost someone $300. Who would pay that?
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When you sell something to a person far away, tell them they have to "PAY" the shipping costs. If they want it bad enough, they will pay it. I've done that with a few things. Take it to UPS & tell them the person buying it is paying for the shipping. I have to take an email from them to prove it though.
 
More than a few people, usually women, will pick out some small items that might come to $2 or $3, then announce they only have 25 or 50 cents. If they think they can gyp me like that, they're mistaken. I'm sure if they really wanted these things, they could scrape it together. One woman had to go car seat diving and I got paid in pennies and other coins with some sticky dark goo or look like they got run over by a steamroller. Another came back this morning with $50 I wanted for a watercolor seascape. Yesterday it was, "Will you take $20 for it because that's all I have."

It's the PRINCIPLE, not the money!

seascape5a.jpg
 

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