Every year our neighborhood has a giant garage sale and this year is the first time we've had enough stuff to sell. The whole neighborhood is involved and they've been advertising it for months. According to passers by, the turn out was disappointingly low, there were not the usual throngs of cars and people patrolling the streets this event normally draws. There were enough people willing to spend and I made over $100. My mom set up a couple tables and made a few dollars on her wares as well.
It was interesting unearthing stored items from the closets and boxes in our house and determining their value. I rarely go to garage sales so had no idea what people were willing to pay. I set my prices, but came down on the sales price on just about each item if the person hesitated on buying. I just wanted to get rid of everything
Between us, Mark and I have five sets of dishes we no longer use from our single days and early days together. Who has five sets of extra dishes laying around?! Apparently we do. Fortunately, two sets of shiny black glazed dishes sold and the complete white set of heavy Pier 1 dishes I sent along with my mom instead of taking them to a thrift shop.
Oddly, the most admired items did not sell: the martini glasses. There was not a single person who came to our tables that didn't comment on how cute and gorgeous they were (sparkling in the sunshine as they were, they were quite eye catching). But there were no takers, even with a little price cutting to pepper the deal or suggesting alternative uses, "they would make excellent dessert dishes!"
There was an entertaining older English couple who came through, well, what was odd was what they purchased. We were selling off all of our VHS tapes ($1 per tape) since we no longer use a VCR. This elderly couple walked off with
A Clockwork Orange,
Wild Things and
Reservoir Dogs, in addition to a little stuffed lamb to be a fuzzy companion for their ferret and an old digital camera.
Aside from some of the more interesting items, everything that didn't sell was carted of to a thrift shop. Someone will find those treasures valuable.
Mark almost had a taker for the exhaust gas analyzer, the price was right, it was free, he just wanted to get rid of it. But the interested party didn't bite. If you're interested, it's free and sitting on our curb until garbage collection day!