Who Gets What and Why by Alvin Roth. It's all about marketplaces and how they work. You've just described a way.

I started my booth the end of last August to downsize a life time collection. I've sold almost 600 items. I've bought at thrifts, resale shops, Good Will, antique shops and malls for over 40 years. The way some people price their items, I think they'd rather keep their shelves full than sell something :/

We clear out their homes. The amount of stuff we get is like a freebie gift shop! I am forbidden from bringing stuff home from these jobs. But sometimes the stuff is too good to pass up. If I was ambitious I’d take the stuff we get and sell at a flea market.

I have things from my friends and relatives, not that I want but ended up with. Plus my own collection of 50+ years, my household items. I bet I have stuff for as long as the vintage market operates I think I'll leave my house to my grandkids and let them deal with the rest of it. lol

Our home will be a gold mine for some. About 20 years ago I read an article which stated there is an estimated three trillion dollars worth of “stuff” in attics all over America.

Kind of on topic, two weeks ago I got a 1917 wheat penny in change at the grocery store. I have a big jug of them in the basement as probably hundreds of thousands of other dinosaurs do?

I heard years ago that the federal gov't. might pass a law allowing coins to be sold as scrap, so I sort my pennies and put the 1982 or older in a container. I have almost a pound! lol I put the other pennies in a jar and save other coins if my purse gets overloaded. A couple years ago, I showed my grandkids how to count and wrap coins. They wrapped over $80.00, and I let them have the rolls when they were done, told them it was their pay for wrapping the coins. Later, their Dad saw the rolls laying on the counter and asked where they'd come from. My grandson told him I'd paid them for work. Dad stepped right in it, asked "What work?" And both kids said, "Wrapping coins!" I enjoyed the moment. The coins haven't built up that high since then, and I think they'd rather sort folding money or credit cards. lol

There will always be something in your stuff that someone else will treasure. It might not be your loved ones, but it'll be someone In the meantime, enjoy your stuff!

There’d be more coins and less paper but the public likes that paper money. Paper doesn’t last as long and per the mint, coins are cheaper per unit because they last longer. Collectors drive the mint crazy cause we take coins out of circulation.

My 65 and newer Pennies end up in the wishing well on Main Street which go towards school projects.

Our quarters go in another tin used for our city’s biannual city wide garage sales. Old people can find so many ways to spend their time with money.

Who knew attics and garages contained so much? Can't give the stuff away on eBay anymore because except for new listings they're just about invisible. Like many people I have two accounts, and they both hit similar volume and numbers over quarters and years, each account has a dry spell now and then. There is no opportunity there anymore.

Cheer up! Postal rates are going up July 7!

are downsizing. And younger families don't do things the same way. I don't think any generation before the Boomers had the opportunity or disposable income to pile stuff up.

Harry Rinker, who wrote Antique price guides most of his life, wrote one that was about collecting. He noted how we buy in our peak income years - 40-55 - and tend to buy what we remember or what our parents had. As time passes the oldest stuff becomes less valuable. And he was surprised when the internet happened at the sheer volume of stuff that had been hiding in storage. There is not much demand for a lot of it.

The Roaring 20s and the Victorian era had some disposable income but populations were much smaller so there wasn't as much of it to survive.

He put on appraisal shows locally, once in Parkersburg, once in Cambridge, Oh. He had an Internet radio show I listened to a few times. He annouced his retirement in '20 or '21. Another knowledgeable voice hanging it up :/


I always preferred older stuff. I decided early that I'd try to keep things made before 1920. I think I'm an age snob I noticed years ago that when we went to sales and such that everything was getting newer and newer. I remember Erma Bombeck mentioning in a column a visit to an antique shop and being horrified to see things she'd had as a child being sold as antique. lol