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I suspect that a great deal of the world's books -- maybe as many as 90% of them -- will never be opened again. I know people who move boxes of books from house to house to house without ever opening the box. There are warehouses full of old school textbooks. Publishers remainders. Library shelves jammed with books noone will ever check out. Used bookstores selling almost every book for a dime, nobody wants Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock", (there are ten in every Goodwill), or autobiographies of forgotten celebrities that sold millions, or old World Almanacs and Readers Digest condensed books...
A friend ran into the same issue with trying to get rid of a piano. She finally put it "free" on Next Door and a family came and got it for their daughter, who was previously having to go to their church to practice. The mother sent my friend a video of the daughter playing the piano. it was sweet.
I had a similar experience with my piano, passed down from my mom. I sold it for $50 to a guy who wanted it for his niece, who was teaching her two little girls to play. As my mom had taught me and my sister to play, I didn't feel so bad about getting rid of it.
Wish I had it back now - I always said I wanted a place with room for a grand piano in the living room, and now I have one, even though it is a rental! I don't think one could be moved in though, the entrance has a weird configuration that is not conducive to moving in large furniture.
Ironically, that's the very same era that most people our age got sick of and disposed of. The games from our era and later are worth money. The modern furniture, if well made, is worth money. Hayden Wakefield furniture is money.
But I can remember hating Victorian furniture, Victorian anything. They it got popular. All it took was time. Now its popularity has waned again. You know what really doesn't sell on ebay? Tablecloths. No one sets a table anymore and they don't want china and silver so why would they want nice white damask tablecloths to wash and iron? Just donated a gigantic bag of them to GW. You could sell a colorful '50s tablecloth though.
The problem with that is that there is SO much stuff on ebay, you need a way for people to find it. "Coach purse" or "Mickey Mouse watch" - terms that people can search easily. "Lovely white damask tablecloth" - there are hundreds of them on there, no one is going to take the time to look at each listing and see the size and condition.
The ideal setup is a combo of online and IRL selling. Some things do better online, others do better where people can see and handle them. When I sold at flea markets, vintage linens were a big seller.
So OP, please come back and tell us your experience with the traveling buyers!!
Woke up, and couldn't go back to sleep, so here I am, on a cardio machine in my wardrobe, typing away... This talk about unwanted pianos made me google "Free Grand Piano". (we could use SEVERAL concert grands - for a couple of rooms in my daughter's house needing something huge, and for other homes). That led to THIS site. https://pianoadoption.com/
Essentially, 99.99% of what was made in America, from 1945 to 1995, was ugly garbage. It was designed by people who'd gone to lackluster design schools at lackluster colleges. And it was made in factories owned by people of my faith, who made sure processes were streamlined, in order that profits would be maximized (and that things could be made cheaply-enough, that they could go through MULTIPLE MARKUPS - as in through wholesalers - and still be profitable at every step along the way). Between the Cow College Schools of Design, and the New Jersey Industrialists, some pretty horrible crap was churned-out. My Decorator taught me this, when I was 17 (we were both just penniless waifs, at the time). Once the merchandise left the furniture store or the jewelry store, and the price tags/wrappings were removed, the "Platinum-edged China" and "Herculon Recliners" lost their lustre. Once the hype creating demand and peer approval, had faded from memory, so did the value of the "fine china" and "Broyhill Old World Charm Living Room Ensemble".
And don't forget the PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE, which DELIBERATELY sabotaged the average buyer. None of the rubbish produced for the average consumer, was supposed to remain in fashion. This approach was taught in schools, even. "Insiders" congratulated themselves on being part of "The Merchandising System." It was hoped, and assumed, that, in due time, the merchandise would be seen as undesirable, and would be discarded.
"You have to look for that one percent of the one percent, Bubbeleh - the stuff the ordinary people don't have, and don't know about. THAT is what will be good, forever." That's what my Decorator taught me. Something tells me that very little Floria Danica ends up in dumpsters: https://www.google.com/search?q=Flor...w=1370&bih=803
OH, and by the way, everybody I know, has MOUNTAINS of silverplate, along with the sterling. It's treasured, and kept polished, and appears in mountains and drifts - on dining tables, and massed in vignettes. The pretty stuff gets saved, while the ugly stuff gets tossed. Most people buy what they're TOLD to buy, which is the ugly stuff, generally. But those who buy for beauty, while ignoring fashion, seem to end up with pieces whose value endures.
But I have to wonder, if the public isn't being DELIBERATELY PANICKED by dealers who want to keep their supply cheap, in order to leave room for huge markups. Maybe there are paid trolls, who go around trumpeting, "Nobody wants your Mom's old junk." Just take a look at 1st Dibs (https://www.1stdibs.com/). The founder just bought and refurbished a huge house in Tuxedo Park (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luP9cLe6rBU). There's BIG money in resale, at a certain level - more than enough money, to pay trolls to go around panicking the public, via the Internet.
Last edited by GrandviewGloria; 02-10-2018 at 05:24 AM..
We gave a piano to our friends when we moved. We hired people to move it, and I don’t know who paid, but I don’t think they were pro piano movers, just movers.
Fast forward to several years later, when they were moving and needed to get rid of the piano. Come to find out, the sounding board was cracked, rendering the piano worthless. I don’t know if it was always like that, or if it happened when we moved it, or what, but my poor friend wound up having to take a chainsaw to the piano and leaving it on the curb in pieces.
We gave a piano to our friends when we moved. We hired people to move it, and I don’t know who paid, but I don’t think they were pro piano movers, just movers.
Fast forward to several years later, when they were moving and needed to get rid of the piano. Come to find out, the sounding board was cracked, rendering the piano worthless. I don’t know if it was always like that, or if it happened when we moved it, or what, but my poor friend wound up having to take a chainsaw to the piano and leaving it on the curb in pieces.
Sawing it up is how I got rid of an old TV armoire. It took 6 weeks to get rid of all of the pieces. Nobody wants those either.
I suspect that a great deal of the world's books -- maybe as many as 90% of them -- will never be opened again. I know people who move boxes of books from house to house to house without ever opening the box. There are warehouses full of old school textbooks. Publishers remainders. Library shelves jammed with books noone will ever check out. Used bookstores selling almost every book for a dime, nobody wants Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock", (there are ten in every Goodwill), or autobiographies of forgotten celebrities that sold millions, or old World Almanacs and Readers Digest condensed books...
But don't dare burn one, they're sacred.
The libraries are not jammed with books that were never checked out. Collections are culled daily. I am on numerous waiting lists for print books. Also libraries will electronically check out books to your Kindle.
I’ve worked in libraries for over 30 years.
Yes, there are people that never read. Sad.
I went to the recent event at the local community centre, where a travelling antiques auction type of company was offering to buy "things that you think are valuable ".
The doors opened at 9 am, and the crowd was all ready large. As you entered the first table would give your stuff a quick look and give you directions to the specific area for your item. Item tables were arranged around the gym. Each table had 2 or 3 appraisers with a sign over top of it.
I had brought two sets of items....a 1903 set of hockey player tobacco cards ( 24 pieces ) and 4 brass WW1 trench art shell casings. These were hand engraved by a German POW in 1919, at a camp in Belgium, where my Dad ( Yes you read that correctly ) was a guard. Dad served in the Canadian Army from October 1915 to June of 1919.
Each shell has his name, serial number, unit, dates of significant actions that he was involved in, and the name of the POW camp, in Dave, Belgium. He traded 200 smokes for the creation of these items. It took the man about a month, using a flattened darning needle to complete them. Not much else to do, waiting to be released and go back to Germany.
The offers. The 24 hockey cards.......$3500. sold. The 4 brass shells, offered $5600. I declined.
The people who were doing the appraisals were careful and if the item was not worth much , they would say so. Offers were given a second look by the manager of that area, and in some cases there was some haggling over prices. The largest interest seemed to be gold jewelry , and watches. Quite a few people had more than 1 watch.....one guy had about 15, all pre 1900.
My overall impression was that the prices were fair, but you needed to know the ball park figure that you should get. My payment was a direct transfer to my CIBC bank account by electronic means. Took about 2 minutes.
Now that I have a fairly accurate evaluation of Dad's brass... I know what amount my estate can expect to get as a tax credit / benefit from the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, when I donate them, after I die.
The money from the hockey cards will be donated to the Hockey Hall Of Fame, for future purchases of important items.
We gave a piano to our friends when we moved. We hired people to move it, and I don’t know who paid, but I don’t think they were pro piano movers, just movers.
Fast forward to several years later, when they were moving and needed to get rid of the piano. Come to find out, the sounding board was cracked, rendering the piano worthless. I don’t know if it was always like that, or if it happened when we moved it, or what, but my poor friend wound up having to take a chainsaw to the piano and leaving it on the curb in pieces.
I had to look that one up, since we'd be precisely the sorts to HAVE "worthless" pianos (buying them, as we do, entirely for their looks and size). So, instead of going downstairs, to see whether we've got a bum Bosendorfer, I googled-around a bit. Apparently, "worthless" is relative, where cracked soundboards are concerned. It's not like when a car's frame is bent, or a horse has a broken leg, if I've correctly interpreted what I've just read: https://anamazingmachine.wordpress.c...-panic-button/
And personally, I like the sound of funky, "off-sounding" pianos far more than that of the perfect ones we hear, while taking naps during concerts (gotta say....we stay awake far longer during concerts, than during dance events - particularly when there's a lot of jumping-around onstage).
So, don't feel guilty over the condition of your piano. Apparently, all it takes are age and environmental fluctuations, to crack the soundboard.
Dishes and jewelry seem to be much more popular than my "stunning" 5 &1/4 inch floppy drive collection!
I had some floppies that had short stories and other things I had written on them, so I bought a floppy reader for $15 that has a USB connector to plug into the computer. I was able to retrieve most of the documents, although a couple of the floppies could not be read.
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