Has anyone had success selling your parents' stuff on Ebay or Etsy?

Our friends just went to AL had a lady come & sold stuff in lots. Set a deadline when must be picked up or was goner. Always remember Craigslist.

realtime: Location, Location, Location! My late mother owned a LOT of vintage items and I know antiques pretty well. When she passed, I had them all out for display so that her town's one antique dealer could peruse them. Bottom line-she only wanted a handful ($70 a piece for my brother and I) of items! I was taken aback!

AmyGrace, I know what you mean. Too bad so many of the younger generation don't get the same excitement that I do when it comes to furniture that is 100+ years old. I have a library table from the late 1800's, I always wonder what is the history behind that table, who's home did it sit. Also have wash basin cabinets that were used inside a house long before bathrooms sinks were the norm. The wood in these pieces are priceless :)

Today the air condition/heating fellow came by to service both houses. He saw an old manual drill on my Dad's work bench and asked if he could buy it for $10... he said he's been looking for something like that for years, as he found the newer cordless battery drills would die out too quickly for him. I quickly said yes, as this fellow was one of the very few people my parents would let into the house, he was so very patient with them over the past decade as my parents would both hover over him while worked :)

I have had some success with craigslist, and it saves having to ship the items as well as saving on the fees. Like ebay, they are looking to get it cheap too, so be prepared to negotiate.

Slightly off topic but......I am 61 and currently doing a general inventory of the things I feel are valuable that I know my children are not interested in simply so that they do not garage sale these pieces. Signed limited edition framed prints, hand carved stag horn flatware from 1950's Germany, one of a kind artist peices, Native American handcrafts,jewelry etc....where I can I am also providing provenance as well as original packaging when possible. At least this way they will have a starting point and not have to rely on the estate/antique appraiser for values.....learned the hard way that if the auctioneer doesn't know/care what it is they will sell it for a song and anything else like it will be offered to the buyer at the same price......I know my kids are not interested in most of these things so I am trying to help with info now.

I finally gave up and brought almost everything of Mom's (household items, knick knacks, etc) to the nearly new charity shop. It really hurt me to do it, and last time I was in the shop her very nice Noritake china was still unsold for $50 - a complete set with serving dishes. I felt so badly about that!
I've been trying to downsize myself and having no luck on e-bay and very little on craigs list or facebook garage sales. Yard sales are a waste of time. I have cabinets full of Limoge and very old cut glass, sterling silver, limited edition lithographs (also antique quilts) but can't sell anything! The only thing I have a little bit of luck with is furniture, but you have to sell it cheap. Everyone wants news stuff, and gen ex and millennials don't want any "keepsakes".
It breaks my heart to get rid of things that 10 years ago were worth 10x as much.

When I was unemployed, I did Ebay for about a year in 2012. Mom would give me stuff. It generally took about an hour of work per item to write descriptions, take photos, take measurements (I measured every item), do research, and then pack and ship if it sold. The average that I sold something for was maybe $10. So, if you're not working, $10 an hour may seem ok. The most expensive thing I sold was an elephant figurine. It didn't look like much but two people fought over it, and it sold for over $100. I had to ship that to Germany and took some loss on the shipping.

Rain mom, I have seen gorgeous looking and sounding wind chimes that used pieces of driftwood as the top with ordinary keys hanging via that clear nylon sewing thread or filament thread.

If you find, via homework online, that you may have a valuable piece, take it to a local antique dealer or coin/gold shop. Eliminate shipping/pay hassles and support local business. Most of the things from our parents' home that needed to 'find new homes' went to our local charitable thrift store that provides scholarships to our youth. We got a nice tax write-off from the donation, and a young person gets help with college. Win-win.

I know that it is a tough job to deal with an estate, even for a hoarder like myself. Just don't get in a big rush to toss everything just so you can say "Done!" If you like yard sales, you already know what to do, If you want to just get rid of everything, try Salvation Army or similar. Someone will get use out of it and you should get tax benefits. Good luck and stay calm.

Local antiques stores might buy or take on consignment. Also Auctions might get the best prices. Look for those in your area and ck a couple of them to see what % they will charge. Ebay you can look up and select sold for and see what it went for. I am in Florida and china just does sell at anytime of year it seems.

Back when I was first dealing with knick-knacks and quality items that my Mom had, I was in a frenzy on how to store everything in my own house. Someone on the forum gave me an excellent idea.... swap out some of my own things and replace with items I want to keep from my Mom :)

Example, I like to keep paperclips easily accessible and had them in tin candy cans, so I donated those tin cans as there was no sentimental value, and used small bowls from various china sets my Mom had for the paperclips. Now I can remember the china sets without needing to keep every individual piece of china [would have been packed into a box in the basement].

Wish I could have passed on the items to relatives, but in my case I am an only child who never had children. The cousins whom I am closes to also never had any children and they were up to their eyeballs with their own parent's household goods.

All the more reason for me to start doing more of my own downsizing.

All of you, thanks so much for the ideas. You have given me so many tips I hardly know where to start! I'm making a folder with the idea of putting in printouts of the asking/sell prices and photos that are online that I can find. I'm thinking that when/if we sell, I can put the info. next to the item for sale.

I have a friend in South Dakota who took all the "family" costume jewelry and created a collage out of it. She bought a string of little white Christmas lights, took a sheet of cardboard, covered it with some nice fabric, drilled holes in this, poked the lights thru and glued the costume jewelry on in the shape of a Christmas tree. Put in nice frame, plug in and remember the person with all the fun jewelry!!

I was turned down by one Estate Sale Company. They said not enough stuff. Said they like to deal with hoarders. My Sister and I had cleaned out most of clutter but there was too much "stuff" for us to drag outside and do a Yard Sale. Anyway after getting turned down by first Estate Sale Co a friend gave me the name of another Lady that does Estate Sales. She came and did a walk thru and told me she would be happy to handle the sale. She even gave me an estimate as to what the total sales might be. I was SHOCKED! This was a 1500 sq ft house with garage sale stuff inside. After the Sale there were some things left. The lady arranged for someone that had a resale shop to come in and buy all remaining items for a set price. It was very successful. The proceeds were enough to cover Taxes, Insurance on house and have trees trimmed before we sold the house. It was well worth it for us.

One more thing--think about whether your parent's things would be of interest to a local college. I donated some old records to a college that was interested in them. Anything that is a good example of a tool or instrument that was once used in a technical field would probably be of value to a college because they have historical value.

NJ, I agree. I think it's best to first distribute your parent's things to relatives first. I had my grandmother's wedding ring diamond set in a new setting because her old ring had worn down over the years. But, if there are leftovers that are too nice to throw in the trash, I think my prior advice about selling them online is good because why add to all of the landfill. I love to see people recycle goods as we are become too much of a throwaway society. I forgot to mention that purchasing a spot at a local thrift market might be a good idea. There are certain places where people can rent a table to sell their goods to crowds in search of a bargain. Or, you can always run a yard sale yourself--just be sure to promote the heck out of it by posting signs all over.
Also, I know that there are dealers who will come to your home to assess your stuff. Some dealers focus on things like old records or collectibles.
You can always call them to see if they are interested.

Do you have a local or state historical society? After Grandma died I had several boxes of old household items, toys, aprons and the like. Not valuable but I hated to see them go in the dumpster. Then our local Historical center asked for donations for an exhibit on mid-century living. They took all of the boxes to add to their collection. I get a thrill visiting and seeing the items on display and knowing that they will be cared for. Anything they don't keep they sell which helps fund the facility.

Once you get an idea of the real value you might consider Craigslist. If you sell local you don't have to worry about packing and breakage of fragile things. You can set your own terms as to when and where to make the sale, preferably in a public place with a friend for company just to be safe. I have sold quite a few things this way, insisting they pick the items up at my office.

Ebay can be quite time consuming if you get a lot of questions from buyers. Also if anything arrives broken you have to refund the money as well as any shipping costs. The seller takes the risk here.

Worth the effort if you have the time. Slowly doing it yourself lets you recall the memories, take the pictures and let it go. EBay Craig's List Etsy etc. Another option that might help you is Everything But The House. They handle on line estate sales when you have a lot to sell. There are also,local auction houses and estate sale companies. Different things sell better on different sites. For the little, not so valuable but nice stuff, I've done well with the neighborhood Facebook garage sale sites. Bundle some items so it's worth the trip. No shipping. You pick a local public parking lot to meet up. I post several dozen things before a garage sale and it seems to really increase garage sale traffic and most of the posted items sell before the garage sale day. If they come pick it up I let them browse through anything else that's already out for sale too.

I would try local town and county facebook yardsale groups too. However, I'm a sentimental person and it will be hard to sell my parents things once they are gone. I still have many things of my grandmother's. what about heirlooms? if you keep the china, you could pass it down or at least a bowl or two. My exmother inlaw collected teacups. My daughter has one and so do her aunts. they treasure them. I kept costume jewelry of my grandmother --but found amongst them her engagement ring. First we thought it was costume then had it appraised and it was worth over $5,000! way to go grandpa! My daughter has the diamond in a new setting, but a way for her to keep her great-grandmother close to her heart. She plans on passing down the diamond in the family from daughter to daughter as a legacy. Guess we are a sentimental bunch lol

I've sold about $300 worth of my old jewelry on sites such as Etsy and Tradesy. I love silver and gemstone jewelry but I look at it as being on loan to me. So, when I tire of it, I put it up for sale so that a new owner can share the joy of owning it at a greatly reduced price. RainMom, your turquoise and silver jewelry is probably pretty valuable as it's hard to find genuine turquoise now--most of the stuff they sell now is dyed howlite. That's why I love vintage jewelry. Silver is more expensive today so they usually use less to make jewelry. I love the older, heavier piece and feel that silver gains more character with age.
You never know what people want to buy. Unless they are rare, seek to sell your items for about 25% of what they originally cost. There isn't much of a marketplace for certain goods because lifestyles have changed and people dine more casually these days so china and fine crystal doesn't have the audience it used to have.
But you never know--I know a man who uses license plates to make art pieces. A friend of mine threw away two decades of plates not knowing that this man would have valued them because they are hard to get--most states today now require you to turn in your plates. So, you never know--one man's junk is another man's treasure.

TRUE STORY! When we cleaned out my folks' home to prepare them to move to an independent living I came across a shoebox full of unused post cards that Mama had purchased from the early 60's to late 70s....we used to travel from TN to CA every other summer (my father is from Los Angeles). MANY of the post cards were from Disneyland (we went there every trip) - and some of the attractions had closed or been changed long ago.

Long story short - I sold them on ebay for a total of $735. YES - $735 for probably 40 post cards!!! I purchased my folks a big flat screen TV AND paid for several months of cable for them for the new place.

After that unbelievable sale - Dad took me aside and showed me some old framed feather pictures from Mexico. He said "Your brother wants these. Are they worth anything on that computer thing like the post cards?" I told him maybe...he handed them to me....LOLOLOL.

GOOD LUCK!!!

Realtime, I know people were telling me to use Craigslist, but I didn't like the idea of meeting a stranger at an empty house to show furniture.

When a plumber was at my parents house doing repair work, he fell in love with an antique curved glass china cabinet. It was refreshing to see a young fellow have such appreciation for such an item. I sold the cabinet to him real cheap as I wanted it to go to a good home :) Of course I held my breathe as he and his work buddy carried it down the stairs as those cabinets can twist and break. Whew. It made it in one piece.

FF, yeah, that's what i'm afraid of -- being turned down by estate sellers. That's one reason I've been attending sales, to see which companies might handle houses like ours. Found one a few days ago, but I don't know how the experience worked for them. I've already disposed of a few big furniture pieces as give-aways on Craig's List. In fact, one of my most nervous moments was when a lady started warning me against the problems I could have with dangerous people, and then went on to tell me about her drug rehab.

I tried to get estate sale people to come to my parents house and only one was interested, and even after he saw what was available, he said it just wasn't enough to bother with.... [sigh]. They tend to look for very up-scale furniture or antiques, a house full.

So I decided the fastest way to get all this stuff out of my house [my family room and dining room were looking like a flea market] was to donate all the items to various charitable outlets. That way my Dad would have a really nice deduction come income tax time :)

Salvation Army will come this Thursday to get what is left of my parents furniture... if I had known how easy it was to go on-line at the Salvation Army and check off what furniture, etc. and to pick a pickup date, I would have done this months ago [slapping forehead].

Selling online is really tough. This is a very bad year for it. It may be because it is election year, there has been a lot of bad stuff going on, Brexit, and general loss in vintage things. People spend a lot of money on technology and are trying to save more. Whatever it is -- people are holding their purses tighter now.

Oh, my, this is really is a big issue for family, isn't it? So many of you really know about this stuff. Thank you, thank you!

Replacements is a great site with great owners. The prices there are about 3X what you can get if you're selling online. They are great to use as a start point, then divide by 3 and ask that much. :)

LiveAuctioneers -- go to them now and sign up for free. There's lots of stuff there.

Google replacements ltd. They sell all sorts of china, and other similar items. I would not want to even try ebay, too much to do, sending multiple packages, sound like a full time job. Maybe replacements would purchase the entire lot for a decent amount.