Hello to friends old and new from Lee Munsick.  Not too far back I
would have bridled at such a comment as my subject heading, just as
some of your other readers have.  But now, alas, I can understand.

We love being retired and living here in Vero Beach, Florida --
"Paradise", according to its citizens -- although I'm not a big fan of
July, August and September.  It's getting a bit cooler now and the
coming half of the year is idyllic.

Anyway, one thing about being this far away from all the activity up
north (I spent most of my life in New Jersey and have lots of friends
in the greater New York area) is that if we still lived there we would
have no problem selling off my large accumulation of items from 60+
years of collecting.  But there are no similar venues here and I don't
know collectors in the area, so we try to offer things on eBay.

It has never been a big money-maker for us, but our purpose was more
to find good homes for beloved items, as mentioned in a posting today.
But I find I have no choice but to throw items away, as I sell less
than 10% of the items I list on eBay and we must eliminate the cost of
renting storage area.

By the time I pay for all the other listing fees, generally what
I do sell for reasonable and sometimes downright puny amounts (when
I do, and there are weeks when I do not) perhaps works out to cover
the expenses of offering the items which do not sell, and I can never
figure out ahead of time what will and what won't sell.  I go by what
I always thought was neat, but then I was collecting at the peak of
interest in mechanical music, Edisonia, records, talking machines,
movies and other nostalgia.  Which brings us back to the other
discussion thread of recent days _- how to get the newer folk to become
as interested in all this wonderful stuff as we have been!

I don't sell baby clothes and household goods.  I sell collectibles,
or try to.  That's a nice word for grownups' toys, and today's economic
climate is not a time for people to buy toys.  So be considerate of
folk that say quite honestly that if something doesn't sell, it will go
into trash.  After all, one man's trash is another person's treasure.

For those of you younger folk, be considerate of us oldsters who are
simply panicking about how to eliminate costs and survive in today's
climate.  'Tain't funny, McGee.

Bestus, Lee Munsick