Unit 8 Redux and a General Update

Unit 8, also known as the "hoarder unit," was truly an experience. I had guesstimated about 60 boxes were in the unit, but as time went on, and the boxes seemed never to end, I gave them a thorough count. Over 75 boxes of 1.8 cubic feet (and some were the larger 2.7 cubic feet size) adds up to a lot of stuff. Just about all of the contents were clothes, with at least half of the clothes being brand new.

We have donated more than half of the contents of those 75 boxes. We weren't interested in used clothes, blouses or cotton knit. We also didn't have any interest in winter hats, used shoes or used handbags.

So, now we have 21 boxes of stuff that made the initial cut.

• We've got 40-50 coats. At least 20 of them are faux fur. The non faux fur coats are virtually all red. Red was our hoarder's color of choice for coats, handbags and clothes. I'll hold all the coats till September to list them at a time of year when they're likely to go for more money. Looking at coat auctions on eBay, I'm estimating these will sell for about $20 each. I'm hoping for about $750 from those coats, which will hand us a nice profit on the unit.
• We've got hundreds of skirts and dozens of dresses. Unfortunately, most of them are fairly low value, such as Jaclyn Smith from Kmart, so they don't have a high resale value.
• We've got at least 2 dozen unused, large handbags. 90% of them are red. None are leather, all are fabric or manmade materials. These will be fairly expensive to ship and probably won't go for much money on eBay, so I'm going to try and find a flea market seller to pick these up for a bit.
• Speaking of flea markets, I set aside a very large box of all manner of low value, unused stuff that I'm hoping a flea market contact will take. It includes 4 cheesy tiaras, 50+ hair barettes, dozens of troll dolls and mucho, mucho cheesy hair stuff for young girls.
• And, last but not least, we've got lots of high-heeled sandals in size 10.

I've done an initial listing of skirts and dresses. Of the first 9 I tried, only 2 sold. The auctions expired without a bid on the other 7. I listed them at reasonably low prices, having checked completed auctions on eBay to see what was reasonable. As a result, I'm rethinking my strategy and will probably junk (as in, donate) all the Jaclyn Smith skirts. Even with those out of the picture, we've got a lot of stuff to sell for the next few months.

It's funny to think that big Leominster auction was about a month ago. Since then, we've been to 2-3 auctions but haven't purchased any new units. Each unit we've been interested in has either gone for more than our agreed-upon maximum (trying to make sure we don't overbid) or because we didn't have enough money in our pockets to buy the unit up for auction.

This Saturday, another large auction of units at a moving company is on tap. And, it's only 20 minutes from my house, so it'll be easy to transport stuff back here assuming that we buy. I am really looking forward to this Saturday!