For years since I first heard about E-Bay here on the Chip Board, I have flipped over there at times to look over the material that was offered, but I never bid on anything or put anything of mine on the block. I thought about it, but I have no web page and was uncertain about running an item without a picture (literally, worth 1000 words!). Recently it has come to pass that my Mom and I will be moving from the NW suburbs of Milwaukee to a place on the south side of the city. This means after living thirty years here we have a ton of stuff to go through. The family has a major "pack rat" gene handed down from generation to generation and this makes moving a real adventure.

As I started goint through stuff, I shuddered. I have collected coins, comic books, role-playing and miniatures gaming, baseball cards and memorbilia and casino chips and cards over the years, and I have more... junk... than I want to admit. I resolved before I threw out I would see if anybody wants it. First, I had a box of stadium beverage cups from various major and minor league parks. So I put together a package of 24 of them and put it on E-Bay for $10. No interest was seen until the last eight minutes of the run, when a fellow in Missouri did the minimum bid. Wow. I can actually find people who want stuff. I then found I could bank photos on Photopoint for use with E-Bay. So I dug in the basement, where I found a box of old comic-book related items I must have bought at a clearance sale years ago and stashed away. This and other stuff became my next assortment of auction items on E-Bay strting Sunday. Some are doing real well. I had a Captain America uniform and equipment for the Captain Action doll in the original box. I knew that had to be worth a chunk of change, especially after I found an identical item, not quite as good, not in the original box for $150! But my big surprise came with a little Batman Pez Dispenser, in its original box, that I put on E-Bay with and opening bid of $3 on Sunday. I was sitting here with mouth dropping this week as the bidding went to $41 (wow)... $71 (holy cow)... and now $102 (Oh my god!) I keep flipping to my items on E-Bay to see where they are. It sure takes up a lot of time. I think I actually rechecked an item once and then realized it was only 20 minutes since I had just looked at it. I will continue to dig stuff out and throw it out for bids. I have not done any chip or casino related stuff yet, but probably will. If so I let you people on the board know. But I always had all this junk... er, stuff... that I kept saying was worth money. But a little voice in the back of my head was saying, "ah, the stuffs not worth the box it's stored in!" How nice to find out the little voice is wrong.