[Milsurplus] An object lesson

Wed Apr 15 14:17:31 EDT 2015

What a bunch of "the glass is half empty" individuals! With all the people selling estate stuff on EBay, the proliferation of newsgroups and list servers and Craigslist we are now living in the golden age of being able to sell our equipment or estates. I know for a fact that I have had more opportunity in the past twenty years to buy and sell then in the tweny years before that. Am I the only one who remembers when all we had was maybe a handful of Hamfest and some surplus catalogs? Remember waiting around for the "yellow sheets" or a floppy disk from Mr. S. How many emails just this month have been sent about Craigslist and the items available there? And that’s just on Milsurplus, did not know there were all these other list now like Boatanchors, Military Surplus Net List and all the other like the ARC-5 and Army radios. 
The internet has allowed us to buy and sell unique items on a scale and to a public that has never been matched in history. In the past several years I have been more absorbed in obsolete and arcane computer hardware and less into the military radio hobby but at the end of the day collecting is collecting and the world of collecting is in  a way better place today than at any other time that I can think of.
Perhaps all men are predisposed to collect as much junk as they can hoard, and I know I have had my issues with people who have five of something and won't consider selling you one but don’t think this is a new problem. I know myself I have way too much junk and slowly have been working on selling items  but the problem is that I somehow manage to bring in at least three new items for everyone that gets sold. And have taken the steps of dragging my daughters out to the Ham Fest and letting them see how that works so at some point in the future they can take a truckload to Dayton and dispose of it. One thing I do know from experience is that everything can be sold at Dayton, see estates sell there all the time. maybe not for what the original owner thought they were worth but they will sell, also I have seen the people who are in the process of selling their collections not all at once but several items a year and if they are willing to sell the stuff sells. The real problem is the people who won't sell or somehow have some impression of an astronomical value and go back home with whatever it is and then sit around and complain about how bad it is and so on but time catches up with us all and someday if it's not going to be resold then its fodder for the landfill..
If you don’t like what someone else is going to sell your stuff for someday get out there and start selling yourself, if you can't get what you think it's worth maybe you need to consider reducing the price, but the market is out there. I got my two spaces in Dayton this year FE-2845 and FE-3046 and intend to be selling!

Ray F/KA3EKH

-----Original Message-----
From: Milsurplus [mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Glen Zook via Milsurplus
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 12:48 PM
To: Don Merz; Ian Wilson; David Harmon
Cc: Boatanchors; Military Surplus net List
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] [Boatanchors] [BoatAnchors] An object lesson

Although I don't plan on going SK for a long time (a number of my ancestors lived into their late 90s, early 100s, I am gradually preparing a document containing photographs of each item, model number, serial number, any special features (i.e. additional filters), and what to expect to "get" for the item.  By "get" I am putting an "asking" price, an average price to expect, and a "rock bottom" price lower than which not to take.
This document will be in a file on my computer, printed out "hard copy", and then save the file onto a CD ROM copies of which will be given to my wife and each of my 3-daughters.  I will also list possible persons to help dispose of the equipment as well as the names of people to absolutely refuse to deal with.  Those are the persons, that I know, who offer to dispose of all that old junk, paying almost nothing, and then reselling at inflated prices. Glen, K9STH

Website: http://k9sth.net
      From: Don Merz via Milsurplus <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
 To: Ian Wilson <ianmwilson73 at gmail.com>; David Harmon <k6xyz at sbcglobal.net>
Cc: Boatanchors <boatanchors at mailman.qth.net>; Military Surplus net List <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
 Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 10:53 AM
 Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] [Boatanchors] [BoatAnchors] An object lesson

The underlying problem here should not be neglected. The fault does not lie with the unknowledgable family nor with Apex Surplus. It was unfair and unreasonable of this person to accumulate all that and expect someone else to CORRECTLY handle it. Don't stick your family with some horrendous chore when you die. Treat it like planning your retirement. Calculate how many years you think you have left and make it a goal to dispose of some percentage of your pile each year until you are down to what can be thrown away with minimal loss. If you think you have 20 years left, 5% of the pile should go out the door (no fair adding new stuff!) every year. The aternative is to resign yourself to the thought that it might all go in the dumpster. And maybe that is okay too--bizarre as that sounds, it IS a valid choice. But if you have never been executor of an estate, then you really can't grasp the burden that it all is. We should not be adding hobby hoarding to that burden for our executors. It's just that simple.

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