If it's boxed up, why not?

Absolutely agree with the fact that if it is all dowels or mortise and tenon with pegs it would be older more valuable and higher quality. Unfortunately that piece doesn't look old enough for that. It looks like something from the 30's thru early 50's. The screws being straight push the date back closer to the 30's. Phillips screws are much more modern. I thing a price of 150 would be reasonable without knowing more about the piece.

25 to 30% is normal and I've seen as low as 20%. But then, Gallery 63 thats on TV charges 35 I think. But one thing to do when taking items to auction is get yourself into the mindset that all of your stuff will only sell for half of what you think it should. If you do that then there is no sellers remorse or regret and if items sell for more than that then you get the gravy good feeling....LOL

Yeah the tendency to hoard in this business is strong. I set a 90 day rule of thumb. If an item say an antique chest is worth 400 I'll list it for 300 for a month and keep revising / enhancing the listing everywhere but holding the price. After the first month I'll drop my asking price by 30% making the selling price 210 for another month and revice my listings, if it goes to a third month I'll drop the price another 30% making the selling price 147 and hold it there until it sells or I firesale it to generate cash at the 90 day point. Those are steep steps but I seldom get to the 90 day point. My goal is to make as much as I can but other than precious metals gems jewelry certificates valuable art, nothing is worth hanging on to for a long time.

You are responsible for tagging your items with those tags with strings. On the tag you put  vendor number such as V730 for me. Then a brief description of the item and then the price. The buyer takes the item up front where they remove the tag, ring up the sale and on their accounting software the vendor number is entered with the sale so you get credit. They then take the tag they removed from the item and put it into a card file under my vendor number with the date sold stamped on the tag. They do take a 10% sales commission for the house which is very reasonable (and I accounted for by raising my prices 15%). We get paid twice a month with a complete accounting of what sold. The process is easy and works well. They do allow vendors to "work" the floor if you want to and if they have an open timeframe and for that they give you credit on the space rental so you can reduce your rental costs. It is entirely voluntary and has no affect on your space rental. Now that is different than two other similar malls in my area where they REQUIRE you to work two eight hour shifts a month and one weekend a month (for free) as part of your rental agreement. I immediately dropped those two sites when I was searching as my labor is not free. ON top of that those sites rental rates were HIGHER per square foot than Big Shanty Antiques is.

The only issue that they told us about is when a customer switches tags for a lower priced item. Thats why they tell all the vendors to describe the item on the tag such as , 1930 Toby Mug, Red with green hat and @ 7 inches tall. Enough of a description so that if someone tries to swap tags they can tell it when they get the item up front. Again, makes good sense to me. On smaller items or very expensive items many of us (me included) bought a lockable display case, mine is 6 feet long four high and is all glass with three sets of glass shelves inside. You put the small and valuable stuff in the case, lock it up and put a 3x5 card taped tp the case that instructs the customer to go to the front desk and ask for access to the display case number V730. The owners then will go to the booth with the customer and let them look at an item. If they want it the owner take that item to the hold table at the checkout for the customer to pick up when they are ready to check out. They are very strict with the keys and at NO time give the keys out or let the case unlocked as they know thats where the valuabe stuff is and they don't want any issues with theft. All in all the process works and I am very happy with the way they do things.

After having so many smalls and collectibles and and and (yall know the drill) My wife and I decided to take an interim step between nothing and a store. We rented a booth at a local antique and gift mall. It runs 190 a month for a 10x10. Nice thing is they let you do basically what you want within the booth and the best part is I'm not there as the stuff sells. The buyers browse, load the carts take it to the front and it gets sold. Ive now sold antique and vintage furniture, jewelry, glassware, collectibles old newspapers all that stuff that wouldn't sell on CL and wasn't quite enough caliber to go on ebay etc. It's working fine for us. I've covered the first two months rent in the first ten days open and i'm into making profit now!!! A side benefit is my wife is now involved and loves setting up and keeping up with "the shop" as she puts it. Lotsa benefits there when Mama's happy the world is at peace..hahahaha...just another avenue for getting rid of a lot of stuff. Actually, Young Gun on here told me his dad had a booth and was working it so that's how I got interested. Yall should check it out in your area (I'm north of Atlanta). It's not surprising in a down economy that people are looking for bargains especially on some of those semi luxury items they still want to buy. It's a way to go......

Not here in Atlanta. All us regulars still seeing a lot of newbies and way too high prices. Went to an auction yesterday with 6 units. Biggest unit was a 10x20 with two old mattress sets, some old furniture (living room) a washer and dryer and an old rear projection big screen with a few boxes and bags all looked in very used condition to crappy. The damn thing went for $970.00 to a newbie / almost newbie. Then there was the small unit a 10x10 that had two metal self assembled shelves, a kids bicycle(toddlers) an old partical board computer desk BROKEN and in pieces and one box that sold for $80.00. You could have bought the shelves new a walmart for under 30 and all the rest was landfill fodder. I'm just hopeing things ease up here. This is getting rediculous.