Amazingly little gold among the jewelry. I've done an initial sort of jewelry. There are about a dozen large rubbermade totes (I'm pretty sure I have about 300 lbs of jewelry) and seperated out all gold and silver. I do have a bunch of assorted silver jewelry, lots of Taxco Mexico stuff. Gold would have been better but silver is nice too. Lots of old costume jewelry which looks like it can be pretty valuable. I didn't really realize the value of bakelite initially so I am going back looking for that. Found one necklace just like one listed on EBAY for $2500 (didn't sell but still a good sign of potential value) Lots of named costume jewelry, Trifari, Sarah Coventry, Hobe...don't know much about it but doing research now. Found some weapons (WWII) some with certain logo's which will prevent sale on EBAY, Tons of old paintings and lithographs which again will require many hours of research. Tons of furniture some really nice and old...I could go on forever. No huge hits, tons and tons of $20, $50, $100 items so no doubt it will be profitable but doesn't look like we will strike it rich on any one item....never know though, we still have about 16 pallets stacked high with boxes to sort through. I tried to post a photo of the house before emptying it but my photos are too big. Will try again later.

Not exactly sure because on the few days we didn't go we use the same truck for another service related business that can require lots of driving but I would say $800-$900 gas expense. Also over $300 in dump runs, $670 in labor (hired a couple people to help lift furniture on some of the days), and total storage fees remain to be seen. We rented two large units and hope to be able to drop down to one within 1-2 months. Will probably have the remaining one for several months. Oh, also spent a couple hundred on boxes, packing tape, energy drinks and ibuprophin!

Just made our final trip to clean out the hoarder house...and guest house....and garage with attached storage room....and shed....and barn. Took us 10 trips, 2 1/2 hour drive each way (more with traffic, once it took 4 hours). So far 4 trucks full of stuff taken to Goodwill, 4 dump trailer loads to the dump and 8 full 20 ft enclosed trailer loads of stuff now residing in our garage, barn, 2 10x25 storage units, and the 20 ft trailer is still full of the last load. We have lined the front of our property with give away furniture daily (mostly bookcases). The first three days it was all gone by the end of the day. I guess our neighbors have all had their fill of bookcases because they aren't taking any more. Just spent an hour breaking up the remaining bookcases and tossing them in the dump trailer.  Now we have to figure out how to sell all the good stuff. Gonna take forever!

I've gotten some great lots in Auction houses (or barns). Box lots can be very profitable but you definitely need to be able to think outside the box. Don't go for the obvious collectibles that everyone is after. Find the less common valuables. I just look up random stuff on my phone while previewing and occasionally find a hidden value. I actually prefer this type of buying to storage auctions. No dump runs!

  You truly have too much time on your hands.

Ya think?  Lol...

I rarely do free shipping. If it's a light item I'll still stick a couple bucks on there to cover my costs. As far as start low or start high, I don't know what it best but I just can not list an item for $.99 I will usually list it at the least amount of money I am comfortable with selling it at. Mostly don't list anything at less then 10 bucks. If it's only going to sell for $4 or $5 bucks I either won't sell it on Ebay or I will make it part of a larger lot. Just not worth the time to list, pack and ship.               

I've sold baby clothes on two occasions on EBAY. Both times they were pretty big lots of around 100 pieces, all newborn to around 6 months size and in good shape. The first time I got about $160.00 and the second time more like $110. At a garage sale I would have sold them at $1 each and definitely not sold them all so just do EBAY for baby clothes now.