E-Bay, Pay-Pal and all that jazz.....

I've just finished three days of selling stuff on E-Bay.  My doll's House has undergone several metamorphoses since it began.  


My original intention was to create one of Jane Austin's homes.  When I realised that this meant buying artisan items and having things made and making things so that they would be absolutely correct to the house and the period I pretty much gave up on that idea.  I also realised that my doll's house from DHE is precisely that and isn't really a miniature Georgian House so it would all be a bit pointless.  


It then morphed into a Georgian period house.  It would have to be late Georgian to account for all the disparate pieces from furniture from several periods between George I and George III and again I began to get picky about authenticity and scale and finish.


As a side trip to all this when we were in Naples last winter I decided I would start a project over there too.  I intended to buy a double shop front with a home above and create an Edwardian Ladies café (upstairs) and a hat shop downstairs.  this entailed buying some bits and bobs including three dressed figures!  Needless to say the idea cooled as the ultimate cost of two houses sunk in and what would I do with it when we leave the States?


Back to the UK and my Wentworth....   my final decision was that it would be a Georgian House in somewhere like Cheltenham being inhabited by a family of (more or less) now.


All this has led to 44 unwanted items of doll's house 'stuff'.  I had already donated some to the charity table at the Pudsey Fair but after reminding myself of just how much money I'd wasted on these things I thought I'd have a go at selling them on E-Bay.  In two days I have sold 37 out of 44 so not a bad result.  This became a test of my grey cells as I was up to my ears in emails of all sorts.  Seventeen parcels later and it was all over I am about seventy squid (net) better off.  In truth I am a few hundred pounds down but at least the things have gone on to new owners who might enjoy them and I'd rather have seventy pounds and the cupboard space.


I confess to having moments of 'the game isn't worth the candle' but as Ken reminded me I didn't want the stuff and it was cluttering up my room; not to mention it was also wagging a finger at me for rushing at things.


So - yes - in conclusion I'd recommend offloading your bits and bobs this way though, perhaps, do it in three or four sales a day spread out over a few weeks so you don't go completely batty.  How anyone runs this sort of petty-ante business as a living (and they do!!)  I have no idea.