Flip It or Free It: Making the choice between selling or donating your collectibles

It’s finally time. The dozen boxes sitting in your garage, covered in layers of dust, are going to be opened and see the light of day. You get out your box cutter, carefully slicing through the tape to not damage the contents.

As you open the box and the dust flies everywhere, you thank yourself for wearing a mask and are greeted with hundreds of eyes staring back at you. A bead of sweat drips down your face and your heart begins to race with excitement. After twenty long years of sitting in your garage, Auntie Sue’s pristine collection of Precious Moments figurines is finally going to make you rich.

You meticulously open the rest of the boxes, pulling out every last one of those little porcelain children. Finally, you get your computer to turn on, click on the online selling platform, and search how much your collection is worth.

When the page finally loads you feel those two hundred eyes on you as you see your fortune sprawled out on the screen — a grand total of ... $5.00 a piece. A wave of disappointment comes over you as your dream of a new Vespa goes out the window.

Before we let our emotions fully consume us, let’s do the math to see if this would be worth it. If each figurine is worth $5 and Auntie Sue graciously left you with 100 of them, that’s a whopping $500! That’s no Vespa, but groceries are so expensive and you have quite a few mouths to feed at home.

The real consideration to have here is how much time, ability, and energy you have to give to this project. Unfortunately, you can’t just drop the boxes off at a pawn shop and be handed $500 cash. You have to list each of these on an online marketplace, first taking photos of every individual item and giving them a detailed description. You will then have to pack each of these back up with great care and detail, maybe you even have to purchase bubble wrap and more boxes, as you don’t want them breaking in transit.

After you do all of this, you still have to drive all the way to the post office to ship them out. And then you have to do it another 99 times!

Is it worth it to purchase 100 boxes and wrap each individual figurine? Or would you rather box everything back up into those dozen boxes you already have and donate it to your local charity shop?

If that $500 could improve your life and you have the energy to list and ship each item, go for it. But what is your time worth to you? Would you rather spend those hours getting to know the USPS clerks or would you rather spend that time with your family? Maybe those are the hours that you can use to finally finish the book you haven’t had the time for or to bake that new recipe you found.

Donating these boxes may not get you that Vespa, but it will give you a monumental amount of space in your garage back.

The reason Auntie Sue collected all of these figurines was because she loved them. Each one brought her joy, and she loved seeing them all lined up above her fireplace. She didn’t buy them with the expectation that one day she could sell them and make millions — they are figurines, not stocks! Auntie Sue would be over the moon knowing that her Precious Moments went to a home where they would be as loved as they were in her home.

If selling is overwhelming, donating them to a charity shop takes the labor off your plate. Better yet, list them on a Buy Nothing group and someone in your neighborhood will come and pick them up right from your doorstep! You can guarantee that someone who wants them will get them, and the burden of the boxes will be gone.