Hi Lee and everyone, I had a similar experience with an estate last year. The local vulture swooped down almost before the decased was buried and made off with the good stuff for pennies on the dollar.
About 3 months later, a friend called and asked if I wanted to look at what was left with him. Thre was a gigantic amount of surplus gear, mostly WW II and much of it in decent shape considering its age. Some of it I recognized and some I didnt, but I told the XYL that I thought there was substantial money there and that iof she wasn't in a hurry, I would see if I could help her out. She was ready to give the stuff away again for pennies, but she told me to go ahead. I did not sell any of it on thet place. I have sold there before and will again, but there was entirely too much stuff to start with pictures, descriptions and you know what all else. I actually expected to sell the bulk of it locally but to my surprise, that didn't happen. I put out quires about the gear I wasn't familiar with on some of the reflectors which resulted in some immediate high dollar sales which blew my mind. I inventoried everything and posted it in its respective catagory on some of the reflectors, Eham and the ARRL site. While I was there, I took some digital photos of unusual pieces and others that I thought might be questioned. Orders poured in. Like you, I found myself in the packing and shipping business. I didn't expect that to happen, but it did. Before it was done, I was on first name basis with all the clerks at the local Fed-Ex office! The good thing is that the gas prices were still reasonable back then, since the estate was some 45 miles away from here and I made dozens of trips up there to get sold gear, bring it back to the home QTH to pack and ship. I did not charge for packing, only the actual Fed-Ex charge. To take any hanky panky posibilities out of the deal, all payments were sent directly to the estate from the buyers and the estate cut me a check for receipted shipping charges. I am happy to say that all this resulted in a huge amount of money for the estate at no charge to them. It was one of those random acts of kindness and I really enjoyed seeing how much money I could bring in. By the way, everything was sold as is with a no return policy. I tested nothing, described it as truthfully as possible and had no complaints that I heard about. Happy holidays and 73, John, W4AWM
