Getting rid of it all...how?

[John T Barker]

List the big stuff and throw up a couple pictures of your shop and setup a meetup for SMK guys to come and pick through. If someone comes to pick up a tool let them look through the drawers and make offers for stuff. It wont be easy letting it all go and unfortunately you will never get your money back. But you can get something.

Another option would be to sell misc as $10-20 per box. Fill boxes with like items

Odd, I have to pay to list things for sale? Not the SMK I remember from years ago.

[Jim Becker]

Odd, I have to pay to list things for sale? Not the SMK I remember from years ago.

It costs an enormous amount of money to keep a forum site online. We ask for a small $6 annual donation to help with that and in turn, Contributors get access to the Classifieds, Private Messaging and Images.

[Mark Gibney]

John, can you try to sell off your machines while you still have the shop? - I know, it takes months to sell a machine and even then you get a pittance.
And keep the nice chisels, planes and other hand tools in your apartment to sell on Ebay or such?
Then give all the rest to Habitat, or offer it all to a woodworking club, local community college woodworking program?

I'm keen to know how you go about it and if it works, because we'll hopefully all have to do this someday!

[Mike Soaper]

Around here there's a tool consignment shop for selling used tools but the selling price is typically 50% of new. The consignment shop and seller split that 50-50, so the seller only gets about 25% when purchased new. Not much, but you don't spend a lot of time with buyers coming to your place looking at things. Seems most woodworking tools don't stay there very long

[Ryan Jones]

It brings tears to my eyes thinking about it, and I'm gonna have to deal with it... hopefully *before* I'm gone so my SO doesn't have too ...

My investment ... in toys... are worth whatever the first person who shows up with cash offers ...

:-(

Not that I care... but compared to my retirement account she'll get .. 'a drop in the bucket' ...

It ain't the money, it's more the headache she has to deal with.

So, how to determine when we're 'done', past my prime ...

If you really want to make it count, use message boards like this to find people in their teens, 20s, or 30s who want to start a shop but never had the money to do so effectively.

If you sell it in an auction, you're just selling it to people whose job is to resell it for top dollar on facebook marketplace and craigslist.

An older gentleman helped me on these types of boards like 10 years ago when I was building my workshop and didn't have a lot of money. He was replacing all his lights with LED lights and gave me like 10-15 T12 ballasts with lights... for FREE. He just wanted to see it go to someone who'd love them the way he did. I still have those in my shop, but I'm finally at a stage where I'm replacing my lights now with LED. I think about this all the time. The generosity of that older gentleman has encouraged me to give away great stuff I no longer needed to people younger than me. For one example - I had a ton of older Ryobi tools (the blue ones) that I didn't need. I posted those on a marketplace for sale. When the guy showed up, and he was in his early 20s and I could tell he was so excited for those tools - I told him they were free. The look on his face was priceless.

I know some people need the money, but if you are at a stage in your life where you don't, you can find great pleasure with passing it on to someone who's going to love those tools like you did. You can't take your money with you, but you can take pleasure in the fact that this world is built on 'old men who plant trees that know they will never be able to sit in their shade.'

[Patty Hann]

If you really want to make it count, use message boards like this to find people in their teens, 20s, or 30s who want to start a shop but never had the money to do so effectively.

If you sell it in an auction, you're just selling it to people whose job is to resell it for top dollar on facebook marketplace and craigslist.

An older gentleman helped me on these types of boards like 10 years ago when I was building my workshop and didn't have a lot of money. He was replacing all his lights with LED lights and gave me like 10-15 T12 ballasts with lights... for FREE. He just wanted to see it go to someone who'd love them the way he did. I still have those in my shop, but I'm finally at a stage where I'm replacing my lights now with LED. I think about this all the time. The generosity of that older gentleman has encouraged me to give away great stuff I no longer needed to people younger than me. For one example - I had a ton of older Ryobi tools (the blue ones) that I didn't need. I posted those on a marketplace for sale. When the guy showed up, and he was in his early 20s and I could tell he was so excited for those tools - I told him they were free. The look on his face was priceless.

I know some people need the money, but if you are at a stage in your life where you don't, you can find great pleasure with passing it on to someone who's going to love those tools like you did. You can't take your money with you, but you can take pleasure in the fact that this world is built on 'old men who plant trees that know they will never be able to sit in their shade.'

Great post Ryan

[Paul J Kelly]

I agree with Patty. Amazing post Ryan. My uncle did the same for me with tools that I had never found value in. He was silently pushing more creativity on me.

I will never forget my Uncle Tim - he was a class act.

Time to pay it forward.

PK

If you really want to make it count, use message boards like this to find people in their teens, 20s, or 30s who want to start a shop but never had the money to do so effectively.

If you sell it in an auction, you're just selling it to people whose job is to resell it for top dollar on facebook marketplace and craigslist.

An older gentleman helped me on these types of boards like 10 years ago when I was building my workshop and didn't have a lot of money. He was replacing all his lights with LED lights and gave me like 10-15 T12 ballasts with lights... for FREE. He just wanted to see it go to someone who'd love them the way he did. I still have those in my shop, but I'm finally at a stage where I'm replacing my lights now with LED. I think about this all the time. The generosity of that older gentleman has encouraged me to give away great stuff I no longer needed to people younger than me. For one example - I had a ton of older Ryobi tools (the blue ones) that I didn't need. I posted those on a marketplace for sale. When the guy showed up, and he was in his early 20s and I could tell he was so excited for those tools - I told him they were free. The look on his face was priceless.

I know some people need the money, but if you are at a stage in your life where you don't, you can find great pleasure with passing it on to someone who's going to love those tools like you did. You can't take your money with you, but you can take pleasure in the fact that this world is built on 'old men who plant trees that know they will never be able to sit in their shade.'