Best way to sell tools during family downsizing.....

Folks,

The wife and I are getting up in the years.

I anticipate that in the next several years we are gonna want to downsize.

I have a large selection of mechanics tools, including some fabrication tools. (See photo)

Multiple impact sockets. (See photo)

I have sold some tools in the past on Craigslist. It was not very effective.

Does anyone know of an easy and effective way to list and sell items like these?

Thanks,

Rog

That's a tough one.

What is valuable and worthwhile to a tradesman?  Find the right website/group and put it out there

What is worthwhile to a hobbyist?  Local advertising.

But then...Do you own this?  Or something from this category?

It's the engine assembly tools for the Peugeot/Renault/Volvo V6 engine from the seventies.  It was worth a lot of money, and one or two people on the planet might really need it.  However, the best value is likely to make it into an art display and sell it to a Peugeot  fanboy.  And there's lots of them...yeah.

I guess my point is, how much, when honestly appraised, is worth more than it's weight in scrap metal?  How much effort is it worth?

I am approaching this situation myself.  I don't get sentimental about many things, but I do about tools.  Odd.

I had and still have a similar problem. When my uncle died I helped my cousin sell off all of his old (and I do mean OLD!) shop equipment. I put an ad on Craigs and had a bunch of guys who own pawn shops and the like come - they carted off a lot of it as it had collector value. The rest got sold off in bits and pieces. Some of the specialty tools (like transmission rebuild tools for Chrylser automatics from the 50's) went to collectors - or guys that still work on this old stuff - those I reached with an ad on the HAMB.

My own stuff will be more difficult as it will likely be sold off after I'm no longer around. I would give it to my grandsons but they already have their shops pretty well sorted.

One thing's for sure, unless you have something that a guy needs to finish his collection it will bring pennies on the dollar. The only way to look at it is that you got your money out of it in use......

A couple of examples......

Oh, I can see this thread devolving into a wonderful collection of great old valuable/useless tools.

I'm in.  Let's try to give advice on the original question, too.  Could be very useful for quite a few of us.

My wife's 90 year old machinist uncle died and the daughters are having a 2 weekend garage sale - we were in the area and I looked over the tools - he had a 12" vernier caliper and I suggested if they get $5 they might be lucky - who reads those any more?

I offered to buy two drill bit sets and they gifted them to me in his honor.  My aunt gave me a bunch of my uncles sockets and wrenches.  My great uncle worked for Wrigley Gum and brought me a 1" micrometer when we all attended my brother's wedding.  All this meant a lot to me.

Any family you can donate them to? 

I have bins from my maternal grandfather and my father. Sure it's probably a bunch of useless crap but it shoots me down memory lane since I know he started filling them in the late 1940 s?  I imagine my son will toss it all in a dumpster - 

I've been doing some of the same, telling myself that I'm not getting older, I just don't use certain tools any longer. Selling off unused tools that take up space frees up money that can be spent elsewhere. I use Craigslist and and wait out buyers. If there's zero interest, I bump the price down and resubmit the ad, which always works when you're patient. For small light stuff that is worth something will also be put on ebay (small and light meaning easy to ship). Someone said to use OfferUp, a similar site, but nothing I've put on there ever sold.

You can also try donating items to local schools. I tried that, wanting to donate a nice telescope mirror to my high school. They said "oh we don't do astronomy any more. We're raising a generation of ignorance, but I digress.

I have a wooden tool box built by my great grandfather. He was a carpenter and built homes in the Excelsior springs area around the turn of the century (1900) and it has a full compliment of planes, saws, boring braces and bits, measuring tools (those folding yardsticks for example) and more. He would haul it from job to job and work out of it.....what the heck do I do with that? None of my kids/grandkids have any interest or place to keep it, and it seems museums aren't interested in this stuff anymore either.

I guess I could designate it to someone in my will, then they have to take it, right?  

When I had to downsize my entire life to move across the country and start anew, the only effective way I found to a) get rid of stuff and b) ensure that it went to a good home was to have a "take what you can use, pay what you can afford" sale.

I told/invited over everybody and anybody I could think of and told them to spread the word to their friends that I had a garage overflowing with tools and parts and random stuff that I had to get rid of ASAP and that folks could pick through anything they wanted as long as they would use what they took and made a donation to my moving fund.

It was wildly successful. Sure I didn't make a ton of money on everything but I feel so much better about everything I had being spread out to ~20 different people who are still actively using most of the stuff, as opposed to having to throw a bunch of it out because I couldn't unload it. A couple younger folks starting out in the hobby also received some great starter tool collections from the stuff I passed along and that's a really good feeling.

Unless these tools are new logo Snap On, Mac, or Matco, or Milwaukee M12 or M18, they are only worth what you can give them away for.  Demand is gonna be super low, even on nice old stuff like Wright and SK and Proto. 

Looking at the pics I see a lot of grandpa spec stuff.  

Best bet is take all the Chinese stuff and incomplete stuff in on scrap, build what complete sets you have and ask at your local high school or college who would use them.  

In reply to pointofdeparture :

Best part is you didn't have to do the shipping or hauling away of all that.

My son and stepson are both getting started in the trades. If downsizing is your priority (and you live in the southeast) I'd be open to discussing a deal for the entire lot. 
 

That's the easiest way to downsize. Let it go as a lot at a fair price to someone getting started. 

I would look for a high school kid who is into cars and donate stuff to him.  

Local high school vo-tech program?

Also, be honest with yourself. If some is not the best, toss or recycle.

None of my brothers wanted any of my dads tools (I hire everything out, I have enough tools.....WTF) so I loaded them all up and brought them home.  

I sorted them out and 25% went into the recycling bin.  Those dull tin snips that sucked in 1980 when I was a teenager working on my first car? Still in his collection......

Selling your tools? Are you crazy?

I just did this as part of kicking off a new adventure. All advice so far jives with my experience. I sold off what I knew had value and then ran the rest through a local auctioneer. It won't bring much money but it does get everything out of your house. 

I have a very good older friend,long time machinist ,if you have Jaz fuel cells you have some of his work, he gives me stuff and wants to give me more if I had the way to get it from Ca to Co.

Ive known him for 0ver 50 years,he lives next to my sister who lives in our parents old house.

Sadly when he goes somebody is going to get some very nice stuff cheap.

A good exercise I use with this is what would you, if you were offered it for sale, not "needing it", pay for it? That's about the market value locally. If you've got some niche items then find those buyers. But everything else might as well have a yardsale.

I usually find all the nickle and dime stuff isn't worth the effort. Pick out the high value stuff to sell. The cheap stuff I'd rather just give to friends who will use it.

The items that sell are complete sets of Craftsman and up quality tools. There are a few brands of vintage tools that are collectible (Herbrand/SK/Proto/Plomb/ect).  If you are missing a socket/wrench or two, you might as well put the whole pile on a flea market table separated into $1 and $2 piles. Most older import brands are essentially valueless on the used tool market. Clean, sorted, labeled, on rails/racks is the way to go.

Do the world a favor and dispose of any old screwdrivers with wear on the tips, Screwdrivers are consumables. 

There are a few folks out there who will actually buy full toolboxes to sort through and flip but they will lowball hard as gems are rare and they know it.

The flea market or swap meet table isn't actually a bad idea. There are a few vendors locally who do exactly that. Trays with $1, $2 and $5 items.  No one is going to look through unsorted piles of tools on CL/Marketplace but they will spend 15 minutes digging in boxes for the pieces they are missing if they are out at an event. 

I frequent a few swaps and do have a $1, $3, and $5 bin.  Anything I collect throughout the year goes in those bins.  I drag them out, pop the lids off, and make enough for some beer money.  Try to sort it, all Craftsman in one bin, all SK in another bin, all foreign stuff in the trash bin, then if you have a lot of mismatched and loosies, go all 1/4" craftsman, all 3/8" craftsman, etc.   

Its mainly cathartic, not gonna make money.  I have been dragging quite a few full Craftsman USA sets around and the take rate is very low even at $20 for a full set of 3/8 deepwells.  

Thanks guys!

I was hoping that there is/was a magic broker that could scan the collection and say: "Here is (?) dollars for all this great E36 M3".

Notgonnahappen.com....

I appreciate all the great insights here.

Thanks,

Rog

Well, another though is to use the businesses that handle estate sales - kinda like a huge garage sale. Of course they're going to take their cut, possibly making the whole affair not worth it. The only other idea I have is to have a Craigslist ad saying something like "TOOLS TOOLS TOOLS", and "Garage Sale." That works around here, but as others have said, you'll get people picking through the stuff for 1-2 things and may end up with 98% still there at the end of the day. Best case, someone offers one price for all of it, but hey, we can dream.