The anchor is neatly boxed and ready to go, awaiting my brother's okay to ship. He's doing some traveling soon and wants me to wait till he's home and can get it when it arrives. I hope he won't be too disappointed, it's a funky old cast iron anchor.

I have the box for the chandelier also in place and am slowly putting in the packing and supports and will be clearly marking six egg cartons as the ones that contain the prisms. I'm using a whole bunch of egg cartons as part of the packing (I've collected them for ages for this.) It is a really beautiful chandelier, if I had someplace to put it up I'd keep it myself.

This evening I opened a bag of chamomile flowers that I bought in a Middle Eastern grocery last fall and crushed them up some and bagged the lot for loose tea. I love chamomile tea in the evening and get tired of paying several dollars for 20 tea bags. I spent $2 for dozens of cups of tea from this, and it tastes wonderful.

Linn, The way to find the price on anything is to do a search on it. For example, I just did a search on "brass chandelier 8 arms vintage" to start with - and I get results of 16 active auctions or sales. When I look at the results page there is a whole column of information on the left - starting with the categories, the condition, price (boxes to check or amounts to fill in to refine the search.) Below that are categories for format (auction, buy it now, etc.), shipping, etc. And you'll see "Show only" - I look at both "completed listings" that shows me everything that was for sale whether it sold or not, and then select "sold listings" so I can see what the prices were on the things that actually sold. You need to see what is in the marketplace and what the condition and prices asked are to know how to price your items, and you need to know if there are any or a lot of sales for the actual items, to see what the market will bear or if it seems worthwhile. Be sure to try alternate spellings and look in related categories. Often times people sell things they don't know much about, or they don't know anything about. That's how you can get lucky if you're shopping, but it is a mistake you want to avoid.

When I stage anything I'm going to sell I try for as neutral a background as possible. I make sure I'm not in a reflection, and no part of me (a hand, fingers, etc.) is in the shot. I don't let furnishings in the room show or anything about my house or yard. There is an example of horrible staging in one chandelier up right now - This is what you shouldn't do when trying to sell a really nice piece. I have various pieces of fabric to provide a contrast background in my photo area, or I put things in front of some of the paneling in my living room that just looks like interesting paneling but doesn't let you see the furnishings, the floor or ceiling - no information except a wood wall. Who wants to be distracted by a ratty wall-to-wall carpet or seeing the laundry and ironing board set up in the background of a photo? Or the car parked in the driveway? Etc. It may well sell, but it may not go for as high a price as they want.

On the other hand, ratty setups may make buyers think they are going to get a great deal because the seller isn't very careful and several of those folks can push the price way up. It can go either way.

It gets easier as you get the hang of it. Make sure you describe and photograph it well, are fair with the shipping and have it packed and ready to go so you can ship as soon as possible after payment arrives. I only take PayPal, no checks, no credit cards, though they may be able to use various payments that go into PayPal, I don't have to fool with it, PayPal does.

SRS