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If you’re in the New York Hudson Valley area this Independence Day weekend, be sure to stop by the Stormville Flea Market and Antique Show in Dutchess County, NY. The flea market will continue it’s fun flea market season with Saturday & Sunday’s 4th of July event. Now featuring over 600 vendors from more than 10 states, this flea market attracts thousands! There is always something for everyone in the family.

Click here for more details including directions to the event!

The crime of passing counterfeit bills is nothing new but when criminals decide to do it at garage sales, it’s even more disheartening to the folks having the sale. Recently more stories of this criminal activity have surfaced with people passing bills of 20’s and 50’s that are counterfeit, getting real change and an item and walking off. People who don’t deal with a lot of money or even teens helping to sell items at the family yard sale wouldn’t necessarily be able to spot fake money.

It’s sad for the sellers who experience this, they’re usually having a sale to clear clutter out of their home, maybe they’re relocating or saving money for a child or family vacation and are unsuspecting victims.

Here are some tips to avoid this:

• -Try to tend in small bills at your sale whenever possible
• -Pick up a Counterfeit Marker at your local office supply store or online for just a couple dollars (you can pass it on to your friends for their use)
• -If a bill looks noticeably funny or suspicious, as a friend at the sale to have a second look or compare it to another bill of the same tender (don’t feel bad about rejecting the bill, your buyer will either leave in a rush or thank you for the detection and the mark you left on it with your handy counterfeit pen)
• -If the buyer leaves your sale in a hurry, try to get a glimpse of their vehicle or plate and notify your local police department

It happened here

Now you know how to take precautions and prevent it at your sale.

Before hosting a yard sale on your front lawn, you should check with your local municipality to see if they charge a garage sale fee and require a permit. I’ve seen fees ranging from $5 for each sale up to $25 just to have a garage sale, and these are numbers from across the country.

For most people, $25 could be a decent size dent in the sale’s profits for the day. You might also wonder why municipalities are charging and/or implementing these fees for having a sale during one of the worst recessions, just when people are more motivated than ever to squeeze any equity out of their household items just to get by or take the family out for a night. Does it make sense?

Whatever happened to American freedom? It’s your private property after all right? You pay property taxes to your municipality right? So what justifies having to pay extra fees by the seller, especially if you don’t live in a gated community where fees are more justified by the homeowners association?

I guess one good thing about a garage sale fee is that you can expense it when you go to report your profits on your taxes, along with the expenses you incurred in advertising your sale.

We give garage sale fees implemented by municipalities a big thumbs down! We would love your feedback and input! Feel free to share your comments!

Whether you’re a buyer or seller at a garage sale, it pays to do your due diligence before selling an item and buying items secondhand. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Safety Improvement Act does cover garage sales because sales of certain secondhand items that have been banned, recalled or are in violation of the Safety Act can pose a danger to children or adults.

While garage sales will continue to be unregulated sales, the Commission does encourage sellers to be knowledgeable of the items they’re selling and if they know for a fact an item has been banned or recalled, then it is the seller’s responsibility to dispose of it and not sell it, otherwise the seller could face fines. While the initial responsibility lies in the seller’s hands, you should always remember “buyer beware,” and if you’re buying secondhand items, do your own research.

The advice is to make sure recalled products are not passed along to or pose a threat to other families.

June 2009 Edition

Everyone knows how the saying goes, “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure,” so how does one determine what’s trash and what’s treasure when preparing for a tag sale? The best advice is to just put it out there and see what happens, worst case scenario the waste management company will haul it away or you’ll have to take it to the dump, but hopefully a lighter load than what you started with.

There are two strategies you can apply to your sale:

Strategy 1: Set up a completely separate table and area with all of your “junk” items laid out. Put a large “Free!” sign on the table or next to the items and underneath, write “First Come First Serve.” These simple words will create a sense of urgency for people to just grab the items they want, thus leaving you with less “junk.”

Strategy 2: Separate what you consider the “junk” is and arrange it in a separate area with very low price tags or stickers, everything priced $1 or below. Sometimes people’s mindsets force them to think that if there’s a price tag on it, the item has to have some value.

In November 2008 the team at Tagsellit.com began aggregating Flea Market and Swap Meet listings for the website and we currently list over 1,550 as of June 2009. 

We are currently in the process of updating our Flea Market and Swap Meet directory, specifically the mapping service which makes it easier for shoppers to locate sales within their area. This month we also integrated a few new major “search” enhancements into the site. The “drop-down search navigation” located on the left side of the browser page will enable shoppers and browsers to navigate listings more easily, browse by location, and search by sale type.

This Includes:

• Search All Sales
• Search Commercial Sales
• Search Virtual Sales
• Search Flea Markets

If you’re a bargain-hunting connoisseur for vintage items and antiques then you know one of the best places to shop for them is at a garage sale. You never know what you may find, but when you’re on the lookout for specific items, be sure to scan the classifieds both online and offline for keywords that pique your interest.

Bruce Littlefield, Author of “Garage Sale America” who was also featured on NBC’s Today Show shares some great tips on finding hidden treasures with old items that can be reused and recycled both in and outside of your home, in addition to making quick and fun housewarming gifts. For more, be sure to check out our recently uploaded videos page.

What’s old to you may be new to someone else and even though you may consider it worthless, it doesn’t hurt to put a tag on it and offer it at your event. “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure!”

Selling old Stuff

With money in your wallet, empty bins / shelves and possibly a sun burn. Our sale was no different, except that it was FREE Ice Cream Day at Friendly’s! “Ice cream if you’re good” is a great bribe to keep 5 kids content during a Tag Sale. We followed some of our own rules, but folded on the no selling food. However, I am pretty sure I bought more brownies and cookies than any one coming to the sale.

We followed all the right steps. Posted a sale event on TagSellIt.com so that people could find the sale, as well as posting on a number of other local sites to maximize our exposure. We posted the town with big easy to read signs. We organized our sale items in groups, placing the most eye catching out front for people passing by. At the end of the day we packed up what we had left, and got it ready to bring to our local Goodwill store. While the amount of money wasn’t substantial, it will be more than enough for my wife and I to have a night out some time soon. In addition the added room in our basement and living room is more than enough reason to hold our yearly Tag Sale.

There were some great stories today, and I took quite a few pictures. I’ll try to get this all into the post sometime tomorrow. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

While I’m lucky enough to be able to host my own sale, as well as take advantage of online resources. Having the room to host a physical event is not something everyone has, see the other owner of Tag Sell It’s virtual sale. This is one of the key reasons Tag Sell It is around, to provide a way for those living in apartments / condos / etc or that are just too busy to be able to host a virtual sale of their own.

There has been a lot of news and controversy lately regarding The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, (CPSIA), signed into law in August 2008 which addresses the problem of recalls and excessive lead levels in items for children. According to the law, one reason CPSIA was written was to “protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury associated with consumer products.”

The law takes place in several phases. First, it limits items with lead content to 600 parts per million, ppm, by weight in any part of a children’s product. In August, the amount of lead content will drop to 300 ppm and in August 2011, the content will be reduced to 100 ppm. Items with levels exceeding the amounts listed above, can not be legally sold in the United States.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission release, “sellers of used children’s products, such as thrift stores and consignment stores, are not required to certify that those products meet the new lead limits, phthalates standard or new toy standards.” The release goes on to say that resellers are not required to test said products in their inventories prior to sale. However, resellers can not sell products that “exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content, unless they have testing or other information indicating the products being sold have less than the new limit.”

Lately, many blogs and news publications have posed the question of whether this will have a direct impact on tag sales and the answer is yes. Although the government likely won’t be shopping at your garage sale, it is each individual’s responsibility to do their part and comply. The law is designed to have a greater impact on consignment shops, e-commerce and auction sites like eBay, thrift stores and good will type stores to limit the danger certain products pose to the public.

Many, including myself would argue otherwise when it comes to attempting to crack down on garage sales. These types of individually organized residential sales should remain unregulated. It’s still a free country right? It should be the consumers’ responsibility to decide whether they should purchase a product based on any dangers it may carry. If you really want to get rid of it, just have a “free” bin at your sale, it’s just as good as if the item was picked up at the curb waiting for trash day.

For more information, please see the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008