As I sort through the pens and knives I want to get rid of, my head continues to dwell on a lesson I learned, for better and for worse,  back in Hayden, Colorado in the early 80s.

For reasons I don’t remember, there was some sort of sale going on in front of the old Quonset hut gymnasium at Hayden High School. It may have involved raising money for a band trip to California and I may have had some things for sale but that’s been long cast down the memory hole. (I have a vague sense that we were raising spending money but all I remember is that a sale of some sort was happening.)

What I do remember is that one key person associated with band had decided to sell a vintage cash register. It was pristine and in working condition and was quickly snatched up for a few hundred dollars by the curator of the local museum who had driven buy, seen the cash register, and then had done a high speed turn whilst pulling out her wallet. (Something like that.)

The key person associated with the band acted fairly smug with a few hundred dollars in his pocket until another band associated person arrived with a similar cash register. That was was not in working condition but they’d bothered to have a professional look at it and the professionals appraisal was well over a thousand dollars. (This was 1981ish when $1,000 was worth over $2,725 in today’s dollars.)

This caused great depression amongst both of the cash register people. The first was upset because he’d sold something valuable for a lot less than it was worth and the latter were upset because the former had guaranteed that their expensive item would never sell.

All this has me questioning what to charge for the items I want to sell. Which, of course, makes me overthink selling them. Cash may be king, but my brain thinks that a little more cash is even kinglier and that not selling things is quite safe and kingly indeed.

Something like that.