Hiya, Ian! Well, that was a bolt from the blue... and hopefully good news job-wise re. the UAE.

mbassoc2003 wrote in Advice Needed: It's not a money issue, more one of not having a custodian to take on a bedroom full of books

That I can empathise with: still stuck with shoehorning what was a 4 bedroom semi plus one room in storage into the current 3 bedroom flat when things fell apart a dozen years or so back. Not sure when I'll see the floor of the end bedroom or the contents of those stacked-high boxes...

5 weeks is hopefully a doable timeframe. First trick is probably to get a large stack of storage boxes (eBay is cheaper) and while those are in transit work out what you really don't want to have to sell/lose/part with, and what could be passed on to someone else to sell on your behalf (if feasible) or some other arrangement.
As to "the market for pre-3.5E D&D is staggeringly small", the coug seems to do pretty well on that - not huge $$ in many cases but it does add up.
*
If you can work your head around to "need to stash 30 boxes with someone, get someone/same person/or other to help sell 50 slowly, find some way to sell/shift the remainder quickly" or something of that ilk that should hopefully help clarify the logistics.

What's likely to be more "problematic", if anything, is if you have as many SF&F, etc., books lying around as I had to box up. That marketplace is seriously poor if needing to shift quickly (so many times I've seen large paperback collections of good authors sell for less than the cost of postage on eBay :/).

A quick 02c in passing for now, anyhow.

mbassoc2003 wrote in Advice Needed:Yes, a lucky break on a decent job with a multinational. Out of the blue but very pleased.

Definitely happy to hear that part of the story!

mbassoc2003 wrote in Advice Needed:maybe 1000 pre-slota figures unpainted

The likes of those would either be in the "stash for later"/"send to someone with knowledge to sell for a percentage" category if possible, I'd've thought, given the time/effort required. Not a huge volume to stack away and potentially a large loss if you just sell them in bulk for a finger-in-the-air price.

> Anything serious I'll put in the classifieds here. But the likes of Dreadmire, a pretty comprehensive book for an awkward gaming environ, well there just isn't that many people in the UK who either know about it or want a copy.

Those "sold" prices on eBay are fairly poor, too...
In the old days that might've been a good one to stack high/sell relatively cheap at cons. Not so viable an option nowadays, far less with 5 weeks notice (up North at least).

Re. "cost of storage for a few years"; if it's a choice between paying monthly to store a paired-down, carefully sorted through stack of boxes which might not be too huge a volume in reality vs. any risk of stashing those elsewhere (I've been caught twice leaving high value items with other people while in work/between houses in the past - five-digits worth in total...), storage isn't so bad an option perhaps for things you /can/ "put on hold"? i.e. It's more the lack of access/inability to sell anything in storage and cost of a return flight from the UAE I'd've thought.

Karen maybe?

Time is an issue.

If I can find myself a proxy close by, someone who will pack and ship and handle the payments, I can list and sell fast and allow the packing/shipping to happen afterwards. Anything that doesn't move quickly would then be left to the proxy by way of compensation for their time, and that in itself would be quite a considerable collection across the bredth of D&D.

Maybe Dragonsfoot would yield such a person.

I have a mint set of 3.5E leatherbound manuals (PH, DMG, MM).
I have a set of Imagine magazines with Special Edition in Binders.
I have a set of Le Dernier Cercle modules (French)
I have 6 or 7 mint copies of CZ Yggsburgh
I have 10 or more mint copies of the JG 3.5E reprints

This weekend I'll post a list, but the problem. I'm going to have is going to be packing and shipping. I've shipped packages costing £150+ overseas in recent years, this hobby gets heavy FAST when you have a fire sale, and I need to find a way of dealing with the logistics of it.

Yep.
Until Oct 28th or so.
Then Dubai.