Salt and Pepper Shakers Collection

When my great uncle died recently, we were in the unenviable position of having to sort through all of his possessions. I loved my uncle, but he was definitely what you might call a pack rat. He kept everything and anything, every knick-knack, doodad, and gadget that he could ever get his hands on. This was a real problem when we had to go through his house. My sister and I had to spend weeks and weeks going from room to room, just to inventory all of his stuff.

Oddly, of all of the things that he collected, the hardest to deal with was his set of salt and pepper shakers. He had any conceivable salt and pepper shaker that you can think of.  What about, say, old classic tv themed salt and pepper shakers, you ask? He had them in “I Love Lucy,” and “I Dream of Genie”. And don't even get me started on his salt and pepper shakers of Russian literature collection. I swear, some of them were so improbably, that I would not be surprised if he had to make them himself. Knowing my uncle, he probably did.

The problem with getting rid of all of those salt and pepper shakers is that they are junk to us, but gold to those that collect them. A salt shaker could sit there on the shelf of an antique store for years and not be picked up. Then, just the right person could come along and be willing to pay a good 50 dollars or so for it. And when you have hundreds and hundreds of salt and pepper shakers, some of which are more than a century old, there are bound to be a few collectors items there.

The solution that we finally came up with for the salt and pepper shakers conundrum was to use eBay. It is, if you ask me, the very best way to get exposure, no matter what you happen to be selling. Looking for antique stores to sell our salt shaker pepper was always hit or miss, but with eBay, just the right person would, no doubt, search for and find them. And, as an added bonus, we did not have to give the antique store a big cut of the profits. It really worked better than anything else could have. You would not believe how many people there are out there who are looking for antique salt and pepper shakers.