Ok... since James has 'blown my cover', I guess I better put in an appearance.
First of all, when I stumbled across the Emperor... uh, I mean James ~ I had no idea he would be sending in all you Storm Troopers for support. Very impressive. And very much appreciated!
This stash he has pictured is an accumulation we bought out of the store when new and tucked away ~ we are not SW collectors per se and have not kept abreast of current prices. I have been going bug-eyed trying to research prices on Ebay and RS, which is where James came in.
I dipped my toe in to an auction with the speeder bike & scout with a start price I thought was fair ($130) and since it was something that I had multiple examples to sell. It got a few bookmarks, but no inquirys and only one offer after five days which I accepted. The buyer happened to live in Seattle near where I am located and we met to consummate the deal. He had asked if I had anything else and I took a few dupes along, most of which he bought. He is now hot to buy everything I have ~ a position I now understand better...
I have held off on that, since I knew how much I didn't know about pricing. For example, I only became aware yesterday of the short-mouth variants. I remain in contact with him since he is a nice enough guy and has the money to spend if we agree on prices. I don't begrudge him the first deal since he paid what I asked at that time.
James didn't mention that I also have 2 Boba Fett 77-backs, one of which is running on ebay now with a price of $495 or best offer. That was to try to guage values on what are the pearls of this pile. So far I have gotten one serious offer which nearly met my (admittedly arbitrary) threshold for acceptance. I mention this not to advertise the auction, but rather to indicate that I am working as best I know on evaluations.
So that is who I am and how I came to get here. I appreciate all the input. I'm still not sure exactly how I will procede yet, but will say that I remain open to options and am willing to deal with international buyers as is stated in my auctions. I did put the stipulation in that IBs would have to contact me before bidding. That was so I could check their feedback for bona fides.
I'll be around for a bit before I make any decisions at any rate.
Yours in obsessive collecting,
Bob