I sell damaged things.

Vintage magazine advertisement - love those togas :)

Over the past two years of my very short reselling career, I have received some pretty nasty messages from strangers. In the beginning, I may have cried, and now I find them comical. I have the power, I remind myself, the power to block.

I sell damaged things because I am not an expert in everything, but I am a finder of cool things. I like to be a conduit to other thrift-lovers, those who lose to upcycle and rehabilitate. I like being somewhere in the middle of the pack. I occasionally fix things, sew up little holes, but for the most part, I list things as they are.

The Salvation Army stores in my city sell mattresses. They take donations of old mattresses and strip out all of the schtuff away from the skeleton of the mattress, then refill it with new schtuff (foam? fluffiness?) and sell them for low thrift store prices in like-new condition. Another store in town just takes the mattresses apart, but they don't sell the mattresses, so I figure they like being middle-people too, like me, just a cog in the larger wheel of thrift.

Where do you fall in the thrift spectrum? Are you primarily a donater? Shopper? EBayer? How do you find your identity in the pretty-freakin'-large recycling world?