I'm going to retire in a few years and will be moving from California back to my home state of Alabama. I have built up a "supply" of bowling balls and as someone who has moved with a couple of hundred bowling balls previously, I can tell you it is a major pain in the ass to do so.


After watching the financial situation of the country for the past year, I decided it was as good a time as any to "thin the heard". I was hearing about how many people had built up savings during the Covid lock-downs and then of course, the federal hand-outs added to most peoples spending ability.


So in March I started selling and it went better than I expected actually. I've sold all I can already as there comes a point where eBay and PayPal starts issuing a 1099 K and I would have to pay taxes on the sales.


The curious part is who bought these balls.
Of 104 balls sold, two were from California, one from Washington State, one from Arizona, one from Utah, a couple from Texas, one from Nevada and even one to Australia. No other sales west of the Mississippi river.


The bulk of the sales were to the east coast. New York state was by far the most common shipping destination. Delaware bought several as well.


These were all auctions and it appears that the east coast crowd had more money and just out-bid everyone else.


No real point in this post I guess, other than I found it interesting that so many of them sold to east coast buyers.

I generally bowl in tournaments in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North and South Carolina. An occasional one in Massachusetts.

Just goes to show that bowling is still hot and considered a sport on the East Coast!

I think you are right about that, bowling seems to be doing really well in the eastern half of the US.

California is finally beginning to pull out of it now but I can't even begin to predict what the long term effects will be.

I'm not trying to hijack the thread and I applaud your efforts at making extra cash selling your old stuff.  And you mentioned you are to the point of getting a 1099k in the mail.

So I have another option.  About once a year I thin my herd of bowling balls by donating to the teens in the local youth leagues who are able to roll 15lbs.   

I have plenty left and will be doing that actually. With President Biden's new tax plan the amount we can sell per year using online auction sites will drop from $20K per year to $600.

So I will be making a bunch of local junior bowlers very happy. I  will probably be doing some horse trading with the two local pro-shops as well. I just can't let any more money hit my Paypal account as "goods or services sold" this year.

Thanks for the advise though!

According to this article you may still be OK for this year.  It indicates the $600 threshold kicks in for the 2022 tax year.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/26/its-going-to-get-harder-to-avoid-telling-the-irs-about-income-from-online-sales.html

Yep, next year is $600. But I'm almost at the limits for this year already.

A couple of different buyers grabbed Vibes. Some of them were very good deals for them, others I thought they over paid. Hammer re-releasing the Vibe line kinda screwed me.

I sold all the Bowlersmart vibes to the same guy as a package deal.