As the last wet day of the year winds down—and this lap of the never-ending Garage Sale race clicks over to the next,

I’d like to say thanks to everyone for sharing their interesting discoveries, sage advice, wisdom, expertise, research knowledge and enthusiasm—all of which contributed to another year of an on-going enterprise on Garage Journal that many members consider their favorite and most interesting on the site. I know I do.
As I stretch out my hand to pass the baton into the capable and sticky grip of Smokeshow69, I will say I thoroughly enjoyed my year as host. It was fun monitoring the discussions, recording the ***** and keeping
mikeinri in check!
I have an observation I’d like to point out to our members: Like many things in life, there is a flow and ebb to systems and this thread seems to be no different. For the first several years, participation (measured in the number of posts) was up one year and down the next, but for the last five years there has been a steady decrease in the yearly posts. This is certainly nothing to be alarmed about, but something to be aware of, postulate causes for and consider opportunities to reverse the trend.
For me, a major contributing cause was Covid-19—it changed/influenced the habits of most humans. The type of sales that most of us are drawn to draw crowds and crowds became dangerous viral vectors. (I’m not a doctor, but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express, once.)
Another possible cause is the ridiculous position expressed by several members that they have too many tools or they have nowhere to put more tools! This mental block prevents them from actively searching for additional treasures and therefore reduces their post count.
There are, of course, many more possible reasons to explain the waning participation, but what to do about it? I offer this suggestion:
Recruit new blood. You know by sight that
fargin bastage who always seems to get to the good stuff before you—well, deputize yourself as a Garage Sale Thread Ambassador and invite him to join us! You probably have a buddy in another state with an interest in tools—tell him about us and all the advantages the site has to offer—this is especially worthwhile since he won’t be in direct competition with you!
Some of you may say "Quality Over Quantity" and you may have a good point. There is no arguing against the excellent contributions offered by many of you on this thread. I would counter by saying “The More, the Merrier!” Think of all those unrepresented areas of the country and world that have tool sales that could produce that rare or unusual piece that we would all go ape **** over—but, for now remain unknown.
Anyway, something to think about as we all wait these final few hours until the ball drops and Smokeshow welcomes us all to the 2023 Garage Sale Thread. Good Luck and Have Fun, Smoke!! I'll see you in the morning!