Oxfam like many charities have a specialist department which review donations and evaluate if the item has value, it started with clothing, particular designer, where there were charity shops in affulent areas where people may donate high value items. Staff send item pictures and if they are valuable they are sent to a central office/shop for evaluation and they sell accordingly.
i remember 15 or so years ago there was a couple of retired people who lived locally, to where i was then, that used to tour the charity shops and buy up cheap stuff and then sell it ebay, they made a decent living out of it to add to their pension and in the UK as pensioners their bus travel was free so hardly any costs. Their favourite was anything with Lady Diana or the Queen on it, plates, mugs etc, they said people from the US, Australia and South Africa [or as the old guy used to say 'the Colonies'] used to snap it up.
I also have someone i work with, who lives in London, that has an ebay site selling the free magazines from the daily and weekend newspapers. People outside the London [for the evening standard] and the UK buy them as there are some interesting articles etc and they simply do not get access to them.
I was going to start a couple of new toy soldier ranges, the invisable men range, cheap to produce and can be used in any era or diorama plus do not take up much space. The second range was going to cover eras from Napoleonic to WW2 and they are just going to be empty boxes and i was going to call them 'The Deserter' range.
