FWIW, selling long-held personal items like this is generally not considered a taxable income, especially on a small scale. Why not just sell them personally and stick the money in your pocket? When you start buying new items for resale, you can start the business accounting stuff.

But you should see an accountant about this either way.

Another way would be simply to estimate value of inventory at current market value and credit inventory that amount and debit owners equity that amount. To me this way would be much harder and less reliable than the other method because it could look like you may have made a huge profit or perhaps loss when you really havn’t. You could do the same thing when the items are sold and you would know value and simply credit cash and debit owners equity.

What you really want to do however is take full advantage of tax law and minimize your income from the sale of these items. A business may be a great way of doing that since you can also deduct other expenses – such a shipping, transpertation, etc. If you estimate your items value AFTER they are sold, your income should be a loss assuming you take other expenses and inventory value = sales value.

Sorry this is such a technical answer. If you’re going to use an accountant he would understand that the business as an entity is selling your item on consignment.

Good luck in your quest.