R.M.
N., I am sorry to throw cold water on your ideas of making some money off of these collectibles but I can tell you from my own recent experience. MY Mother passed away a while ago and she was a "keeper"...she had SO much stuff in the house...she was convinced she was sitting on a gold mine that would let me have a nice little nest egg when I sold it all after she was gone!!! We had 2 antique dealers come out to look at everything ( You cannot even imagine how MUCH stuff there was!!). They told us that 10 years ago they would have been so excited about everything, but that now, with the downturn in the economy, people just aren't buying "stuff" like they used to. We got a sum total of $2,000 for a lifetimes worth of "stuff"!!!
I would think that you could just put a couple of things on E Bay or on Craigs list and see what happens. I do not know how either of those work, since I have not used them but you can see what kind of luck you have.
Good luck!!