Once I had a love, and it was a gas

Oy, steampunk live-action roleplayers!

I am being compelled by my wicked parents to tidy out 30+ years of accreted clobber in their attic. Expect a series of these does-anyone-want posts:

Can anyone find a use for 15+ (clean, unused) test tubes, lab flasks and petri dishes ? They come with a free vial of copper sulphate for making pretty blue potions... (and indeed several vials of various white and dull-looking-but-named compounds if required).

We're going on a bear hunt...

See previous post, wicked parents, attic, bah.

Does anyone know of any form of outlet for pre-owned, much-loved, non-CE-marked teddy bears and other furry creatures ? I can't possibly keep all mine, and the prospect of sending them to landfill is not to be borne. Quite apart from it being Plain Wrong, the wasting of perfectly lovable animals offends me.

The mother tells me that even charities which ship bears to children who have no bears are insistent on modern safety standards. (Not, of course, that think it's acceptable to kill children in poverty-stricken regions with toxic bears, but I regard the bears in question as perfectly safe, having failed to be killed by them myself. Many of them lack labels at all on account of being homemade.)