Thanks, Steve. I love your sales, always learn some tidbits. Love the kittie interaction with the dogs. She has no problem with all of that playful energy and just does her thing.
I had my biggest month in 2 years in July, I had hit the estate sales hard during the time my boyfriend was out of town on some motorcycle trips, and got a ton listed and sold.
But it’s been slow for me in August as I got so haven’t been scavenging or listing much, I got mysteriously glutened and have been feeling like a super bad cold hit me, but it’s not.
Definite example of the correlation to listing and selling in my opinion.
I’m back to scavenging, but struck out a lot at thrift stores and estate sales. I did come across a very cool yard sale of a bunch of Kitty’s Critters (frogs and gheccos), tiki mugs (one mug in the bunch is worth what I paid for the whole lot), and wood tiki totems at a house not even a mile from me.
Made a quick friendship with the gals and are going to go to a tiki bar in Tacoma together, but it’s bittersweet because they are moving to the Virgin Islands early next year. Dang.
Vintage Konane Hawaiian board game, it’s an old game like checkers we used to play as kids in Hawaii. It’s all the rage now, big Konane tournaments over there.
Paid $5, sold for $39, got it to California in 2 days for a birthday present: http://www.ebay.com/itm/112497159744
Here are a few recent sales. Got these chairs at the auction for $18, sold for $150. The buyer is driving 9 hours to pick them up: http://www.ebay.com/itm/112194407732
Another kind of slow week for me. I really need to start listing more if I want those higher sales weeks again!
I came across a pile of bobble heads at my local thrift store several months back. Most of them were the players for our hockey team, but there were a few of some local icons, including this B.E. Taylor bobblehead. I’m not sure if he’s that much well known outside of my area, but he was really into Christmas concerts up until he passed away last year. I paid $2.00 and listed him for $65. He sat for a while until I took a best offer of $45. B.E. Taylor Bobblehead
This was my highest single sale of the week. I went to a tool distributor liquidation auction last winter and spent a LOT of money. Unfortunately, it hasn’t paid off yet. But I have been slowly selling things, including these tarps. It never really dawned on me that tarps can be pricey until I did some research. I kind of paid up on this at $17, but I sold it for $50. Brand New 16×20 Tarp
My Korean slide auction experiment is really paying off! I’ve mentioned it before, but I bought a whole box of 200 slides for $40 from a guy on LetGo. I’m listing them individually and starting the auction prices at the price I would have set for buy-it-now. Most are just selling for the opening bid, but I’ve had a couple of bidding wars so far. Several more sold last week for a total of $104. Korean Glass Slide
Here’s a funny sale. I found this cast iron ashtray in a box lot at an auction. It’s a two-sided ashtray depicting an older guy squeezing a woman’s butt. Not really PC in today’s culture, but I giggled. It was really rusty so I let it sit in some CLR for a day or two and it cleaned up really nice. Unfortunately, there are a million of them on ebay for sale. I priced mine competitively and it finally sold for $18. I paid .22 cents. Risque Metal Ashtray
My biggest sale this week is also my biggest sale ever. I was given this antique brass lamp that I believe originates from the Middle East. I was not able to find any hallmark, but the sockets were made by Ostrander, which is a brand that went out of business during the 30’s. It sold for $300. The person (from San Francisco) who purchased it said that they have a very Bohemian style home. I can see where this will fit right in! I hope that they have it rewired first. https://www.ebay.com/itm/182378829044
These are vintage gloves that I sold on consignment (actually the same person that gave me the lamp above). Sold for $32. https://www.ebay.com/itm/182467750236
These are 5 Russian made tablecloths. I had the high bid of $1 for the contents of a linen closet. It was a risk because the online auction really didn’t provide very good photos, but I have been able to list (and sell) many great things from that purchase. These sold for $37. https://www.ebay.com/itm/182508012317
For some reason, the tablecloth link isn’t working. This isn’t the first time this has happened today. I was able to get the correct link via a roundabout way. The only difference in the link is the removal of the “s” at the end of http. I assume this is an eBay bug. http://www.ebay.com/itm/182508012317
Question for you or anybody else re: lotting items together like those russian tablecloths and the vintage gloves. Those are great sales, but I never would have thought of lotting those items together b/c I keep coming up against this block in my mind: Who really needs THAT many similar style but slightly different size tablecloths? And the gloves – they were different types and maybe different sizes – are there really that many prop houses out there to buy such lots?
Today I purchased 3 Tuva brand vintage 80’s “big eye” women’s eyeglass frames. I’m not sure how much I can get for them individually, but perhaps grouped together I can make the listing worth it. But again I ask myself – who is going to buy as many as three of these things?
I can understand when people lot together say, 3 golf shirts or 3 dress shirts that are all the same size and quality. B/c people usually have a whole closetful of them.
Anyway, you get the drift. If anyone can enlighten me on this question, that would be really helpful.
This week I ate some bullets on both eBay and etsy. I found some Christian Louboutin sequin heels at Goodwill for 9 dollars, and foolishly listed them for 300 BIN. They were taken down by eBay. I guess I am at 4 or 5 strikes now 🙁 Then on Etsy I got hit with 2 Dolce & Gabbana strikes. I swear I thought they were real, but these came from a DG lawyer in Italy so no need to fight it. It is driving me to explore other options s/a Offer Up, which also seems to be a great place to find some stuff for eBay.
For the tablecloths, that’s easy. People like to have different tablecloths to change up the style or, if they have people coming over a few days in a row, they don’t have to clean one right away. All the tablecloths were close in size.
For the gloves, I don’t know, but I definitely didn’t want to sell them separately. Maybe someone is gearing up for Halloween, and they have a few daughters that want to dress up in old fashioned dresses. Or maybe they don’t know their hand size.
For sunglasses, I know someone who loses theirs all the time. They need to have more than one. Or, perhaps you want one for the car, one for the backpack, etc.
Another thought is to look at other listings for similar items. Put the word “lot” in your search words to see if listings come up or not. Make sure to be looking at sold items. That might give you an idea if people would buy a certain item in quantity or not.
Thanks for the thorough and helpful reply, Sharyn! What you say makes sense. I am definitely going look for lots on ebay when I’m considering making up a lot of something myself – great idea. And maybe “I don’t know, but I definitely didn’t want to sell them separately” is a good enough reason, too – it worked for you. 🙂
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