I bought this set of antique baby photos at auction for $4. They’ve been listed for about a year, but finally sold for full price (on sale) for $67. http://www.ebay.com/itm/182712233435
I’m practicing my inner Steve Shultz here. I was given this vintage stereo receiver about 1 1/2 years ago, but finally tested and listed it a month or two ago. Sold for full price of $148. Packaged and in the box, it weighed 31 pounds. http://www.ebay.com/itm/183137840036
Someone was in great need of bread plates. First they purchased a set of 5 antique ones for $30 that I bought at my first auction about 2 years ago for $0.60. http://www.ebay.com/itm/182981628157
Then she purchased a set of 10 vintage bread plates for $19 that I bought in an online auction a little over 1 year ago for $3.25. http://www.ebay.com/itm/182497661927
Cool sales again, Steven! That Marantz was an awesome sale! I have yet to find anything Marantz out in the wild, yet you seem to come across them regularly. I’m jealous. I made some fascinating sales last week too. Here we go…
For a while, I was buying these Cranium Cariboo board games because they were going for really high prices. That bubble burst a while ago, but I still sell the parts every now and then from the incomplete sets I’ve got. This treasure chest piece sold for $21 with free shipping. I’ve probably only got a few cents into each sellable part from these sets. That’s why I don’t hesitate to buy certain used board games even when they’re not complete. A lot of times you can make more money parting them out than you would if you sold the complete set. Cranium Cariboo Game Piece
Here’s my highest sale of the week. I acquired this really interesting brass fireplace tool set from an auction a couple summers ago. It was such a unique piece that I didn’t want to let it go for less than $200 (I paid $45 for it). I cleaned it up really nice, took photos and listed, and placed it in front of my fireplace until it finally sold. I knew it would be a long tail item, but when that $250 best offer came in, I jumped on it. Brass Fireplace Tool Set featuring Pixies
Here’s a neat little item that I found in the bottom of a box lot. It’s a little Jewish calendar booklet from 1925. There wasn’t much to it, but I thought it would garner some interest because it was made in Germany. I placed it on auction with a $20 starting price. I guess it wasn’t as interesting as I thought. It sold for the opening bid. But hey, $20 for a teeny tiny little piece of ephemera ain’t bad! Little Jewish Calendar Booklet
So started listing these n-scale trains that I got at an auction in January. I paid about $125 for the whole lot, so each sellable item comes to about $2. This was the first one to sell, and it sold very quickly. It was an Arnold Rapido B&O train set. I’m thinking I should have price it a bit higher, but at $90 I’ve made back nearly ¾ of what I bought everything for. N-Scale B&O Train Set
Finally, I’d like to show these vacuum tubes that I sold. Electrical tubes are weird to me. Sold prices are all over the map! So I acquired a box of them at an auction for really cheap and listed a few for auction. This particular set of 5 sold for $52, but what’s interesting is I immediately received a message when I listed them for a buy it now price. That’s happened to me before, and I know that means I’ve got something good. But this time the auction only ended at a couple bucks more than the starting price. Oh well. He got them for a good price I guess. If anyone has any experience or advise for these, I’d love to hear it. Philips Electrical Vacuum Tubes
I have some experience selling vacuum tubes, I sold a pair of large triode radio tubes for a $1000.
I had a tube tester at the time and the only way to really make good money on tubes is if you can test them, the testers are not real cheap but not too difficult to learn how to operate.
Buyers want to know the status, tubes can look new but still be bad.
I hear you Dbl.thumbs: I have not seen anything McIntosh or Marantz in years and years. My high school friend had Mac equipment way back, speakers, equilizer, receiver, turntable and a reel to reel upright tape deck. And that also wired into [Wait for it!}, a hanging, egg shaped 60’s fall into type of chair complete with multiple speakers embedded all around the inside of that thing!. If you know what I am talking about then I can pin point your age. We would do, you know what [suffice it to say it was a smoke filled room] and then everybody wanted him to crank up the “system” as we called it and the whole house was engulfed with the vibrating bass and of course whomever got into the surround sound egg chair first, ended up staying there for hours. [So it seemed of course :-)].
Ok, now I have given away some of my youth vices, But “none of us inhaled”!!!! LOL 🙂
Doug from Whodunit Galleries in Baltimore … 🙂 see you don’t even know who I am!
LOL! I can envision the experience now!
Now that you’ve mentioned it, McIntosh is another brand that I never see. If only I’d get those prices for Realistic equipment, I’d be a rich man.
That’s why this equipment sells for so much, nobody can find it, you have to go full time searching for it. And smoking a little pot while listening to vintage equipment is still quite relaxing.
Steven, I got lucky (I think) and bought a pair of 1980’s Acoustat 2+2 electrostatic speakers for $40 last week! When I ran across the ad it had a crappy picture and the title read “Any 80’s Audiophiles Out There?”. I had never heard of acoustat but had to go look. These things are huge!! 7 1/2 feet high x 20″ across. Holy ceiling scrapers Batman. Haven’t had a chance to test them yet but for 40 bucks I couldn’t resist.
Dexter Golf Shoes, paid $3, sold for $27 and they got returned because the soles fell off which is a good reminder to always do the bend test even on unused shoes: https://www.ebay.com/itm/112897676168
Jack Georges purse, $1 at a rummage sale, sold for $81, woohoo! Never heard of this brand before but the Jack Georges name was plastered all over it which is a good sign. https://www.ebay.com/itm/112976003392
Steve- Found a reel to reel-FREE- AKAI flipped it to a fellow scavenger untested for 60.00 – I know, very low – BUT – as I have no more storage for 2 more weeks and didn’t want to keep it in my car- I thank you kind Sir!
5/9-5/15 Sales Report:
Total Sales 526.00 (including the AKAI)
8 Items Sold-
1 Return-
COGS 20.00
Highest sale , and all time highest sale price for Sally-was the Vintage WWI Gibson Mandolin- Auctioned for 200.00
It was pretty beat up, after research- I was hoping for 100.00 plus-Listed starting bid at 139.00 (Start high right Mike?)
I found this at a creepy estate, you all know the kind- that almost an abandoned bldg. to be torn down- nobody else there…wandering from almost empty room to room, eerily quite with 1 giant fly buzzing around kind of creepy (of course smelly).
Anyway I find a paper grocery sack with some train pieces- and the Mandolin, the guy at the door asks where I found the trains; And proceeds to say they were his boyhood memory, not for sale. Really! Really? I must have had “the look” on my face, because he then said “oh just take the Mandolin” – cool. Then I ( overpaid) paid 10 bucks for a big framed photo of Mt.Rainier but it was for our AirBNB (different pile completely than ebay for the accountant types).
The other sales – Binoculars 44, 35 mm camera (and 8 rolls of expired film)39, camera tripod 38,Very Cool Antique Clock Topper.-Goddess with Harp.-Lone Hoof and Leg visible near harp 49. All those prices include shipping- priority mail or fedex.
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