What Sells On eBay: Soap on a Rope, Distressed messenger bag, Gold coin

Hope you had a nice Christmas, Steven. Nice sales! I had a great week myself. Here are some of my more interesting sales.

My highest sale of the week came from this Satsuma porcelain trinket box. I usually come across Satsuma vases which are obviously reproductions and they still sell for $20-30. But this one that I got at an auction for a couple bucks seemed much more authentic, or at least much better painted. And it had a makers mark on the bottom. So I priced at what I thought was high for $175 hoping for a decent best offer. It sold for full price after about a month. I kinda regret not doing a little more research on this piece. Well known Satsuma artist pieces can be very valuable.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303343323211

Here was a neat little sale. I acquired an old Triplett multimeter at a yard sale for $3. When I brought it home to see if I could clean it up, I realized it still had the old battery inside. It was one of those old 30 volt batteries that the older testers would use. Well I threw it up on eBay by itself and it sold for $15. I don’t know if the buyer was a collector of old batteries or knew how to recharge it, but I was happy for the easy sale.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303363234639

One of my favorite things about this job is learning about things I never knew existed. In this case, it was about mourning hair art. In the Victorian period, it was common to save the hair of recently deceased loved ones and craft it into wreaths, art or jewelry. Some intricate examples can fetch over a thousand dollars. This little boutonniere flower was pretty simple and sold for $30. It came in a box lot and only cost me less than a dollar.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303393021179

Every now and then I’ll wade in the pool of retail arbitrage, usually with not a lot of success. Last year I missed out on the opportunity to buy and resell these Paqui One Chip Challenge tortilla chips. They’re basically a single corn tortilla chip which are claimed to be the world’s hottest chip. They sold out in a few hours and were being resold on eBay for ridiculous amounts. Well anyways, this year I got the email saying they were back in stock. I dropped what I was doing and bought the max limit of 10. It seemed though that Paqui learned from last year and produced much more this time. They didn’t sell out until over a week later. So as expected, the eBay market was flooded with these things and I thought I was going to get burnt (pun intended). But luckily, mine have slowly been selling for $20 a pop. I sold my last one thankfully and even made a profit of about $90.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303360694328

@Steve – You’re an inspiration selling that messenger bag. I would have probably passed thinking it was too far gone. I guess grunge is alive and well.

@Doublythumbs – that hair boutonniere is kinda creepy, but interesting. Not surprising considering the “memento mori” photographs that people used to take of their dead children.

The Christmas season has been good to us. We’ve had a lot of higher dollar items selling that had been sitting on the shelves for ages and just a good variety overall. This week the sales just keep coming which feels like a Christmas bonus since we expected little during the holiday week.

Biggest sale over the last week was a 1965 Toshiba transistor radio. I got it in a lot of cameras from an online auction. Took an offer of $300 on an asking of $495 as it had been sitting with no interest. Cost me about $10.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/132994158537

Sold two Ursula Leyk lighthouses to the same buyer. Bought a lot of 6 at another online auction for $12. They’ve been selling well with the holiday season. These two sold for full price of $75 and $60.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133148772597
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133148152774

Slides sell, at least travel slides do. Sold a lot of 275 travel slides from the 50’s – 70’s. Family seemed to take a big trip every few years and had some great shots. I was asking $125 but took an offer of $75 on a $11 investment.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133139124749

Selling a lot of Christmas items. Go figure. Finally got motivated to list several Nutcrackers last week that we got in an online auction lot back in January. This Swarovski nutcracker sold first with an offer of $65, listed at $75.95. Paid $20 for the lot, so this one cost us about $2.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133278095928

Woke up Tuesday morning to a combined sale of a stuffed animal and a carving knife. Pulled the items from inventory and started the packing process only to see the buyer was my brother. Apparently the family back home in Florida was sitting around looking through my store to see what craziness I was selling now and found something they liked. I refunded their money and shipped the item off. Couldn’t charge family $50 for something I only paid $2 or $3 for.

English Leather soap on a rope. What a flashback for me.

Merry Christmas & soap on a rope to all!

Its been a busy holiday season. I spent a few days listing a huge Thomas wooden train collection and felt like I was selling trains as fast as I could list them. Some of them sell for crazy money and others not so much. I researched every piece and photo’d carefully to assure my buyers knew that they were getting authentic Thomas stuff and that they could see all the rough play that had touched each piece. This 1998 Daisy sold right away for $26.50 + $2.00 shipping https://www.ebay.com/itm/193260008856

I drive through Leadville, CO occasionally and pick up two of these hoodies (maximum per person purchase) to resell on eBay. I pick them up for $78 and sell for between $150 and $175, so it does cover my gas and time, but not worth driving up more than the times I am passing through. https://www.ebay.com/itm/193207241540

I’m hoping this 1990s Tommy jacket sold for $54.50 isn’t a return for fit. Fingers crossed https://www.ebay.com/itm/193146048927

Lego & Hogwarts – what could go wrong? This game has been in my store for most of the year. I was glad to see it go to a new home in time for Christmas. https://www.ebay.com/itm/192920818079 (BTW – I changed my handling time to “same day” for the week before christmas to assure people didn’t get spooked by my usual 2 day cushion and I am pretty sure it helped).

I took a $50 best offer on this Maus & Hoffman belt. Truth is, it is pretty ugly and I could wait a long time for someone else that wants a blond lizard belt to come along. https://www.ebay.com/itm/192963491376

I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year celebration. Best wishes, Daniel.

This vase was a free item from one of my parents’ downsizing friends. It had a Home Goods sticker for around $25, but the prices on eBay were much higher. I took off the sticker and listed it for $65 or best offer. It sold full price to someone in Canada.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/183908023432

I sold a few jackets that I obtained at auction for a dollar or two each. First is a men’s Harris tweed jacket for $47. The second is a women’s Orvis tweed coat for $32.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/183758477674
http://www.ebay.com/itm/183758503969

I bought these WWII replica medals for pennies in an auction lot. I was surprised to see that I listed them for $27.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/183690347212

This Dunphy’s teapot for hot toddies is from my auction lot of whiskey advertising items. Each item cost about a quarter. This sold for $20 to someone with the last name of Dunphy.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/183982840508