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- This topic has 57 replies, 28 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 10 months ago by
ChristineR.
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05/21/2018 at 1:06 pm #40550
https://www.kovels.com/latest-news/10-collectibles-not-worth-collecting-anymore.html
https://www.aol.com/2010/11/09/eight-collectibles-mistakes/
Interesting read. Started down this rabbit-hole bc somebody asked me to value a Hummel plate.
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05/21/2018 at 1:11 pm #40552
Ugg. Hummels. We stay away from that stuff like the plague.
THis is a great list. We especially avoid “Autographed sports memorabilia”.
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05/21/2018 at 1:28 pm #40553
Amatino,
These links are very helpful. I am glad you shared them. Thanks.
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05/21/2018 at 3:03 pm #40559
Oy!!! I have several cookie jars.
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05/21/2018 at 5:55 pm #40573
I have some personal experience with an item not on the list, Baseball cards.
Back in the early 1990’s collecting was all the rage. There was no internet, so you either went to one of the many Baseball card shows, or you went to a baseball card store.
Fast forward to the internet and then later Ebay. Instead of searching months for a Rookie Carl Yastremski card and paying a king’s ransom for it, you could just go to Ebay and buy one of many listed cards for much less.
Brand new Upperdeck and Stadium Club boxes were selling for $150 and up in the early 1990’s. Now the same boxes, routinely sell for less than $20.
Anything newer than 1980 plunged in value, much the way books have today. The really rare ones, pre 1960 still have significant value, but are still below the peak values. Back in the day a Honus Wagner cigarette card sold for 4 million dollars. I don’t believe it has been topped since.
People were actually buying cards as investments.
I bought may too many.. I still own the older ones, including the Carl Yastremski Rookie Card. I have since begun to unload the newer ones.
Life is interesting….
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06/20/2018 at 8:28 pm #42953
I actually disagree with Baseball Cards being on the list. I have a good deal of success buying off Facebook groups and flipping on Ebay. The market is actually up on Modern cards..anything recent years. Boxes of 2018 Bowman were selling for over 350 for a Jumbo box. There are boxes that you can find at Target right now for 14.99 that can easily flip on Ebay for 30-50 dollars. They were going for more until the Ohtani injury. I actually think Ebay has driven the prices up more than anything. Collectors in towns without a Hobby shop want to get their favorite player or “prospect” that next guy. Of course cards from 87-99 or so, yes the market is dead there…but that doesn’t make the whole market bad. I do find Modern cards locally at Thrift Stores etc that can be flipped pretty easily for a decent price. Prospects and futures drive the hobby now…almost like the stock market. But everyone has their niche, and I actually mainly sell to collect more and was once a full time “breaker” so I am partial to the industry and hobby. 🙂
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06/21/2018 at 1:02 pm #43042
More power to you.. if you’ve found a niche that works.. go for it.
I’m in the process of liquidating the New in the box baseball cards from the early 90’s and the vintage cards are sitting in storage.
I have no regrets.. it was a great learning experience and I’ve still got that Yastremski Rookie card.
The world is full of opportunities if you know where to look.
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05/22/2018 at 3:51 am #40600
Thanks for sharing this, Amatino.
I was very excited to find my first longaberger basket a couple of weeks ago (b/c I heard this brand mentioned on youtube as a bolo), but after I looked at solds, I became discouraged. Luckily it only cost me $1. -
05/22/2018 at 10:48 am #40630
I always like the stacks and stacks of collector’s plates at every thrift store in my area. If they were dishwasher safe (most aren’t from my research) and were printed with safe inks (some can leach into your food) they would be fun plates to use for an event or holiday.
I also enjoy looking every week in the Sunday Paper at all the Franklin Mint, Disney, etc. junk items that have confusing payment terms and end up costing a small fortune or are part of a subscription scam. I saw one for Disney DVDs that were only a couple dollars for the first few, then $40 a pop every month after that. I also like the junk Franklin Mint stuff that has “only $29*” and then the fine print has (*4 payments of $29 plus shipping, handling, processing fees, etc…).
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05/22/2018 at 3:49 pm #40683
RE: Cookie jars, I think that’s a category worth searching/sorting solds every now and then. There’s a super-ugly cookie jar that looks like a gingerbread boy — it may be Hull dripware — that goes for decent money despite being almost difficult to look at.
My search/sort thought applies to plates as well. I occasionally just look to see if anything’s desirable, or if one I find is worth anything (spoiler — it hasn’t been yet.)
For categories like collector plates, mugs, cookie jars, etc. — things that thrift shops are awash in — I do tend to try to learn about good sellers. Most of the time, I look things up on the fly anyway, but poking around in solds is a good way to learn/train your eye. Death Wish coffee mugs, who knew?
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06/21/2018 at 10:37 pm #43132
I agree on the cookie jars. I have sold a couple of them for somewhere around $100.
I’ve also sold a couple sets of collectable plates that were valuable. One set was by Laurel Burch.
You do have to research before you buy.
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05/23/2018 at 9:24 am #40797
Proposition: it isn’t worth learning about collectibles unless you really like them, because you need to know a lot to not get burned.
I now dislike buying collectibles unless I, personally, think they’re cool. A bit parochial perhaps, but it prevents me getting into a mindset of “the next sucker will buy this”, which is too common in thinking about “investments” of various kinds.
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05/23/2018 at 10:27 am #40803
I started out with collectibles years ago, but now unless I’m finding stuff for free I try to avoid them, (I do find a lot for free). Minimalists or minimalists wanna-be’s seem to be the fashion now. Usable, wearable, or “makes life easier” just are safer bets.
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06/21/2018 at 12:06 am #42975
Newer generations are not interested in most of the crap that people used to get as wedding gifts: china, crustal and silver flatware. I remember paying a small fortune for Irish crystal glasses as gifts to help my mother finish her 12-place collection. Now I see Waterford at garage sales for $1 to $2/glass. Fashion.
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06/21/2018 at 9:41 pm #43129
The Lismore pattern is still worth picking up!
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06/21/2018 at 9:16 am #43000
Whenever I visit my folks in Iowa we inevitably spend 1 day in the big metropolis of Des Moines to kill time. Dad thinks I’ll want to hit up the Goodwills while there so I’ve gone with them a few times. They are not thrifters or resellers and have never purchased anything from eBay. I end up spending the entire time at the store with them telling them “no thank you” to all of the collectible treasures they think they are finding for me to flip: Avon perfume bottles, collectible hanging plates, anything Norman Rockwell, Precious Moments, colored glass dishes. It starts to feel like I’m bursting their bubble so now I tell them I don’t need anything more to flip, I’ve got plenty at home. The things they remember being valuable when they were younger is now the crap that no body wants. I can’t imagine that there will ever be a market for collectible hanging plates by any future generation ever again.
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06/21/2018 at 9:10 pm #43126
Julie B – I have a similar situation. If I have to repeat the sentence “Yes, that is a very nice piece of clothing and but it simply doesn’t sell for very much on ebay so I’m not buying it” one more time, I’m going to scream.
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06/22/2018 at 7:31 am #43138
On Sundays we go to Goodwill as a family. My wife shops the half off and 99 cent tag womens clothes for herself, and she also pulls anything interesting for me to go through for ebay.
I put back 90%+ of what she pulls, but she is learning. I try to be patient and encourage her because every thing I put back is not a waste – she is learning what isn’t worth buying. She has found some really good items. I think her best item so far was a Fred Perry Sweater Vest we sold for $45. I don’t think I would have seen that if I was shopping the womens section.So I guess my point is that if you have a family member who is excited to help but may not have the greatest eye, help them develop that eye and you could have a valuable asset on your team.
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06/22/2018 at 8:45 am #43140
I’ve taken my parents thrifting a couple of times. My mother has a great eye for the unusual things but doesn’t really enjoy it. My father LOVES digging through everything but has the worst eye. His specialty seems to be cheap, broken walmart brand shoes. At least I can respond with “Oh man, look. Half the shoe is missing, I don’t think we should get those.”
And no, I don’t think he’ll be able to develop an eye. That’s ok, I still love him anyway. -
07/25/2018 at 8:23 am #46091
My parents are going to hopefully downsize from their big house into a smaller townhouse. It’s painful having to tell them over and over that nobody wants their china set/crystal/silverware collection/giant dining room set/collectibles. People still equate sunk cost with value, and that stuff cost a lot of money once upon a time. Now thrift stores don’t even want it because it takes up space and doesn’t sell.
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07/25/2018 at 10:07 am #46099
I think this is one of the most valuable threads on the forum, especially for new people.
We are relatively new at this game so some of the items mentioned here, yup, we bought them: Hanging plates (so embarrassing!), ceramics, glass, milk glass, etc. But there are a few items that I still fall for so I figured that the only way for me to stop buying them is to force myself to list them on Ebay — as punishment — and I hope that by confessing here, I might be able to stop the addiction to the following:
Salt and pepper shakers
Bookends
Cookie jars
Trinket boxes!!!!The jury is still out on brass but getting close to adding it to the list.
Would love to know your list, if you have one, of items you thought would sell and you had to just stop buying them.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by
Sigilini.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by
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07/25/2018 at 1:34 pm #46117
Oh, I got NAILED with vintage salt and pepper shakers! Bought 20 of them! TBH, they did all sell, but for a measly $7 a set when I paid $2 per set. Sigh…
And I had a trinket bowl that I listed as a “chingadera” for a while, much to my husband’s amusement. It still didn’t sell, so I edited it back to whatever bland generic I had before.
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07/25/2018 at 3:24 pm #46124
I had to look up chingadera! Too funny! Glad to know I am not the only Salt and Pepper person on the planet.
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07/25/2018 at 3:24 pm #46125
20x$5 = $100
I think most people tend to agree that a mistake that makes you $100 is a good mistake problem to have.
I just sold some Jurassic world Raptor claws I bought as Retail arbitrage several years ago. I paid $5 for them and blew them out for $10 each. They all sold pretty quick at $10. Anways, it was a mistake that still made me $25. I’m happy!
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07/26/2018 at 7:23 am #46157
I agree with Amatino. $5 x 20 = $100 is good scavenger math if you can photograph one item and just have quantity 20.
BUT if you have to individually photograph and list 20 separate things, then that becomes bad math. As we say around here, it takes just as long to photograph/list a $100 item as it does a $5 item. Choose your time wisely.
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07/25/2018 at 3:40 pm #46126
Raising my hand to admit I am a salt and pepper person. In my defense, I do sell them well at my antique shows. If I buy them for $2 and sell them for $10 it’s a win for me. I bought a whole collection a couple of months ago and have sold several for decent money, including a black panther set that fetched a nice $25 just last week. I agree Retro T WV….I’ll take that $100 too.
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07/25/2018 at 4:16 pm #46129
I don’t blame you Lacy, salt and pepper shakers can be so darn cute! For me, researching, cleaning, describing and listing an item for 8.00 profit (loooooong tail) can be a bit discouraging after a while. If they were all the same and I could list in bulk, I would do it but each one individually can get tedious.
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07/25/2018 at 5:07 pm #46132
Retro Treasures, I’d not complain about $100 normally, but … each set was different, so I needed to photograph and list each set individually. So it was $2 for the set, plus approx $1 packing cost, plus eBay and PayPal fees, and the time it took to photograph, edit, and list twenty times. I considered a Lot Listing, but they would have gone for even less money as nobody wants a lot of different salt and pepper shakers unless they’re planning to resell.
To be honest, I’ve not crossed shakers off the list. I’m now really, really, really picky about them! Just recently found an awesome set that was a cat salt pot arching its back over the pepper pot in mint condition. Unfortunately, when the saleslady was packing it up for me, she must have knocked the plug out of the cat, because it was gone when I got home. Now I have to find replacement plugs. Sigh…
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07/26/2018 at 7:30 am #46160
Either I misunderstood you or you guys misunderstood me.
I was thinking that when you originally bought and listed them, you thought they would be worth a lot more. Eventually you realized they were worthless and blew them out. In that case, your lesson learned was still a net positive as well as the learned knowledge. It’s a best case scenario mistake.
For the raptor claws, I was hoping they would sell for $30, and I’d settle for $25 each. It never happened, but I was hoping the new movie would spur sales on them. That didn’t happen either, so I blew them out while the new movie was still in theaters before they became absolutely worthless.
It was a mistake and I pretty much gave up Retail arbitrage due to several RA items sitting forever in my storage.
So yeah, if you bought $20 shakers knowing they’d only sell for $7 that would definitely suck. I guess I should clarify for arguments sake – did you think they’d sell for big money?
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07/26/2018 at 9:38 am #46168
I cannot speak for Amatino but for my part I thought (before I knew better) that cute “collectible” salt and pepper shakers would be valuable and I made the same mistake of buying them several times until I finally learned not to get tempted anymore no matter how cute they are. I have about three now in my store and hopefully they will sell some day.
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07/26/2018 at 9:50 am #46169
+1 Sigilini. Now I only buy sets that are really cute and really really cheap. I’ve found that ceramic sets tend to go for about $12+ and if I can get them for a dollar or less, I’ll take them. But not bc they’re collectible, rather that I think they’re cute/odd/interesting.
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07/28/2018 at 9:26 am #46320
I have a ton of Jade green / Jadeite dishes I was looking forward to selling from my collection, but there is so much in same pattern listed I’m like “eh.”
I love selling dining plates, I need to get picky. It’s like you get a few wins and you can’t stop yourself. They are heavy, but easy to store (for me). Teacups are same and I have a stash of those too.
My husband keeps picking up snack size sliverplated bowls of all sizes, they are worth nothing and are taking over our house. See also Julep Cups.-
07/28/2018 at 9:39 am #46322
I’ve had great success with Jadeite. Some items take longer than others, but I have very little left at this point. If you bundle up 3 or 4 plates at a time, it might be quicker to sell.
Tea cups and saucers, though, are harder. I guess people just use mugs these days? When I buy a set of whatever, those are usually the last to go. Forget about extra saucers without a cup or visa versa. I’m probably going to have to donate/throw those out at some point.
But, yeh, you have to look up a pattern before buying to see if it is desirable or not. More recent patterns are better to sell than older ones. Stangl was manufactured here in NJ once upon a time, and I can find it pretty cheap at auctions. I can usually sell a few items from a lot really quickly, and then the rest just sits there. For mid-century dishes, I think that their patterns have really stood the test of time, but the people who had it as their pattern are now downsizing or have passed away.
Certain silver plate items sell real well for me, and then others not so much. If you have lots of bowls, perhaps lot them up? Something to look for in silver plate are bride’s baskets. They are a bowl with a handle. I had one that had a maker’s mark dating it to the late 1800s. I only paid a dollar or two, and it sold for around $80.
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07/28/2018 at 4:36 pm #46348
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07/30/2018 at 3:52 pm #46448
Here’s another good salt & pepper set to look for. https://tinyurl.com/y9jyhohs
This is the sort of thing I used to pass right by with a sneer, but they go for good money!
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07/28/2018 at 4:45 pm #46349
WBird, wow! Do you have links for them, where they sterling silver, gold, brand?
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07/28/2018 at 7:55 pm #46352
I gave the links but they’re not showing up in my post. Maybe I did it wrong or perhaps links aren’t allowed? The first was a teak Peugeot Freres Denmark set that was sculpted and asymmetrical. The second was a Kromex set with turquoise lids (rarer color).
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07/28/2018 at 8:28 pm #46353
Links are allowed. Try again.
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07/28/2018 at 8:48 pm #46355
I see them! That is great to know.
Here is one of them I think
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07/29/2018 at 9:19 am #46368
I just did a run of searching SOLDS for S&P shakers. Some of them make no sense to me – no brand name or maker and they are going for lots of money. Subject matter being key here as well.
I love that moment when I search Solds and I go “Jeez, look at all this crap! Oh wait, that one’s cool, and that one’s cool…” and now I’ve become a S&P shaker buyer. HA
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07/29/2018 at 3:14 pm #46379
Sigilini did find the first one. Here’s my second try to post the other.
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07/30/2018 at 4:07 pm #46452
So I see there are SOME salt and pepper shakers worth their salt.
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10/13/2018 at 1:03 am #50086
Oh man, what a great thread!! It’s so funny that everybody has fallen into similar embarrassing traps when they first started out.
I, too, must confess that I can’t resist adorable salt and pepper shakers. But I buy them for 10 cents to a dollar..so even if I only sell them for 12 bucks…I just enjoy them enough to keep doing it. Idk why they are so addicting but it’s true.
I can see what people mean about ceramics..but I think like with anything you just have to learn what people give a crap about and what people don’t. The majority of my shop is made up of vintage ceramics. I’ve made plenty of mistakes though!! And honestly I still do. I actually started my shop by cleaning out my grandparents’ cottage with my dad. My grandma packed everything away really perfectly and neatly so it was just an automatic store waiting to happen. But it was a nice way to learn about what no one cares about anymore because I had hundreds of items and didn’t pay for any of it. I do feel bad though that some of the stuff my grandma took so much care in packing away because back then it was so valuable to her….nobody wants. lol. But some of the stuff nobody will pay for is also stuff I like to keep because it was important to her. Gah, what can I say I am a pack rat!!!!! haha.
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10/14/2018 at 5:19 am #50120
Royal Mail First Day covers. My neighbour trades in Indian stamps but… he spent over 300 GBP (400 USD) on a couple of thousand of these British covers in folders. Which he then gave to me to sell. They’re basically commemorative stamps on covers, cancelled on the first day of issue with a fancy mark.
These were collectable about a thousand years ago. Now they’ve virtually unsaleable. I calculated the original purchasers* must have spent in the region of 6,000 GBP on the stamps alone. I think I got back around 250 GBP, and most of that was by finding someone who thought they could sell it on to a dealer.
*Their names and addresses were on the envelopes. I could see that one of them had moved from some beautiful part of the Lake District to some housing estate on the edge of an industrial city. Sad!
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10/14/2018 at 5:54 pm #50127
Two words: Shot Glasses. Don’t.
I’ve been selling for almost 18 years on eBay now…not always full time. I started out with depression dishes/glassware and odds-n-ends. You could sell ANYTHING back then. Unfortunately, I have weakness for dishes and glassware and barware. But I am so much more selective now. And mostly I’m just trying to get rid of the enormous amount of that stuff I still have. This is the best time of year to sell dishes. I just looked at Homer Laughlin’s red transferware with Currier & Ives scenes on them. I have about 30 pcs to sell. I have watched the market rise and fall on these over the last ten years that I have had them. This is the highest I have seen them in a while. So I dug them out of storage yesterday and will be listing asap. I did just sell a repro set of Pink Willow dishes, service for 8, on Facebook Marketplace for $75. I had packed up a service for 4 and was going to list them in two lots. When I weighed the box, it was over 16 lbs. And I thought, no one’s going to pay the shipping, so on a whim, I put them on the Marketplace and they sold the next day.
So that’s my backup for things that are “meh” but still nice….This week alone, I did a little over $300 on the Marketplace…and paid NO FEES. I usually end up meeting the buyer at a mutually convenient location, which is rarely over 5 miles away. People search according to their geographic area, so it makes it easy to connect. I mostly stick to stuff I don’t want to ship and maybe is too generic to sell on eBay. This week on eBay has been much improved over Sept. Happy selling!
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10/14/2018 at 11:50 pm #50132
These are great lists. We sell at antique shows (had one this past Saturday), and I see so many older people with tables covered in undesirable China, Hummels, S&P shakers, silverware, etc. I don’t know how they manage to make it worth their time/effort since 99% of buyer just pass them by, and any that stop beat then up so badly on pricing.
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10/15/2018 at 5:14 am #50133
Shot glasses- no. Firing glasses- yes. Look like shot glasses but have thick bases (for multiple toasts- holds less booze and you can bang the table with it).
Advice from the antique shop where I have a cabinet is that sets of 6 drinking glasses are Xmas sellers (not 4!) I tried sourcing some from thrift shops, but found a) the shops mark them up b) spotted other customers looking for them.
As for china, the shelves in the thrifts attract middle-aged men for some reason. Glass and ceramics are the cockroaches of the antiques world- unless you tread on them they’re going to survive for centuries.
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10/15/2018 at 9:20 am #50143
While I don’t buy anymore brass or bookends, I actually sold a pair of brass bookends recently.
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10/15/2018 at 10:12 pm #50216
I do pretty well with bookends. A coworker brought me a Princess Diana collector’s plate and some English wall plates (chipped) from his mom’s house today. After looking them up we had a laugh and he said “I guess my mom wasn’t a good collector.” I told him he probably threw out the good stuff. Actually, his realtor in So Cal “generously” offered to clean out the house. :/
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10/16/2018 at 7:31 am #50226
ChristineR, just curious what bookends you find good sellers. I currently have about 8 of them and they are not moving at all.
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10/16/2018 at 11:35 am #50254
@Sigilini Not all of them have sold super high, but they usually sell within a few months. Most of them are brass or pot metal / cast iron look. I’ve sold these Indian Chief for $125; something like these brass tennis ones for less. I usually put Man Cave in the title (if appropriate) and pin them on Pinterest.
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10/16/2018 at 4:02 pm #50271
Thank you ChristineR, the Chief bookends are amazing and if I had the chance to pick them up, I would have, bookend or no!
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10/17/2018 at 10:35 am #50295
@ChristineR – when you post to Pinterest do you have a category for selling stuff, or just something labeled “cool stuff”, or…?
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10/17/2018 at 6:14 pm #50366
@pythonesk Yes, I have created some boards either by item type, brand, or general category. I also participate in Facebook sharing groups when I have time and when I need to share others’ listings, I use one board to park all of those.
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10/16/2018 at 10:03 am #50246
I have 2 pairs of brass bookends I have yet to list on Ebay. A pair of plastic bookends from the 80s are listed on Etsy due to steep competition for them on Ebay. The ones on Etsy have yet to sell.
Has anyone gotten good results from listing bookends on Etsy vs. Ebay? Maybe I should cross-post for the holidays, just in case.
I don’t normally pick up bookends, but they were thrown in at an estate sale with other items I was interested in, making them essentially free.
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10/16/2018 at 10:58 am #50250
I have a pair of brass seashell bookends listed. They aren’t getting a lot of action either.
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10/16/2018 at 7:16 pm #50276
Love all the book end listings. Those rams and Chief are amazing finds.
I just finished listing some Victorian paper ephemera items. I know it’s a solid sales item, but I do not enjoy listing that stuff! I did lots of a grouping.
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