First real haul ever. Instant overwhelm.

[Wallyishere]

I just picked up my auction winnings from yesterday. I bid on 6-7 auctions and ended up winning 5.

The first auction I’m working through is a lot of collectible pins. The photos of the auction weren’t that great, but with the help of people here I was able to see enough value to start bidding. I won, getting ~75 pins for $12. Pretty good.

Here are some images: http://imgur.com/a/28cRg

I know exactly what to do with the football / nascar / coca-cola pins. Clean up, list. I see $60 in those already.

But there were a TON of old Soviet ones. How do you all go about pricing / listing on stuff that needs translation like this? Much of it says “Mockba” (Moscow) or has Kremlin stuff on it. One is obviously just a Lenin pin. A couple more are 1980 Olympics pins (the hockey one is especially cool since the 1980 Olympics was when the “Miracle on Ice” happened!). The others, I have no idea.

Would you just lot out the others? Is there a better place than eBay for some research? I’m just overwhelmed with the ~20 Soviet ones that I don’t understand or have real clues on.

• This topic was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by Jay.

[Jay]

First, good score!

Second, now start researching. You;re asking good questions, but only putting in the time will answer them. You can search on google as well.

Third, this is a good lesson that buying big lots of items for cheap is fun. But this will teach you to make sure you;re going to enjoy learning about the particular item you bought. Good news is that after you put in the time to research, you’ll become a mini-exert on these pins. You;’re knowledge will grow with every lot you buy and sell.

[Steven S]

Research those Soviet pins, could be some gold. The 1980 Olympics were held in the USSR and boycotted by the USA.

[sonia]

I can help some translations if you need. For example, the green pin says “Hermitage” in Russian and refers to the museum. Here are some for sale just like it:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xhermitage+pin+vintage.TRS0&_nkw=hermitage+pin+vintage&_sacat=0

The one with the monkey playing the drum says “circus”.

The one below the monkey says Historical Architectural Museum-Monument. Pictured is a church. I can’t quite make out the name of it on the bottom b/c it is partially blocked. I don’t understand the words in the middle of the pin.

Let me know if you want any more.

[Wallyishere]

Jay, Steven – I will definitely be doing the research. It’s pretty fun the more I look into them. Some interesting stuff, and it almost tells a story about someone.

Sonia – You’re awesome. I very much appreciate the time you took there. It gives me a great starting point. Most of them seem to be from museums and such now that you mention it. I’ll be looking into the museums in Moscow and kind of cross checking eBay with those then. Thanks so much!

[Linda Shields]

Whatever you decide to list them at why not start them out at that price on auction the first time? That way if they are worth a lot more you have an opportunity for them to sell for more.

[Wallyishere]

That’s brilliant. Like a little “feeler” auction with just one or two. Cool idea. Thank you.

[omfug]

I love buying lots of things like buttons and badges–these are truly the sort of things other dealers tend to not bother with, but can be worth good money, I recently bought a relatively rare Boy Scouts badge for $15 that I sold overnight for $55!

[Jo]

This may be stating the obvious, but there are a lot of translation sites where you can look up the words on the pins. Also, Google images could help. One often overlooked source is your local reference librarians. They can often point you to great sources. Good luck, sounds like fun!

[sonia]

Jo,
Is there an easy way to do online translation for character-based languages like Japanese and Chinese, where inputting the text to be translated is the big challenge (at least for me)?

[Wallyishere]

I’ve noticed a little (kind of) hidden feature in google translator. To the right of the microphone button you can bring out a keyboard with the characters of the language for input into translator. It’s been really helpful for me as most of these buttons appear to be all caps, which makes it easy to enter the words correct enough for google to figure it out.

[Jay]

Google makes it even easier. Download the Google Translate app to your phone. You simply use the camera phone to take a photo of the Japanese text. It translate it for you.

[Jay]

Here it is in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l89ipulWLc

[sonia]

Cool! Thanks!
That is going to be a big help

[Author]

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