Home › Forums › Hello, Who Are You? › Tina from Reno Nevada AKA DarlinDils
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Ryanne.
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10/29/2020 at 2:52 pm #82980
Howdy all – long time lurker, first time posting here. I have been scavenging my whole life (mom got me started young). Mom and I started selling on ebay in 1997 and got a resale license about the same time. Have had a booth in various antique malls over the years and done a few shows (too much work for me usually).
Mom and I love the hunt, our big shopping trip is a month traveling from NV to KY and back in July to sell at my favorite event Breyerfest (27 years until this year). Mom sells primarily in our booth, I called myself her picker. I was a full-time RN, quit last year due to poor management, and have re-started our ebay store to support myself. I have also been selling on Facebook fairly successfully and Craigslist for bigger stuff.
I would love any suggestions to improve my ebay sales. I get a lot of great info from the scavengers here, my best tip is to just keep listing! My goal is 10 items a week (small change to you guys). I prefer auction style as I want stuff to move! If no bites in the auction I move to fixed price. My primary goal is to clear out my storeroom of doom, 40+ years in the making, so I am not hurting for inventory.
I can offer my expertise to anyone who has questions in my field of knowledge. I specialize primarily in animal figurines – Breyer, Hartland, Hagen Renaker primarily, and horses, dogs, cattle and any permutation in this area you can think of. My biggest sales are in the several thousand dollar range, there is big money here if you know what you are looking at.
I am looking forward to getting acquainted with the good trash elves here, get some help and give some help!
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10/29/2020 at 11:10 pm #82987
Welcome!
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10/30/2020 at 10:33 am #82996
Welcome. There’s no big or small here. Just the inventory size that you need to pay the bills. Different for all of us.
Im very interested in hearing more about the figurines. I know we have some horses that look like this.
–How do you know what brand they are if not marked?
–what makes one figurine more expensive that another?
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10/30/2020 at 10:40 am #82998
Welcome! I also joined eBay in ’97. It was very different then, wasn’t it?
Interesting specialty – I happen to have some plastic animals I was wondering about. I just searched those brands you mention and looked at the listings. I’ll have to look at mine more closely! Thanks! I try to help out here with military, knives, and other guy-type stuff when I can, if there’s ever anything like that you’re wondering about.
Improving sales seems to be an inexact science. Other than the necessary basics, I think different things work for different people, depending on their temperament and inventory mix. Social media presence and tie-ins are all the rage at the moment but I have zero interest and about zero expertise for that. Sending out offers works for some but I get crickets when I do it, even at 50% off. I mostly just try to find good stuff to sell, and always work on improving my listings.
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10/30/2020 at 10:50 pm #83006
Oh my goodness Jay – if you have Hagen Renaker Designers Workshop animals (especially horses) the prices are through the roof! There are a few identification websites – mostly geared towards collectors, they can be hard to use for non-collectors. There is almost no way to identify what brand if not marked, other than asking a collector! Value is a combination of rarity, condition and desireability. There are Facebook groups like Clinky Connection that are groups of collectors sharing information, or I would be happy to help! I don’t know how to message people here yet – but feel free to email me at christinaldils at gmail dot com.
Yes, Temudgin, ebay was a different animal years ago. Wish I knew then what I knew now. Email me anytime with questions about plastic animals, I love to help. My dad passed away earlier this year and has an extensive ‘guy’ collection I will be dealing with (some military, lots of knives and the like) so at some point I will be getting around to asking for help with that.
Sales are up and down, I will put it on my calendar to join the weekly what sold thread. Lots of good info there. I find it so interesting what sells and when. Just sent an offer for an item listed for $80 for a few months, sent offers of $60 to a few watchers, no bites, then it sold full price a few weeks ago. If I believe in the item I just let it ride. Sold a few things recently that I listed much earlier this year. I also pulled about 10-20 items for a yard sale earlier this month. Gotta keep things moving!
Thanks for the messages, looking forward to participating a bit more here! -
10/31/2020 at 11:28 am #83011
Hi Tina!
We have these two horses, I would love some direction on how to research which ones they are. They are not marked and I always though they were cool and special, just didn’t know any keywords for who made them.
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10/31/2020 at 3:14 pm #83016
These are made in Japan copies of Beswick horses. The Grazing Shire and Trotting Arab. Not a lot of good ways to search for information – but I have heard the image search in Firefox or Bing beats Google. Beswicks are always marked, most made in Japan are not. The ‘official’ made in Japan like Lefton might have a number/letter marking, or a symbol sometimes or a foil sticker. Both are fairly scarce, the Arab moreso than the Shire. Hope that helps!
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10/31/2020 at 4:47 pm #83019
Thanks, this is so helpful! We’ll keep an eye out for the Beswick mark from now on as well. : )
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