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@Mike I found another foreign website where some of the artist’s other works are for sale and they do free evaluations. Also, the estate of this artist has a website but it just leads back to a gallery. I contacted the gallery – it’s nearby in LA.
My earlier research indicated that this was an early work of his done while he was living in New York. It’s very different than his later works which are more high profile. I only found one similar not so recent sale of $1500 before.
I’m sending very broad requests fishing for any information since I am really quite clueless having no art background. They have been getting back to me right away, but so far using mainly generic responses.
@Sally. They got right back to me. Neither auction house wants to sell but Southeby’s did provide a valuation of $3,000. That would certainly be tile worthy. I asked for more information and I’m playing phone tag with Bonham. Nice of her to return my call since it’s peanuts to them. I’m trying some other sites today with connections or works by this artist for sale. Pretty cool. My spouse and I are at odds over the tile so unfinished it sits. The tile guy says tile budget gets cut because at the end of the project expenses…
Reminds me that we once sold a ’56 Tbird we bought pre-kids from my father-in-law and used the money to remodel our master bathroom after buying our current house in crappy condition. Ah, the joys of being house poor in So Cal… Nothing of beauty will stick around long, but it’s an investment hopefully that will pay off when the kids are grown and we move or downsize.
@Mike and Jay Thank you again. I finally submitted this to Sotheby’s and Bonhams online today! I’m hoping it will pay for my kitchen tile that is a bit pricey.
I watched a couple more episodes. The people are committed and spending a lot of time doing it, with off camera babysitters or empty nesters. Maybe it will take people a while to get it done, but I think it will be a good thing. I only made a couple of thrift stops this week and it’s lean so far.
@Simon TFS!
I would never do this on Ebay. I’m pretty sure mentioning a different brand (eg. Rae Dunn) is a no no. However, Mercari is in wild West mode and very brand driven. Mercari just puts these as one of many prohibited conduct items: “Listing an excessive amount of search keywords” and “Setting a false brand”. Seems like that leaves room for tags at the bottom of the description if you click the correct brand in item specifics. The more eyes on your item, the better. I was wondering if it’s the same on Poshmark and Etsy. Craigslist is wild West.
Hi! I got down to business this past weekend and listed 39 items. Many on Mercari, which is super fast listing though I wish they had sell similar. I made myself look through 5 boxes of coffee mugs from the death piles because I knew I had some Valentine’s and Easter mugs. I’m taking a few items from my own closet now and then to put on Mercari though I probably should give it the full Marie Kondo treatment.
I have some more consolidating to do, then I will photograph the piles. I’m happy with my progress this year, but I looked at last year’s photos and realized some of the boxes are still right there. Much work to be done in 2019. I would encourage anyone with piles to take photos. It’s pretty motivating.
Total Items in Store: 323 Ebay, About 55 Mercari
Items Sold: 8 Ebay, 2 Mercari
Gross Sales: $178 Ebay, $30 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $53 + $11 shipping included + 1 item ours
Highest Price Sold: $42 b.o. new pillow sham paid $27 clearance two months ago. I was hungry for sale)
Average Price Sold: $23 Ebay, $15 Mercari
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $4
Number of items listed this week: 13 Ebay, 26 MercariVery slow work week with barely any sales until Sunday. Interesting podcast. I like how you touched on comparing Simon’s method to your own. We have plentiful sourcing here and I started out sort of curating with a goal to be like a fancy Etsy settlor with a shop full of awesome vintage items. However, I’ve really shifted to a “great items at great prices” method with best offer in full swing. I’m working on liquidating piles at this point, so that totally makes sense for me.
Right now, it’s all about digging into the piles. Three years ago I started buying coffee mugs – Starbucks and character mainly – because I was shipping phobic. Some of them I discover make me groan but there are some cool ones. I’m also listing some of my childrens’ book sets on Mercari.
Watched the first episode of the Marie Kondo show. The FB groups are making jokes about licking their chops over the stuff people will donate after watching that show. I felt pretty good about myself after watching on one hand. On the other hand I definitely have quite a few cleaning out projects in closets and garage – mostly kids toys, paper filing, photos, and stuff from my parents’ house – that I haven’t gotten to yet. My inventory is not in our living space and I love to organize but there are many demands on my time. One of of goals for this year is to break down the clean out into bite size areas. Her method of taking everything out I can attest to after remodeling our kitchen. Importantly, I don’t know if it’s more reselling or aging, but I’m less inclined to be a consumer these days and have become way more utilitarian. I’ll occasionally walk through Target or Pottery Barn and be like I really don’t need any of this cute stuff. So I guess the scavenger side has really taken hold at this point in my life. It’s really a thrill though to get a great deal on something quality that we do need.
Have a great week!
Bubblefast guy interview on USPS shipping changes
I thought this was fairly good coverage for resellers. Skip to 35:35 to go straight to the interview. I also like the link bcfol440 provided.
The DIM weight divisor is expanding in June and not going away (making it apply to smaller packages) plus they are adding it to close range packages in zone 1-4 priority. The average change in price on first class is a bit deceiving, because it is skewed on the high end – when you get closer to a pound (13-16 ounces) the price hike is like $1.50!.
Also of note, top rated sellers are not going to get an extra shipping discount because USPS doesn’t have two tiers of commercial discounts any longer. So if you are not jumping through hoops to get TRS status, you aren’t missing a discount on shipping any longer.
I’ve already gone through and taken off free shipping on a number of 10+ ounce items.
Zero for me as well. Doing some organizing and consolidating this week, then will post death pile photos in that other thread. Kids finally back to school and we are finally getting some consistent rain, so good environment for listing over here. Hope you enjoyed your trip Amatino!
Total Items in Store: 308 Ebay, about 45 Mercari
Items Sold: 9 Ebay, 0 Mercari
Gross Sales: $319
Cost of Items Sold: $93 + $44 shipping included
Highest Price Sold: $75 (new duvet cover, paid $45 two years ago – a dud)
Average Price Sold: $35
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Enjoyed the podcast, especially the experiments review. I would add the 1% and other promoted listings %. I’m gambling with the 1% on Ebay not being sophisticated to effectively add functionality and reward higher trending rates, plus other sellers being resistant to using PL. I also starting using best offer in earnest and I think that has made a big difference. I see a little bump after making a sale that way. Together we can spot trends even if we don’t have any proof of how things actually work. So that’s valuable about this forum.
I’m thinking a lot these days about thinner margins and my next step is to get back to tackling piles. I need to finish listening to this Jason T. Smith video about the shipping rate changes. Though they are pretty small I don’t think I’ve been using regional rate boxes enough and I’m thinking about Pirate Ship so that I can manage costs a bit better with cubic shipping. I have a lot of lower dollar free shipping first class items in the 13 ounce range, and it sounds like that is going to be going up. By the way, if any of your numbers guys want to figure out for us what common size packages work for cubic shipping under the new rules that would be super. I’m lazy this way.
I spent time in the garage organizing my recycled packing material and boxes this weekend. I need to consolidate unlisted items a bit more and then take new photos of the piles. I’m not sure how apparent it will be in the photos but I definitely made progress in 2018. I’m also learning what I don’t like to list and what is longer tail. So, good experience but wish I hadn’t dug the hole so deep!
I also did a digital detox and I’m working on my time management. Scavenger life made the deep cut of course!
Good day trash elves. Sharing a few vintage sales of items, nothing really high dollar.
I’m a sucker for this type of vintage tablecloth. Pro resellers have them up super high at flea markets here. This one was in good shape without stains, paid $4 indy thrift. If anyone knows how to get out yellow food stains from these cotton printed tablecloths, please let me know. Can you safely soak in Oxyclean? I find them pretty often with stains.
Took a best offer of $30 on this item from my parent’s house. There were not many solds and it was not marked so I put it up pretty high. Took about 9 months to sell.
I paid a bit too much for these at the indy thrift xmas sale vintage hotpads at $6, but they sold very quickly.
This is the third or fourth Jabara NY vintage linen set I’ve sold. Paid $6 same indy thrift. They are a bit plain looking and this one was made in China, but still sold two in a month.
Think I did mention this before, but I’m able to sell vintage Pyrex lids pretty well. Far easier to pack and ship than the dishes and usually cheap. I had some less desirable Pyrex I sold on Facebook, and I’ve almost liquidated all of the lids on Ebay. Pyrex sunflower lid
Couple of duds – cow pitcher (free from Parents’), wool blanket nice condition and soft but took forever to sell.
Have a great week.
Hi Ryanne, you might try putting a search on Mercari? I just missed a new Pottery Barn duvet and sham set for $22 free shipping this morning by seconds. I think it was someone living near the outlet. There are a number of Ikea sets for sale.
I just recently loaded the update with promote to likers. Most of the time even since then I am using lower the price to everyone because it requires a smaller incremental price drop. I’ll let you know later if I have luck with promote to likers. Please do the same.
If I like something, it usually means I would but it if it was offered at a lower price, so it makes sense to use that functionality if you’ve got the spread.
Yes, you have to go down more on offers to likers than you do to promote to all users. I often will just promote to all because I’m only dropping by a buck. 10% minimum sounds about right for likers but I’m not certain what the rule is since they just recently added this feature with the last app update I loaded. Before, you just dropped the price for all users and they notified watchers so they probably copied Posh with the new feature.
So far I’ve listed a lot of our family stuff and Christmas items on Mercari and I’m really looking to unload it. I’m ok with working the price down on those items until they sell and I haven’t really been paying a lot of attention to how many watchers there are. Going forward with vintage, I might be a bit more patient if I think it’s a good item.
