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Thanks, Beverly! Yeah, I’m always an the lookout for 48 stars, so I couldn’t believe it when I counted 46.

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I got this message from him first. “I was charged $6.65 shipping for this item. The actual US Post office confirmed shipping cost for this item was $3.46. Please refund $3.19 excessive shipping cost.”

Then this message came through from eBay (spelling and grammar mistakes left in):
eBay is contacting you I behalf of your buyer perpeto-ldy9ggx regarding the item Vintage Woodcroftery France Salad Serving Fork & Spoon Utensil (302081376670). Your buyer is asking you to reimburse him for the overcharged shipping fee . Your buyer said ,after checking the tracking # 94004109699939611920216 in the post office , he foudd out as post office told him that shipping for that is only $3.46. Now you buyer is asking you for the reimbursement for the remainder of the $6.65 that he paid for the shipping fee.

eBay is suggesting to communicate further with your buyer to settle things out. Your action to the mentioned concern will be highly appreciated.

Thanks for staying in eBay.
Thanks,
eBay

Sounds kinda fishy, doesn’t it? Well I refunded the guy just to keep from stirring the shit pot.

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I loved it too! I kinda regret selling it for only $40 but I know the buyer will appreciate it. I won’t say their username, but it has the words pinup girl in it.

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Thanks Christine. I’m always on the hunt for Hudson Bay blankets like yours since the first one I sold last year.
You know now that you mentioned it, I’m missing my editing menu as well. I thought it was just me and have been hand coding my links for the last couple weeks.

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I didn’t have too bad of a week of sales. Not great either, but I can’t be high rolling every week. Here are my highlights.

Every so often I make a bad buy. This is one of them. I spent $80 on a collection of these miniature tin railroad signs made by Post cereal. My thought was that railroad stuff had a huge following and these would fetch me a lot of money. Well it turns out these aren’t worth much. This is the second one to sell out of 12 of them for $13. I’ll manage to make my money back eventually, but I’ll never pick these up again unless they’re dirt cheap.
Post Cereal Tin Railroad Sign

Here’s the first piece from my ephemera experiment to sell. And it was the one I priced the highest. It’s a stand-up cardboard advertising display for paper cups featuring Jayne Mansfield. “With the Lip you Love to Touch!” LOL! Each piece from this lot of ephemera only cost me pennies. I sold this one for $40.
Jayne Mansfield Paper Cup Advertising

Here’s my big sale of the week. I acquired this Leader brand Semiconductor Curve Tracer from an estate sale for about $3. The guy selling everything either really didn’t pay attention to what was going in my pile or he didn’t care. Now I didn’t really get a chance to thoroughly test this piece of equipment. It turned on, so I was satisfied. I have no reason to believe it was damaged or anything. It looked almost unused. It sold to someone in Japan for $200.
Leader Semiconductor Curve Tracer

I loved this sale. In a box of old flags, I was surprised to find a large and very old 46-star flag. Unfortunately, it had seen way better days. It was full of holes and tears. But I know sometimes that can be a selling point. So I listed it high at $250 and took a best offer of $165.
46-Star Flag

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I had the same thing happen to me just last week. Blocked a guy because he kept messaging me saying my price was unreasonable. He then created another account (same username with some random numbers at the end) and bought it for full price. I knew he was going to cause trouble and sure enough, I got an email from eBay saying that he requested money back for overcharged shipping…a couple bucks and some change. I should have contacted a rep like you did before even shipping the item.

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Bugman, regarding your question about box lots… You can’t really know if an auction will have box lots (assuming it’s not mentioned) until you know the auctioneer. Different auctioneers will have different methods of listing what’s for sale. For example, I go to one particular auction when it occurs about once every other month. They are meticulous to list every little item with no surprises on Auctionzip. On the other spectrum, there’s an auction house near where I live that never ever mentions box lots, yet every single time the entire second half of the auction is nothing but lots. My best advise is to start going to each auctioneers’ auctions and taking mental notes on how each one does things. Or if you want a quick answer, give them a call. They won’t mind answering that question.

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Jan 14-20
Total Items in Store: 1206
Items Sold: 24
Total Sales : $897
Highest Price: $200 (Leader Semiconductor Curve Tracer Model LTC-905)
Average Price: $37
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $71
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $0

Not a bad week. Sales dipped a little bit, especially toward the end of the week. I’m thankful for a couple high sales, otherwise my numbers would be looking a little more bleak.

So the first week of my ephemera experiment has been a minor success. I acquired a big box full of vintage advertising from a paper product distribution company. There were ads and brochures and samples for things like Dixie cups and wrapping paper and even the sheets of cardboard that are placed between glass for shipping. All from the 1950s and in more or less great condition. While I was photographing all this stuff, I wondered who the hell is going to want any of this? I guess there are literally buyers for everything. I sold six if the items (out of a total of 134 sellable pieces) for a profit of $105.

This week I’m trying an experiment with old 1940s and 50s Valentine and birthday cards. I put about 40 up for auction with the starting prices at what I was reasonably going to list them at anyways. I’ll let the market decide if they’re worth more than I expect. I’m also going to try some antique photographs. All this stuff is from that same estate sale that I paid almost nothing for.

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Another profitable week of sales last week. Here are some highlights…

I’ll start off with my big sale of the week. I went to an estate sale in town back in August. A guy’s mother passed away and he had to have the house cleaned out before he could sell it. I got the word about it and was able to come in and buy what I wanted the day before the sale. I cleaned house! I bought two carloads of stuff for $150. So each sellable item came to $2.83. This was an Audiometer that I found up in the attic. I had no idea what it was, but it looked really cool and had a feeling it was worth something. I cleaned it up really nice and after some research found out it was for hearing testing. Pretty cool. I listed it higher than what I thought it would sell for and almost immediately the best offers began pouring in. I almost took one but before I could, it sold for full price of $350!
Western Electric Audiometer

Another item from that same estate sale. I remember in one of Ryanne’s what sells videos, she sold a camping cabin guest book. I can’t remember what her’s looked like, but this one was made of wood and had entries dating back to the 1940s. It had a little bit of damage, so I only priced it at $40. It sold within about a couple weeks. Looking back, I kinda regret not pricing that one higher, but oh well.
Cabin Lodge Guest Book

At the Goodwill Outlets, I snagged up these practically brand new Scooby Doo bed sheets. They were neatly folded inside of a plastic bag so they didn’t get all dirty in the bins. I knew from past sales that bedsheets can potentially be profitable, especially cartoon characters. I listed them for $40 and took a best offer of $31. I paid .73 cents for them.
Scooby Doo Bed Sheets

I got this antique set of store scales from a pile of items I bought in a lot at an auction in July. Each sellable item from that lot came to $5. I almost left them there because at first glance they didn’t seem old. I’m glad I brought them home though. I wanted to clean them up before I listed them, but too much stuff got in the way, so I listed them as is. It took a little while to sell but I ended up taking a best offer of $80. They were a pain to pack though!
Vintage Cast Iron Store Scales

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Jan 7-13
Total Items in Store: 1086
Items Sold: 30
Total Sales: $1,281
Highest Price: $350 (Vintage Western Electric 6A Audiometer Hearing Tester)
Average Price: $43
Returns: 1
Cost of Items Sold: $66
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $0

Another great week for me! I don’t know if my mailman either loves or hates me by now. There’s always a pile of packages for him to pick up.

I had my first return in a long while. It was a VHS-C to VHS Cassette Adapter. The buyer said that it arrived damaged and wouldn’t work. I had him send it back of course. When I received it, I couldn’t find anything wrong with it, though I don’t have any vhs-c cassettes to adequately test it. I’m suspecting he needed to transfer a tape but just wanted to “borrow” the converter. When I find one of those cassettes, I’ll test it to know for sure and just relist it. But it’s annoying regardless and I’m out shipping costs

So I spent my whole Saturday organizing and taking photos of old 1960s advertising ephemera. It’ll be an experiment to see if there’s any interest. I found a medium sized crate of all of this ephemera at an estate sale. It was hidden away up in an attic for years. I only paid a few bucks for the whole thing. It’s mostly from a local paper product company that’s no longer in business. So while it’s not exciting stuff like car or soda ads, I’m hoping it’ll interest at least some people.

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From what I understand, an Instant Pot is just like any electric pressure cooker. But there are different settings that other pressure cookers may or may not have like rice and saute and slow cook. You can probably replace “Instant Pot” with “Pressure Cooker” in any IP recipe. It may in fact be marketing hype that’s causing you to hear about it so much lately. But having never owned a pressure cooker before, I can’t rave enough about mine. It reminds me of the “Air Fryer” craze. It’s really just a smaller glorified convection oven with a pull out drawer. But I have one and it’s really nice.

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Awesome pencil sharpener. I would have hopped on that one too!

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My 2018 is starting out fantastic! I thought I did really well last January. This year, I’ve already surpassed my total sales of the whole month of Jan 2017. And I’ve started the year with fresh optimism. 2017 was rife with personal hardships. I feel that 2018 will be different, I just know it.

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I haven’t had to file any claims yet, but it’s nice to read about the process. Thanks! How many photos would it be reasonable to request from the buyer in such an event, and what of?

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But he was born and raised in New York! That’s gotta count for something, right?
I had a similar experience with a set of vintage Tupperware cups that I have listed for $20. A guy was absolutely appalled that I would try to price gouge him when he just knew for a fact that he could get these anywhere for $6 bucks. I’m so glad eBay has the block buyer option.

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