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Another profitable week of sales last week. I’m really liking this $1K+ trend. Here we go…

I’m usually really good about inventorying my purchases right after I buy them. That way I always know where, when and for how much I bought them. But this was one of the few items I have that I have no idea where it came from. Oh well. I listed this NASA ISS Arm Patch for $30 and it sold within minutes. I feel like I underpriced it. There weren’t any others available or even sold recently. But I was still happy with the sale.
NASA International Space Station Patch

On the What Sells videos, I’ve noticed vintage Coleman coolers can be a collectable item. So when I found this teal metal and plastic diamond pattern cooler for $10 at a thrift store, I knew I had to pick it up. I listed it for $150 and the lowball offers started rolling in. I almost accepted a few times, but since it was a fresh listing, I thought it’d be better to wait it out. I finally got a $120 best offer and I knew that was the right price. Of course I didn’t have a good size box to ship it in so I had to make my own. An hour of packing later, it was ready to ship!
Vintage Coleman Cooler

In my experience, American flags are generally ignored at auctions and sales. But I will always grab them up for cheap. The larger ones can fetch a pretty good deal of money. They’re kind of a pain to photograph though, so I’ll wait until I accumulated several and do a “flag day.” I got lucky at an estate sale and scored a whole box full of flags for about $10. They were mostly 50-stars, a few 48-stars and one, very old 46-star. This 48-star flag was the first to sell. I took a best offer of $60 which was around the price range I was hoping for this particular size and material. Wool flags can go for a lot more.
48-Star American Flag

Here’s a lesson about how you should always at least consider selling a broken item before tossing it. This was my personal Nikon camera lens that got ruined in the flood. I don’t know what propelled me to hang on to it instead of throwing it on the trash pile, but I’m happy I did. I listed it with a completely honest description of the condition and it still sold within a week. I took $45 for it.
Broken Camera Lens

Now for my big sale of the week. At an auction, I found a plastic tub full of these amateur scrapbooks. They looked they there were done by some kid. Mostly 1990s articles and pictures taken out of Sports Illustrated and the sports section of newspapers. But one album caught my immediate attention. It was full of stickers! And not just your everyday good job and gold star stickers. These were all vintage drag racing decals and stickers. All meticulously placed on the pages to avoid damage. I got the whole lot for $10. I decided to list them in lots of single, front and back pages since they were double-sided taped to them. Well after about a month with not a lot of interest, I received a message from someone saying they wanted to buy all of them for $200. I took a second to think about it and then told the guy absolutely! Created a custom listing and the guy paid for them right away! So while I could have made twice as much had I sold them individually for my asking price, I think I did the right thing by getting rid of them in one sale. Who knows how long it would have taken to sell individually?
Racing Stickers!

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I bought my Instant Pot after my slow cooker and rice cooker got ruined in the flood. I like it because it’s an all-in-one device. Whether it works as well as a dedicated crock pot, I can’t say for sure. And I don’t think it makes rice as well as my Zojirushi did. But I love the pressure cooking aspect. And I love not having 3 or 4 different devices in my limited space. But I understand what you mean. I had a crock pot that I bought at a yard sale for $2. I used that thing probably over 100 times. They’re awesome for soups and stews. But the advantage of the IP is speed, especially when cooking meats. A 3 lb pot roast only takes 80 minutes whereas before I would slow cook it for 8 hours.

I love soup too! I’m going to write this recipe down and make it this winter for sure. Thanks Linda!

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Thanks! That’s about where I would like to try it out at and it’s good to know that you’re having success at that percentage.

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Mike and T-Satt, what percentage do you set your PLs at if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve dabbled in promoted listings when they were first introduced but was hesitant to really use it until I got other sellers’ opinions.

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Awesome! I hope you like them. I like to add a little bit more vinegar to mine after I serve them.

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Overwhelming is probably the good word for it. Your game room looks awesome! Is that Area 51?! I have so many fond memories of playing that game at the roller skating rink.

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I built a RetroPie last year. The funny thing is, I got bored with it after a day. I guess when you have thousands of video games at your fingertips, you can’t really appreciate each game individually. I remember saving my allowance for months just to buy one Nintendo game. I would play the crap out of it. But I’m glad you’re introducing your kids to the real OG video games!

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Dec. 31 – Jan 6
Total Items in Store: 1071
Items Sold: 28
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $1174
Highest Price: $200 (Lot of over 200 Vintage 1980s Racing Decals & Stickers)
Average Price: $42
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $142
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $250

It’s been one of those weeks where I didn’t think I did that great until I saw the numbers. I can’t believe I made over 1K. But going through the sales, I guess I forgot about a few higher priced ones.

I kind of took a little unintentional break from listing last week. Life tends to get in the way of eBay sometimes when it’s not the other way around. But I did manage to get to an auction on Saturday. It was a morning outdoor auction. Single digit temperatures. Harsh winds. Shouldn’t be a whole lot of contenders to deal with, right? Ha! Everyone had the same idea as I did. Prices were going as crazy as the people that showed up. I couldn’t even get the one thing that I drove all the way out there for (a collection of old brass oilers). I did manage to snag another aluminum Christmas tree for pretty cheap along with about 50 n-scale model trains in a lot.

I came back home to an interesting message on eBay. To make a long story short, I acquired a scrapbook full of vintage racing stickers. Since they were taped to the pages, I listed each page of stickers (front and back) individually. Well some guy offered me $200 for them all. Now, that’s a little less than half the price than the total I had them listed for. But I chose to make a quick nickel rather than the slow dime on this one. They weren’t getting the interest that I had hoped, and it would have probably taken a couple of years to sell them all off.

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That toaster is so cool! I watched the video you made of it in action. What happened to that level of ingenuity in our appliances these days? LOL! I had a fantastic week of sales last week. Here are my highlights.

I’ll start off with my high sale of the week. I bought two large coolers full of china dishware for $10. It was all Limoges France china, but in a few different patterns. These six salad plates were sort of the odd ones of the lot, so I listed them all together instead of separating them in pairs like I did with all the others. It took a few weeks but they sold for my full asking price of $70.
Limoges Salad Plates

So I’ve started treading waters into the ocean that is clothing. Sweaters are a pretty good place to start I think. I bought a trash bag full of vintage sweaters at an auction for $5. Inside were some really nice wool and alpaca items. But then I pulled this Canadian Tundra brand sweater out of the bag and thought it was just about the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. But some quick research showed me that they do sell for good money. So I listed it and it sold for $60.
Ugly Sweater

I knew that these Chemex drip coffee makers have a somewhat cult following, especially the vintage ones. Well I immediately grabbed this one when I saw it on the shelf at a thrift store. I paid $4 for it. It sold the same day I listed it for $60! I’m hoping I didn’t undersell it. It was purchased by one of those overseas shipping companies so I think it’s going of to China.
Vintage Chemex Drip Coffee Maker

I wanted to post about this sale because of the wonderful feedback I received for it. I found this Pokemon poster in the bins at the Goodwill Outlet. Pokemon anything is almost always a sure bet if you get it cheap enough. I had to hide this from Steph because she’s a huge fan of the game. Anyways, it sat for a while in my store and finally sold for $9. Not the greatest sale, but the person later left feedback saying that their original poster burned in a housefire and that the one I sold them was better than their old one. I felt pretty good after that one!
Pokemon Poster

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That looks delicious! I love me some spice curry! I think a food category would be a nice idea. Even if it was a sub-category under Random Thoughts. I’m about to try a collard greens instant pot recipe and can share how it turned out.

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I just checked out the Colorado trail. That looks fantastic! Will you be sleeping in lodges and motels along the way or will it be pure wilderness camping?

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Dec. 24 – 30
Total Items in Store: 1093
Items Sold: 27
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $785
Highest Price: $70 (Set of Six Tressemanes & Vogt Limoges France Salad Plates)
Average Price: $29
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $53
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $0

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a nice holiday! I sure did. I got so much listing done over my two-week holiday break.

So the new year is upon us and now is a good time for me to write down my goals. I’ve met my 2017 goals despite the disaster in August. I was able to make it to 1K listings. And I was able to put $20K into my savings. I would have never believed I could save that much a couple years ago when I was merely living paycheck to paycheck. This year, my goals are to make it to 2K listings and to make $40K in net sales with $50K into my savings. I hope that’s not too unrealistic, but I think I can do it. Once I get my taxes paid, I’ll be able to take a closer look at how well I did and I’ll post a full report of my numbers for 2017.

Some other goals include balancing my time better between eBay and fun, finding more sources for free packing supplies, and getting back into jogging and eating healthier.

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Oh my gosh, your cat weaving all around your dog’s legs was hilarious. And I saw that exact owl cookie jar at an auction last Thursday. I remember because I told Steph it reminded me of that old singing owl Merrie Melodies cartoon. I had an awesome week of sales! Here are some highlights…

So I bought a box lot at an auction last spring for $100. I paid up on it because there was an old cast iron mechanical bank that I wanted, but each sellable piece in the box came to about $7. Inside the lot was this somewhat ordinary looking pottery trinket dish. It damn nearly went into the yard sale pile except it had a name etched into the bottom… Pewabic Detroit. I looked it up on a whim and apparently it’s a well-known pottery house in Michigan. Their pieces are all over the map in terms of sold prices, so I put it up on auction. It had almost 30 watchers before the end and it sold for $86. I was shocked to say the least. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for that name from now on.
Pewabic Pottery Trinket Dish

I mentioned earlier that I came across a plethora of clock and watch repair tools and parts at an auction. I should have bought everything there because this stuff is worth quite a bit as I found out afterwards. Here’s an example. This is a clock mainspring winding tool used for replacing mainsprings. Not much to it. Just some metal handles and some specialized bits. But it sold for $50. I’ve seen others sell for close to $100, but mine wasn’t complete and there was some damage. It sold the day I listed it, along with a bunch of the tools I listed that same day. Each sellable piece from that lot only cost me .66 cents. If everything sells for what I listed it for, I’ll make close to a grand!
Clock Main Spring Winder Tool

I always keep my eyes open for older video games. It does take some knowledge as to what is rare and desirable and what was overproduced and already owned by every collector. I ran across a guy’s small collection of PS1 games at a yard sale two summers ago. There was some good stuff and not so good stuff, but I offered $5 for it all. This game is called Medievil. I remember when it came out. It’s one of those games that didn’t acquire a following until later. I priced it for $60 and it sold for full price.
PS1 Medievil Video Game

Here’s my big sale of the week. This large pottery vase was part of a lot at an auction that I paid $5 for. It was done by a local artist in my city who actually teaches pottery at our local art gallery now. Even though he’s not a well known artist, I listed it somewhat high at $130 because it was unique and it came with paperwork from the exhibit from where it was originally sold. It didn’t take long for a best offer of $105 to arrive. I immediately took it. I really didn’t think I would get that much for it. Tracking says it arrived yesterday and I haven’t heard anything yet about damage during shipping so I’m assuming it arrived in one piece.
Pottery Vase by Local Artist

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You know, I’ll run across Hitachi’s every now and then at old lady yardsales and such. I always pass them up because, well, you know… But maybe I should rethink my strategy. I just looked up used sold prices and they’re not bad.

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Hi Liz. Spray paint cans are a great example as to why we should do at least the minimum research before throwing away the “junk” from box lots. One person’s junk could be other people’s collectable. I had no idea until I looked at some sold listings for vintage spray paint cans. A quick look just now showed one recently sold for $800. I remember seeing one sell for over a thousand once. A lot has to do with the condition and age obviously but also the brand and the color. Some colors are much more rare than others. I really don’t think it matters if the cans are full or not. Most people are after the cans with nice labels for collecting (though I think it’s considered a nice selling bonus if they’re at least partially full).

I don’t have a lot of advise as to what to look for except to learn to look for the vintage cans. Vintage cans will tend to have paper labels, but not always. Sometimes they’ll be dated or have a date code that you can research. Some of the more popular brands will have different styled labels than whats out today. I’d say if they’re cheap enough, get ’em and research afterwards. Just make sure they’re not all rusted out. Some people don’t keep their garage stuff in ideal conditions.

I’ve only sold a couple so far. Both times I didn’t really do much different in terms of packing. I just wrapped them up really well with bubble wrap with lots of paper padding in the box. Both had their plastic tops so I wasn’t worried about accidental spraying during shipping. I didn’t test the cans out first, though I probably should have. A quick spray out on some white paper would make for a great listing picture. Just shake them up really well first to get an accurate color.

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