42

[Doublythumbs]

The same thing happened to me the other day. It corrected itself when I went back to check a couple hours later. All of my original view numbers went back to what they were originally.

[Doublythumbs]

June 25 – July1

I didn’t have a lot of sales this week, but here are a few of the highlights…

I found these vintage NOS thumb tacks at the bottom of a box lot. I already made back the $60 I paid for the box lot, so everything else I sell will be pure profit, and there’s still quite a lot to sell still. These tacks were dated 1952 and were still unopened and pristine. I’m surprised they survived that long in that condition. They actually sold to a prop company in New York I believe.
Vintage Unopened Red Thumb Tacks

I bought this hand-tinted mustached gentleman portrait at an auction on a whim for $20. It was quite a unique piece, and I know that beveled glass can be worth a little more than regular pan glass. Upon further inspection when I got home, I found that the frame was actually gold plated. Even though the back was kinda messed up, I set the price for $100 and after a couple months took a best offer of $85. I kind of wish I asked more for it, but other similar portraits weren’t getting nearly as much so I think I got a good sale.
Framed Mustachio Man Portrait

Now for my big sale of the week. Things were looking pretty dismal until Friday when I heard this cha-ching! I got these two Intercom System Power Supplies by RTS Systems from a thrift store a little while ago for I believe $5 each. They didn’t come with power cords, but luckily they just took the standard cords from any computer tower, and I’ve accrued dozens of those throughout the years. The only means of testing I could do was plug them in and assure that they turned on and the little error light doesn’t come on, which they didn’t so I can only assume that they’re working fine. I took the chance since I paid so little for them and listed them comparable with others listed. It only took two days and they both sold to the same buyer for $500 each! Am I correct by saying that’s 10,000% profit? LOL! They were delivered on Monday and there hasn’t been any contact from the buyer, so I’m crossing my fingers that he’s happy.
Intercom Power Supplies

Here’s a sale that was inspired by Steve’s videos. I got this Sony cassette deck from… somewhere, I don’t even remember. It may have even been given to me a long time ago. Anyways, it never worked for me, so I decided to disassemble it recently and list the parts that did function correctly. Here were a couple belt drive motors that were inside. A guy messaged me with a sap story about being low on funds and it was for a church and yadda yadda and wanted them both for $20. I had them listed for $15 each. No big deal, I would have probably took the offer without the story anyways. So I sent them out and he left me a glowing review even before they arrived, so I guess it was worth the discount.
Belt Drive Motors from a Sony Cassette Deck

[Doublythumbs]

Yes, I’ll update next week with the results. My plan is to list them in weekly waves. So I’ll list about 15 more this week and whatever hasn’t sold from the first wave of auctions, I’ll probably change to BIN. I’m hoping that if a slide is interesting enough, several people will drive the price up higher than what I originally wanted for it. Otherwise, if they sell for the starting bid that I set, I’ll be happy. The downside that I can see is that the high starting bid might drive people away. But it’ll be an interesting experiment nevertheless.

[Doublythumbs]

I use to have all kinds of the Master of the Universe action figures! But them my brother and I would basically ruin them when we brought them straight to the sandbox. Too bad, I could have had a small fortune I think.

[Doublythumbs]

June 25 – July 1
Total Items in Store: 918
Items Sold: 13
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $1382 !!!
Net Profit: $1118
Highest Price: $1000 (a pair of RTS Systems / Telex TW Intercom System Power Supplies)
Average Price: $106 (LOL!)
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $42
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $450 (I swear, no more auctions after this!)

I just had my best week yet, all thanks to one sale in particular. I was barely making any sales all week. I chalked it up to the holiday coming up. Boy, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that cha-ching and it was a thousand dollar sale! And the best part about it is I got the two power supplies for next to nothing. I think I only paid a few bucks for them at a thrift store. I just hope the guy likes them and won’t want a return for any reason.

Otherwise, I had a slow but productive week. I was on a mandatory vacation from work so I used the time to list a bunch of higher end electronics that I’ve acquired. I’ve also started listing my slides. I’ve been pondering whether I should list them as Buy It Now or Auction. I’ve seen similar subject matter slides from the same era get in bidding wars and reached the $200 range. So I made them all Auction style, but with a starting bid of the least that I wanted for them. I don’t know how it’ll pan out, but we’ll see. And I’m only going to do 10 or 15 a week so that I don’t oversaturate ebay with them.

[Doublythumbs]

I had another pretty good week last week on my end. Here are some highlights…

I acquired this set of two Walnut and Metal Weavewood serving platters at an auction. They came in a box lot so these came to about $2.70 for the pair. I noticed they were unused and still had the sticker still on them. I sold them about a month after listing for $40.
Weavewood Nordic Ware Platters

I pulled this vintage black faux leather art portfolio out of a Goodwill Outlet bin. It came to $1.59 after calculating everything I bought by weight. It was in pretty decent shape and had all the signs of quality materials. It even had the previous owner’s scrapbook stuff inside. I went ahead and included that in the sale in case it would entice someone to buy it. Well someone sent an offer and we agreed on $43.00.
Black Faux Leather Art Portfolio

Vintage kitchen utensils have been pretty hot this past couple of weeks. I’ll have to remember and stock up on some more whenever I find them. Here’s an example that sold. It’s a primitive farmhouse metal ladle. I got this in a box lot of old kitchen stuff and paid .31 cents for this item. It sold for $10. Though when it arrived, I received feedback saying that it was smaller than she expected, but she admitted that she didn’t read the description well enough. The size of the ladle was everywhere, including right in the damn title and pictures with a ruler indicating the size! I wonder about some people…
Vintage Metal Ladle

Here’s my goofy sale of the week. I nearly wanted to throw these crocheted stocking ornaments away when I pulled them out of a box lot I won (actually, the same lot as the platters mentioned above). But there were a bunch and I thought maybe somebody might want to decorate a tree with them. I listed them and I couldn’t believe when they sold not too long after for $25. I think I’ve sold more Christmas stuff in the past few months than around Christmas!
Crocheted Stocking Christmas Ornaments

[Doublythumbs]

June 18-24
Total Items in Store: 893
Items Sold: 22
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $675
Net Profit: $462
Highest Price: $100 (1985 Detroit Diesel Engines Allison 8.2 Liter Repair Service Manual)
Average Price: $31
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $30
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $900 (yikes!)

Not a bad week again. For me, any week with over $600 in sales is great. Obviously, I hope to get that number way higher in the future, but for now with this being like a part time job, that ain’t bad!

I don’t have much to talk about this week except that I got my shelves built in my garage. It made a huge difference in my work area! I don’t have to high step around all of my wares just to gather what sold every night. They were really simple to build too. Just some 2x4s and some sheets of plywood and about 6 hours of work. Total cost was around $200. But now I’ve got an extra 4 levels of 16 ft long storage space to put whatever I want, as long as they’re not susceptible to outdoor conditions.

I went to a big auction on Saturday. I spent WAY too much money! I don’t know what happened. I think the auctions in my area lately have been too few and far between, and all the dealers are all getting antsy and gathering to the ones that I’ve been going to and causing the prices to go up. I got some good stuff, but when I saw my bill for $900, I about shit. I told myself that I’m done buying for a long while. Too much backlog and not enough time spent listing.

[Doublythumbs]

June 11- 17

Things are really doing well with my eBay store! If this keeps up, I really could start doing this full time!

First sale of the week goes to this Schwebel’s advertising bread knife. I picked this up at a thrift store for a dollar. It was in really nice condition and I thought someone out there would love it. It took a few months, but it sold for $20. Thinking about it now, I probably should have priced it a little higher as it was the only one on eBay, but oh well.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VTG-Yellow-Schwebel-039-s-Advertising-Bread-and-Bun-Knife-8-1-2-034-Serrated-Blade-/302328051291?rd=1

I’ve been recently expanding my knowledge on flatware. When I saw all of this Longaberger flatware in a Goodwill Outlet bin, I scooped them up. Since I didn’t manage to find any complete table sets, I lotted like-pieces together. Here are two soup spoons. They had a few scratches on the face, but I sold them within a week of listing them for $22. I paid about .50 for the pair.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Two-2-Longaberger-Flatware-Replacement-Soup-Spoons-Woven-Traditions-Design-/302345109459?rd=1

Here is my highest sale of the week. I’ve been sitting on this old Victor Phonograph horn for well over a year. I bought it at an auction for $7.50, and I was worried that I overpaid. I finally got around to listing it a few months ago. I was willing to take just about any offer because it was so big and was taking up a lot of room. Well apparently a museum in Australia needed it, so they bought it for full price of $160. It took me about an hour to pack. I hope it gets there in one piece!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Victor-Phonograph-Talking-Machine-Record-Player-Horn-Part-No-8197-/302181870527?rd=1

Finally, I’d like to talk about these swimming trunks. Not that they were a high dollar sale, but I just found it amusing that I could sell and old retro pair of swimming trunks. I found 7 or 8 pairs in an old gym bag that came in a lot at an auction. I don’t remember how much I paid, but these each came to probably less than .50 cents. I sat on these for a while too because I just had no interest in listing them. Well I was taking care of my death pile when I finally decided what the hell. They all immediately gained a lot of attention with views and watchers. This was the first pair to sell for $19, and I sold another pair a few days afterwards for $35.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-California-Shores-Blue-and-Red-Swimming-Trunks-Cotton-Polyester-L-38-40-/302296526873?rd=1

[Doublythumbs]

June 11 – 17
Total Items in Store: 902
Items Sold: 19
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $619
Net Profit: $436
Highest Price: $160 (Victor Phonograph Talking Machine Record Player Horn)
Average Price: $33
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $24
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $160

Another pretty good week for my <1K store size. I love how the sales are keeping steady, even when I’ve been really lazy lately with listing. I’ll need to get back into it soon though. The mountain of stuff that I’ve been acquiring is growing! The yard sale season has been really good to me this year. But I really do need to stop sourcing if all I’m going to do is look at it. I’ve got one more really good auction to go to this upcoming weekend, and then I’m done! I’ll start hunkering down every night and listing. Maybe then I’ll be able to tackle this mountain before the busy season.

I tried another online auction house this week…with disappointing results. This auction house had the items listed for about a week and for that entire time, the bids were so low that I thought I could buy everything. Well sure as rain, the bids started rolling in at the last hour. It wouldn’t have been as big of a deal if the location wasn’t an hour away. So I won three items. One I’m keeping for myself, one I might be able to make $20 profit, and another was a total bust worth less than what I paid for it. I can see why auctioneers are turning toward the online auction avenue, but I might steer clear of it for the time being.

[Doublythumbs]

It was a neat map with all of the landmarks kind of illustrated on there. I just checked the buyer’s Etsy page and she’s already got pendants from it ready to be sold! 🙂 Her store is at https://www.etsy.com/shop/NorthStarPendants
From the looks of it, they’re just ‘shopped images for now, but it’s neat to see something I sold being put to use like that.

[Doublythumbs]

June 4 – 10

I had a really good week last week! I just kept making those sales like it was Christmas.

First up, here’s a 1950s travel map of Paris. I acquired this in a box lot with a lot of other ephemera. Paid $42.50 for the lot, but it was VERY worth it. So far I’ve made almost $350 from those items, and I’ve got plenty more to sell. This tourist map sold for $25. The address was for a shop, so i looked it up. They make pendants and brooches using old cut-up maps under glass. It’s really neat!
1950s Paris Tourist Map

On Thursday, I made a few really good sales to drive up my average for the week. This is one of them. It’s an old Canon AE-1 Program film camera with lenses and accessories. I got this at an auction for $15. It looked practically unused, as if someone bought it thinking they would start a new hobby, but then quickly realizing the hobby wasn’t for them. Unfortunately, the batteries were left in the flash unit so they leaked everywhere inside. I took a best offer of $135.
Canon AE-1

Here’s my highest sale of the week. It was on Thursday as well. I pulled this DonJoy Knee Brace out of a bin at a Goodwill Outlet. By weight, I paid $1.25. I was really excited when I saw how much they go for, but I had no clear indication what type the brace was or size or anything. I had it listed for a while until someone messaged me with corrections to my listing. I thanked him, made the changes and it sold within a couple weeks for my asking price of $150.
DonJoy Knee Brace

Finally, I’d like to show why I never overlook power adaptors. Here is an adaptor for a Lazy Boy chair lift system. I picked this up at a thrift shop for a dollar. The cashier almost wouldn’t sell it to me because she thought it went to some other electronic that they had for sale. I listed it and it sold within a day for my full asking price, $60! That was the high end of the average sale price, but mine was the only one currently listed. I may have been able to ask for more, but I’m happy with the sale.
Lazy Boy Power Adaptor

[Doublythumbs]

June 4 – 10
Total Items in Store: 888
Items Sold: 17
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $720
Net Profit: $605
Highest Price: $150 (DonJoy OA Adjuster Osteoarthritis Knee Brace)
Average Price: $42
Returns: 2
Cost of Items Sold: $32
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $66

I had a GREAT week this time! Thursday was my day of big sales. Several bigger ticket items sold to pump up my weekly average. Plus a lot of bread and butter items that I was more than happy to get rid of.

I think I’ve finally hit max capacity in my storage area in my basement. And the rest of the house is looking pretty cluttered with our eBay things. So I’ve decided to build some shelving in my garage. I’m just going to do a couple basic 1⅓ x 8 feet, four level wood shelves and anchor them to our cinder brick walls out there. I’ll transfer all of the non-fragile items to those like the tools and hardware and houseware. That’ll free up a ton of space. Clutter tends to create a lot of stress for me, and it’ll be a relief to be able to walk around my basement without tripping over everything.

My garage manual experiment continues to do well for me. I’m making some real profit on them now. I sell probably one every two or three days. Next up, I’m going to try my saxophone part experiment. I bought a beat up sax at an auction without getting a good look at it. I finally got around to taking it apart and individually photographing all the keys and levers and things. It’ll be interesting to see how well they’ll do.

[Doublythumbs]

I see those chalkware heads often enough and you’re right, they are quite lifelike. Probably 95% of them don’t sell for a whole lot…20-40 bucks maybe. But there are a few that have more interest and value. I sold one by Bossons of a Santa Claus head for $80. I probably could have gotten more if I listed it closer to Christmas.

[Doublythumbs]

Those tattoo sheets are awesome! How many did you acquire from the lot that you purchased? I would be so tempted to keep them for myself if I found those.
And that’s a fantastic sale on that book!

[Doublythumbs]

May 28 – June 3

Great video, Steve. I’ve been learning a lot about audio equipment from you. And as soon as you showed that Grass Valley editor, I immediately knew what it was. I recently listed some service manuals for those and they sold quite quickly.

I’ve made a few sales last week. Here are the more interesting ones.

So the city I live in had it’s heyday in the 1920s and 30s and has a lot of rich history. One thing that it’s known for was the Wheeling Marsh cigar factory. The original building still stands to this day, and there is a lot of memorabilia floating around this area. I see these cigar boxes often but usually in pretty beat up shape. This one was no exception. It had wear and ink pen doodling, but it was still in ok shape. I paid a couple bucks for this at an auction and it sold for $15.
Marsh Wheeling Cigar Box

I see these Millers Falls drills a lot, but when this came up at an auction I knew it was special. It was in really good shape for it’s age. I barely had to even clean it up. A few drops of oil and some wood polish and it was ready to list. I priced it at $60 and took a best offer of $50. I only paid $5.00 for it.
Millers Falls Eggbeater Drill

I mentioned on here the other day that I acquired a small pallet full of garage service manuals and took a few days of my vacation time last week to photograph and list them all. Well these were the first set to sell, and it only took about an hour after listing. The whole pallet cost me $173. I got out of that 135 books or sets of books so the individual price I paid was $1.26 each. This pair sold for $40. So far I’ve sold 5 listings from that lot for a total of $97. At this rate, I should be out of the red in this deal within a week or two and will have so much more to sell.
1997 Ford Truck Service Manual

Finally, here is the highest priced item that sold last week. They’re a complete set of unopened vintage bed sheets made by Springmaid. I got this in a lot with another set that I already sold for even higher. I paid a bit higher than usual for them though. Individually, I paid $12.50 for each set. But I’m glad I did. It took about 6 or 7 months, but this set sold for $60.
Wondercale by Springmaid Percale Cotton Blend 4-Piece Full Size Bed Set

[Author]

Posts