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That is interesting and would be great. We have always used Worthpoint for description ideas and keywords and also the historical prices. But as Jay has always said, prices more than a year old don’t hold much value-use for him and Ryanne, but having a year’s worth of solds would be of interest to him.
We used WP because it was only $14 per mo. subscription back then and we have been able to keep at that costs. Terrapeak was about $25 to $29 if I remember correctly so we went with the cheaper and also did not have the interest in the newer more current items that TP seemed to focus on. They seemed to have data on mostly electronics, games, and stuff like that. Being a vintage hard goods store those stats did not hold much interest.
If Terrapeak will truly be free [part of our store offerings] and still offer all the tools they currently offer, then we will save money by dropping WorthPoint and saving that 14 per month WP fee. Great!! TerraPeak offers description analysis and suggestions for improvements, suggested key words, and stats that T-Satt and others would love. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Interesting that currently we get 90 days of Ebay history, TerraPeak offers back to a year and the WP is from a year back to about 7 years. One year would be sufficient and one would think that WP would probably loose a lot of subscribed members.Just thinking.
mike at MDC Galleries
Don’t know what volume the one you have is but here is one, 3rd edition Vol. 1 for $128.00.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vol-1698206996
and then two more 2nd edition for $24.99 ea. but who knows how they sold them. If auction maybe they went for too low. But then who knows what the Lauren info. does for it.
https://www.worthpoint.com/inventory/search?query=bungalows+Camps+and+mountain+houses
I was already in WP looking for something else and thought I would just take a quick look for you.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Hey A/E: Appreciate your interest and input. That was very nice of you.
mike in Atl.
Hey Amatino: Suggestion… there are magnifying apps for your cell phone. Many are free but they limit the power of magnification. Buy them for $2.99 and you can get up to 60x [I think]. Also there is a small “Macro Lens” that is available to buy that just snaps onto the back of your photo which allows “extreme close-ups” of small details. It is great for stamped jewelry, art and stamp items, fiber viewing and tons more. I think maybe Ryanne spoke of this sometime in the past. But may be worth a small investment as a business tool.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta.
Have at it A/E: No problem with you doing that at all. Also maybe a reminder that both the new forum and the Blog Archives can be searched. J&R have a search field on the right side bar. Another way to search is by holding down the control key and typing the letter F for find. Then type in the search term, click to highlight the found terms in yellow and that will take you to wherever you want to go.
Once I get my sea legs under me on the other two independent sites, I will then explore many other topics on art, forgery, fakes, color, techniques, mixed media, materials, framing and matting techniques, setting up a studio, how to stretch a canvass, how best to ship art done in different mediums, archival quality vs. commercial quality, 85 line halftones vs. 133 line and higher what and why, simulated brush strokes vs. real brush strokes, various etching techniques like intaglio vs. relief printing, matting prints – die cut vs. hand french cut-dbl & triple matting, mezzo-tint, shadow boxes, and just tons more. Things we used to teach students through a complete Bachelors and Masters Fine Art program. Just tons of stuff to cover, which most will be outlined in those new web sites.
Also a whole lot of the printing and mfg. technique information applies to stamps and stamp collecting, posters and sports cards. I have been collecting Mint US Stamps since I was a young teenager. We are in the process of splitting up thousands of the stamps into yearly lots which we will be liquidating also. Many subjects such as centering, perfing, cutting, etching vs. litho printing of stamps and sports cards all apply. I can grade cards fairly well. I know which ones to send to PSA for high end grading vs. those to not waste the money on.
The bottom line is to capture, draw and pull as much traffic away from the Ebay and Etsy platforms that we can so that we are not so subservient to the whims of their rules and policies. Develope our own following, repeat customers, collectors, and mailing lists which WonderLister provides to us. That’s the beauty of a 3rd party listing software. We have literally thousand of email and home addresses, phone numbers and full contact information we have gathered through the years. So, time to start marketing directly to that customer base. We will see, but at my age I could die and never get one page completed.
So organize here on SL any way you see fit.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
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This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
Good Morning:
I see what you mean now. The use of the word Ebay threw me into thinking you meant a forum on Ebay.
Oh sure, organizing here would be great. I have tried to find a spcific topic here on the Forum and while yes you can search a topic, it does come in the form of pages upon pages of posts that contains the search term but maybe not applicable.
Have at it. That would also help me for the time I need that content for my new site. That is one of the reasons I sign my posts mike at mdc galleries in Atlanta, so I will be able to search on that specific phrase and sort out all of my art responses.
Unfortunately I have only been using that signature for the more current posts.
Sorry I didn’t grasp your concept.On the old “Blog” Jay used to have a section specifically for this, called the Something like the area of knowledge so members could go to that tab and create posts about specific topics. It had a lot of pretty good posts that were topic related but most members just kept asking the same questions within the “blog” and in return those answers got spread out all over the place and were hard to re-gather back into one “whole”.
Thanks for the Kudos and interest. Hopefully the data will help. I have an outline for the topics I am going to place on our new web site and the plan shows a build out of approx. 250 + pages so far along with our art pieces spread throughout for sale. Going to be interesting to cram 6 college years, two art degrees, 40 years of professional teaching and commercial printing experience into one web site experience. The ultamate goal is to do the same amount of business through our own two web sites as we do on Etsy and Ebay and then maybe drop Ebay and Etsy altogether. I know of several who have done that and also a few that still do both.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
I just dropped off a 29 lb. box that contained a wooden, 3 drawer 148 pc. set of bronze dinnerware about
26″ x 19″ x 8″. Big and heavy, at FedEx for Home Delivery. The USPS was about $40 +/- and FedEx was about $21 +/-.Whenever in doubt book mark here and go here to get the best rates, who is best and what boxes to use.
http://www.flippertools.com/ then go to the fitshipper sections [I use his tools a lot] and just input the sizes and weight. The developer of this sight has been interviewed by J&R and recommend his site also.Good luck.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
AdventureE: I would prefer that these posts stay here in SL for the time being. The main reason is that we are working on an informational web site that we are going to use to funnel traffic to our new e-commerce store online that is not an Ebay or Etsy store. It will be under our own domain name when finished.
I was planning on utilizing some of the questions an my replies on various art topics as original content in those new sites. I am afraid if the information ends up on Ebay’s main forums that it will get plagerized, sliced and diced and copied all over the place under others by line name. One of the new products we are creating is an e-guide to buying, identifying and selling original fine art online. So let’s just leave everything here for the SL members to enjoy for the time being and when the time is right I will re-post much of this and more on our informational site and have links to our new Shopify Store along with many of the prints and paintings in my portfolio’s for sale.
Also, here on SL is a place I choose to help those that have helped us and feel this is sort of our way of saying thank you and paying back, for what little it may be worth. But on Ebay that is not the case.
But thanks for your comments, it makes me feel good that the information is of some benefit.
Mike in Atlanta
12/07/2017 at 5:09 pm in reply to: Postage price hikes? How do you update shipping rates on listings #28357Agree with Sahryn and Jay. We do the same. Have only done “calculated” shipping for years just because of this. Using calculated shipping makes it automatic and no adjusting is ever needed.
Also using former business models from the larger company’s I have ran, I have always considered our shipping dept. as a “profit center”. No dept. in my companies were profit losers or sucked up profits from other depts. If we got FedEx, UP, USPS discounts we never passed those along. Everything we bought, used and or furnished was marked up according to our standard company policies. I still do that to this day in our small online e-commerce sites.
Every single thing you us, buy, supply that goes into your cost of providing your service, your product or getting that product or service to your customer should have an original ocst associated with it and a sufficient mark-up to offset internal costs and make a profit to boot. At least in our – my opinion.
Statement like, it is a wash, it all comes out in the end, I make it on some, just cover on others and loose on some gives me the shivers. No such thing in American Capitalism. Buy for a dollar and sell for 3 or 4 or what the market will bare. Within reason of course, especially in the shipping area, but what my customers may pay $8.95 to ship I pay around $6 give or take.
We always put in the approx. box size we are going to use, but if under 1,728 cubic inches over all size doesn’t have to be that accurate as long as you stay under. It’s more the wieght. We have a chart we go by and depending on the overall boz size we enter [always is about 2″ bigger all around than the bare object itself], we enter our estimated shipping weight. Most of the time [90% +/-] we make a dollar to $3 off of our calculated shipping process.
Again all of this is just our opinion .. but the MBA School of thought is more of what we try to go by.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Well here is some information for you.
The first and direct question is, yes, of course they had prints in 1977. They were mostly “offset lithographic reproductions” done by photographing the original and then creating 4 color halftone separations and printed in CMYK. This how all magazines and unlimited large prints were done. But, also NO, they did not have digital prints back then, no Giclée’s, no wide format printers. I think we all were using dot matrix printers back then, maybe only 9 pin. But if Offset Commercial print shops, the process of 4 color reproduction was strong and in its hay day.
So, you have a yes and no answer to your customers question and I think they would need to qualify “did they have print in 1977”?? What are they asking.
Now to your pieces. I surely hope you looked closely at those art pieces under strong magnification. If you say the image consisting of those small tiny “dots” – “Rosette patterned” dots, then you do have a reproduction of what I think is a [pastel drawing original. That waffle – textured paper is a giveaway. Highly embossed paper can be used for both water color and pastel BUT with a liquid like water color the liquid will “ooze” down into the lower regions of the paper. If you will look at some of the darker detail areas, the darker detail-highlights is only applied to the “top” surfaces of the textures. That indicates, to me, that a hard surface drawing tool such as a pastel stick, conte crayon like object was used to apply that dark detail. NOW the big QUESTION I stated above, if the original was a drawing, water color or even a mixed media combination of the two, if the image is comprised of 100% varying “dots” all over then it is a photo litho repro. But if there is not mechanical, structured dot pattern then you may have an original drawing.
If it is a pastel and the detail shows real color applied to a “textured” surface then what you may think or to the amateur, untrained eye may very well be a “dotty LIKE” texture that is imparted by the hard-pastel stick only applying color to the tops-high parts of the embossed textured paper.
So, I only have you word that you looked at the whole image, soft tones, mid-tones and dark shadow areas and can see the “rosette dot” pattern all over.
Now there is a litho repro technique whereby a printer will come back and do subsequent over lay colors of some solid areas. I used and developed a technique myself whereby I could use a silk screen process to simulate a plate etching by doing the 4-color process and then using 2 or 3 other press passes to over some solids. But certainly not 10, 15 or 20 press passes. Too costly for repro’s.
If again though, those large, very washed out pastel solid areas were done with powered pastel and finger blended pastel or with liquid water color they will be solid, you may have an original drawing, but if not and the original taken and then photographed, and you see in this case, white dots [another story for another time], it confirms again a litho photomechanical reproduction.
So, in summary, yes there was prints around in 1977. Since the invention of movable type and the Gutenberg Press about 1440 and the first printing of the Bible around 1454, there has been printing. Silk screen printing has been around for 600 years in the Orient in a slightly varied format that became patented in the US around 1900.
That takes care of here questions.
But do you have a pastel or mixed media original drawing, I can’t tell without seeing them up close and using my higher power scopes, which one also has a built in black light which also helps me determine a few things. One last thing to note, while observing all the colored areas, did you get a good close up view of the “signature”. If these were originals and signed then done as a photo repro at a later time, good chances are the printer knew he was creating “wall art decor” did a large, run of then and thus also photographed the signature and as a result that signature will be broken up and contain halftone dots also and printed right along with the image at the same press pass, all done in the 4-color process.So hopefully you have them identified correctly, if they are reproduced then the price is about right for wall decor repro’s if originals which I think they may be a mixed media, pastel, ink drawings you need a number one placed in front of the 44 and the 34 numbers.
Hopes this helps somewhat.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
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This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
12/07/2017 at 12:51 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Playing cards, Diecast banks, Log basket, Cosco stool, Photo album, Crib mobile, TV lamp #28327Nice memorial photos of the Kitty Steve. Will always remember him every time I see the doggies.
mike
But Bonanza does monitor, or the companies do. We have had 2 vero’s from Bonanza. One from Velcro and the other from John Deere.
So they are not totally blind to the situation.
Ditto to what Sharyn said. If you take it line by line most of it is available from PayPal or Ebay. Sometimes they think or confuse that you are making a claim of something you bought from someone and had shipped to you and it was damaged. But as a Seller and paying them [FedEx] to deliver your package, they want to see a copy of the “payment to you” to establish a verified value of what you were paid. Then proof you shipped through them, and if damaged and can be repaired a coy of the estimate of repair, etc., etc.. You can gather up your material and then give them a call and just verify that you have everything you need prior to going online to file.
USPS has wnated approx. the same thing when we made a couple of claims, but we have only had a few damaged items through the years.
Good luck…
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
OK, you asked. In art school there is a drawing class based on a technique written by Nicolaides called the “Natural Way to Draw”.
[here-https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Way-Draw-Working-Study/dp/0395530075].
We used his book to teach the “armature core technique to teach students to draw by using a scrawling series of internal lines to define “the core form”. Constant hand movement of encircling lines, building “volume” as you kept adding lines.This was in the foundation or first years of 2-dimensional drawing classes. Then the next semester we moved the students into 3-dimensional design by taking the drawings they made in 2-d class and translate them into a wire nucleus central core on a single armature. Thus, what I think we are seeing here. A single heavier wire central armature, then a series of thinner wire, wrapping and forming the internal volumetric core of the figure. Then the next step is to move the student to placing “a skin layer” [we called it draping the figure back in the day]. If this was to be a full clothed, skinned or solid nude figurine, it would have been done in clay or wax and “cast” as a solid piece, and being a much longer, time consuming process.
Some students went into detail on the draping, others did exactly like what you have depending on the material used and what their budget may be. A partial draping-skinning of the form can be done with “sculp-metal” a soft material that works like clay or putty but is actually a metal material and hardens over night into a thin metal surface. Then depending on the nature of what the figure was to be, the addition of a staff. a tool, a rope or what not to bring recognition to the figure. What we call, the building of an icon styled image.
Nicolaides whole technique is also based on speed. The quick capture of the essence of the built form. Many times, we had timed studies of 60 seconds, 2 or 3 minutes, or an extended pose of 5 to 6 minutes. Hardly ever much longer. The premise being to train the young artist to see volume and form and be able to define it by not using outlining and contour edges. Art and drawing talent can be taught. Many of these 2-d and 3-d studies at times did not get signed. But of course, the 3-d figures did take much longer.
Upon observation you can see the central thicker wire of the armature, then the volumetric buildup of the overall form and then the draping of the figure. Quick bending of the metal. Also notice the small, simple cut of the torch on the treatment of the feet. Looks like oxy-acetylene cut groove and a quick tack weld for stability.
So, I could be off base, and it could be a preliminary figural wire sketch of a much larger piece by a famous artist in preparation for a full-sized sculpture, but my guess is an art student or artist, using the Nicolaides method in a 3-d figural Sculpture piece.
Check this link also and scroll on done and you will see several what I am talking about.
Hey Ryanne, sound like you are back in art school? 🙂
But it could be by Picasso and when you sell it, you get $30,000 for it and you can buy your next property. 🙂
Hope you can at least get some key words out of this!
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
We have 3 carriers. Two main carriers that rotate weekly and one sub. who fills in on an as need basis. They all will see the tag we hang on the mail box and they back up into the drive and scan and load right there and then put the hang tag back into the mail box. And all 3 have given me their cell phone number and if I miss them mid-day all I do is text them I have a late sale and they will swing back by at the end of their route, about 4:00 PM and do a second pick-up.
I think that extra effort and willingness is to be commended. We give the two leads a gift card for $35.00 each and the sub a $25 card. Plus the more packages they scan in on their route, come the hard count time, the more the evaluation of the route is each year. More packages handled on a route increases the “valuation” of that route which in turn means better pay for the route. Our guys wish everybody sold on Ebay and that they had to make several unload trips to the main office each day. Routes that have a lot of stores on it have a higher valuation than an all residential route. Routes with strip malls that have places that ship alot are the most desired over the all residential ones but has harder and heavier work connected with it.
So Christmas to USPS is $95 total AND for the guys inside the main office I drop off a coupon to all of them that offers a 20% off any purchase in our Ebay Store. Most don’t use it but they know me in there by face so they all say thank you. That is more it is the thought that counts than an actual gift. I do have a code on the back of the coupon for them to use, but as I said I have only had a couple use it.
By the way, always have business cards with you. We have a small blank space on the back that we can write a special discount code on for anybody we meet.
Hope this helps…
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This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by
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