3

[mprw77]

Huge shout out to Mr Schultz!

Went to an estate sale last week and was pretty much striking out. I strolled into the master closet and underneath the womens clothes were hundreds of very high end Maxell reel to reel tapes. The owner apparently didn’t have them for sale initially but I convinced the sellers to sell them to me since they were selling the reel to reel player. I bought all of them for $200 and pretty sure I can get at least $2500 maybe more.

Thanks Steve! Pretty sure I wouldn’t have known they were so valuable without your videos.

[mprw77]

Steve,

Thanks for the video. I sell a lot of vintage hats that have the lining coming out and the best way to sell them is to shop vac the lining out and get rid of the dustiness. The vast majority of buyers and collectors prefer this and is very common with K Brand and products hats.

Cheers

Mprw77

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by mprw77.

[mprw77]

I don’t post weekly numbers as usually don’t have time but here are the yearly numbers. I am part time ebay but this year was a lot better than previous years. My last years profit was 6K and this year was over 20K I don’t calculate hourly rate as this is meant to be for the most part fun and I can make more per hour at my real job but not nearly as enjoyable. I believe that I spend around 20-40 hrs per month on the store but not really sure. I guess I should track it.

Store at end of year has 1432 items up from a little over 850 at end of 2017

Total nuber of sales 1309
SALES without shipping 32332.41
Paypal Fees 1522.56
Ebay Fees 3666.49
Supplies 473.81 ( labels, shipping supplies, storage racks, ink, etc)
Merchandise 4328.23 ( this is just money spend on inventory for the year)
Refunds 485.25

PROFIT 21,856.07

Thanks TSATT for all the advice on numbers. I really should look at these closer but just a hobby for the time being.

Cheers.

[mprw77]

Doublythumbs

The uss leviathan is actually a fascinating ship. The picture you showed is probably from when it was being re-fitted. It was originally a German luxury liner named vaterland that got stuck in New York City at the outbreak of the war and was confiscated by us government no we were not actually in the ward that time. It was re-fitted and was a ship transporter throughout the war. The ship actually has a very famous trip where almost half the crew and soldiers came down with the flu of 1919. There’s a very cool book on it called The Great Rescue if you are interested. The slide you have are actually pretty rare to find the ship in the harbor like that.

Great sales and congrats on the great find

[mprw77]

Jay, I know this was a ways back on the thread but I think you are thinking about your total sales wrong.

You said that 700k was not great for 2 college educated adults (though you wouldn’t trade it for the world). You are only including the sales from your business and not what it is worth today. Excluding the air b&b business, you business now is worth at the very least 400k with the storage area and your inventory. You could easily not do a thing other than ship for 2 years and be fine. That’s how you actually should value the business.

That is all from starting with less than $100 buying cheap jean jackets. That’s quite an accomplishment.

[mprw77]

she’s on board , just thinks Im a little weird.

I turned down a best offer of $150 on a camo stihl hat today and she thought I was totally insane though.

[mprw77]

that seems really a lot of work for the number of hats we are talking about. I have been using a shop vac and simple soap and water to get off some of the shelf wear. It takes less than a minute per hat. I have listed around 300 and feels like I have made zero progress.

I agree with jay that this is going to be a looong process and just not worry about it. I just have to convince my wife that it is normal to have 4000 hats in the storage room.

[mprw77]

christinek- check out my store at mprw77 and let me know what you think. would love some feedback!

[mprw77]

thanks good to know that information. ill try and make sure that is not the case.

[mprw77]

Thanks for the responses.

Indomatt- I have a whole box of 50 or so John Deere hats from the 70s and 80s I am researching them now. I hope to list them really high and just see what happens. I agree on the CAT hat, that was way too low.

LAwoman- I bought these at my local auction that they have once a week. The lot was so big that I don’t think anyone was really interested. The most I paid for a box was $37 which was the best one I found. I bought probably 75% of the collection. I have sold a lot of hats over the years but this is by far the craziest lot.

I put one hat up for auction this week. It is a three striped Pepsi hat that some of the solds have been insane. It has a bunch of watchers but no bids yet at 200. check it out to see what happens.

I like the idea of $1 per hat but she is responsible for storing, cleaning, pictures, etc. I may teach her how to list and just give her the prices so she can double her money.

Thanks everyone.

[mprw77]

I like the idea of by the hat. I’ll crowds source the rate. What do you guys think is fair for a 13 year old? I do have to edit some of them and have her take some additional ones but overall, she’s not bad at it. Some of them she has to clean off so that does take a little time.

They are in long flower type boxes. Each box has between 50-60 hats and there are 83 boxes. I estimate that around 2/3 have value and are listable. The rest will likely go to Goodwill.

Jay, just going through them to find the valuable ones is a task. They are generally grouped by theme but still takes forever. I was just planning to go by the box and just plow ahead. The OCD in me makes me want to do this all this week but will take awhile I know.

Sharyn, thanks for the input.

Thanks everyone.

[mprw77]

I am likely going to just list them over the next few years and take my time. it is a bit overwhelming though and feel bad about buying anything new when I have so much to list.

my 13 year old daughter convinced me to hire her at $8/hr to photo the hats which is a great way to teach her business and spend time with her. Seems that is the best option.

it also appears that you can pay your child up to $6k a year without having to file taxes on them.

anybody aware of that rule?

[mprw77]

thanks for the responses. I thought about some lots but there is more money in the listings. Maybe Ill get there but not quite yet.

I disagree a bit on 8 pictures for vintage hats. that’s a lot and think it actually turns some buyers off when every speck can be closely inspected.

i’ve been raising some prices today and have sold a few already. good stuff.

[Author]

Posts