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7/4/21 – 7/10/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 340
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales: $170.64
Highest Price Sold: $79 plus shipping – 1972 cruise book for the USS LEXINGTON training aircraft carrier.
Returns: $15 (an INR for postcard sent without tracking to UK)
COGS: $5 (including consignment commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 0
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0That was a great tip in the podcast for military to get in for mental health help under the guise of marriage counseling.
Some interesting sales this week – I especially liked that very cool little Lloyds reel-to-reel.
I used to drag my kids to the flea markets when they were little and they liked to spend their meager allowances on occasion. If they had enough money for something it was their decision to buy. I did not have veto power unless it was a safety issue or something. My daughter always had eclectic tastes and mainly stuck to decorative items for her room or clothing but my son had a collector’s soul. (Where’d he get that?) At one point he collected soda bottles for a while and with even with his tiny purchase budget managed to build quite a collection, much of which he still has tucked away. Most are still only worth the .50 or $1 he paid for them but this bottle turned out to be one of his better selections. It’s for a ginger soda bottled by Coca Cola in South Africa called Stoney Tangawizi. It sold for $19 plus shipping.
This stoneware salt glaze beer stein from the US Army 1<sup>st</sup> Infantry Division Forward in Germany. With a little age on it and no parentheses around the word “Forward”, it can be dated to the 1970 – 1990 time period and it’s not a reproduction. It was $2 at the flea market (I really did not expect it to be that cheap when I picked it up) and sold for $50 plus shipping on a best offer.
This is also a $2 flea market stein but it’s a 1956-dated ZBT fraternal mug from Columbia College marked “Ralph” on the back. It sold for $30 plus shipping on a best offer.
While the US Navy Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Squadron is a common subject of various military paraphernalia that can be purchased from many sources, this particular challenge coin stood out as one for the unit Chief Petty Officers (CPO’s) and Senior Noncommissioned Officers (SNCO’s) as shown by the anchors and chevrons on the face. A consignment, it sold for $58 plus shipping.
Funny coincidence about that drum pedal as I sold one a while back that I also got for free; only mine was out on the curb on trash day in the neighborhood.
I just returned from a week in Texas at a small town with a monthly “market days” flea market that happened to be this past weekend. I’ve been going for years but things are getting a bit too precious to my liking. It is now mostly crafts and antique show-style booths with expensive tagged merchandise. I found a couple things worth buying in the few booths just piled with junk but nothing spectacular to report.
This consignment challenge coin is for a Canadian warship – look for the “HMCS” before the ship’s name, and of course there’s always at least one maple leaf somewhere. That being said, Canadian coins generally do not sell for much as the US and Asian collectors are usually not interested and the challenge coin craze has not caught on in Canada itself, apparently. This one went for $16 plus shipping, going back to Canada.
There is interest in coins related to the US Congressional Medal of Honor. This was a coin from the CMOH Foundation gala of a recent year and would have originally come in a presentation box. A consignment, it sold on a best offer to a coin dealer for $35 plus shipping. I don’t think it was bought for resale, but if it was, that’s fine with me.
Flea market dealers are mostly wise to the value in old brass belt buckles but I was able to get this reproduction 1936 Mercedes Benz buckle among a handful of smalls I picked out from a dealer’s table for which I paid about $1.75 for each item. It sold for $34.34 with free first class package shipping that cost me $3.57.
I found this cheeseboard with knife at a Goodwill for $6.50. It appeared well-made and I’ve done well with cutting boards before but I was pleased to discover that there’s a particular following for boards with carved mice, as there was apparently a well-known craftsman in the UK who popularized the style. It sold for $70 plus shipping but stayed in the US.
As a former bass player myself in the 1970s, I’ll have to check that out. I was not aware of that background.
Man what an awful day you had in DC, Jay. I so hate that place and so glad to be out of there.
I feel for your caller, too. I was doing a routine check of tracking a couple months ago on a Wednesday and discovered to my horror that not only had my carrier not been scanning on pickups on Monday and Tuesday of that week, there were no scans at all yet, by Wednesday. So I went in on Thursday to complain to my postmaster and he was completely unsurprised. He said they don’t scan on pickup unless specifically requested to which I said I have specifically requested. And then regarding no subsequent scans he had no excuse and only said that he promised that a scan would show up that night on my packages. And they did, but it was only the local PO scan. So the local PO had just been sitting on my packages for almost a week. With several no-scan packages there went my TRS.
Regarding lost packages, don’t forget you can do a missing mail search request, short of a claim. It has worked really well for me in seeming to shake stuff loose.
Last week was bad; didn’t sell much or list much. Did only about $100 gross, all consignments, so about $50 net.
Those Metallica tapes look like bootlegs. I’m surprised they took so long to sell.
This consignment challenge coin from the USS ELLIOT is a good example of a diamond in the rough. There are many ship coins out there but this one had a few things going for it. It’s from a Spruance-class destroyer, the “Spru-cans” being a well-loved platform by those who served on them. Though it was only in commission from 1977 – 2003, ELLIOT led an active career and was involved in some interesting small incidents. It was decommissioned shortly after the explosion of Navy interest in challenge coins so not that many original coins exist, and this early 1990’s, plain metal version is not of a type to be reproduced in China. It sold for $58 plus shipping.
Here’s an example of a desirable real photo postcard, depicting WWI-era US Army solders with their rifles on break at the shooting range, a motley crew of doughboys mostly smiling for the camera. It sold for $25 and was $3 at a gun show.
This is a quartz movement mantle clock made of indeterminate plastic with a crackle finish and a strange design that I guess some manufacturer in China thought made it look like an antique. It’s the sort of thing you see at Kirkland’s, etc. Out of a box of stuff given to me by a relative, it sold for $29 plus shipping with full disclosure of its lack of age. It was unfortunately the subject of some buyer drama and a negative feedback but it was all resolved in my favor and the negative removed as I discussed on SL a little while back.
This piece of cloth applique art is called a mola. The mola is a product of the indigenous inhabitants of the San Blas Islands in Panama and has been a popular tourist item for decades. Like much indigenous art, prices are all over the map. I had this up for quite a while for a couple hundred to test the market due to its unique subject but there were no bites. I finally sold it at $44 plus shipping. It’s something I bought while stationed in Panama in the early 1980s.
That is a really neat piece and possibly quite old. The marks are characteristic of pre-1920s European metal product hallmarks, signifying things such as town where it was made, whether it was imported, duty or tax paid, assayer’s percentage of silver. There are thousands of such marks as they varied with the time period going back to the 1700’s (and earlier, in England) and objects were made in many different towns. The clasp and construction details are consistent with at least pre-1950s.
Like AF said the pair of outside marks are German-ish but more specifically with the center shield they are strikingly similar to certain Austro-Hungarian firearm proof (firing test) marks from proof houses in Ferlach, Prague, Weipert, and Vienna and some non-firearm military goods from about 1891 to 1928. I call it the “bug” mark; a central shield-shaped body with legs, a tail, and feelers up top out to the side and a head but specifically it is a representation of the coat of arms of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy from 1867 – 1920:
But the problem is that 750 – 1000 silver from Austria-Hungary of that era was marked with different versions of what’s called the “Diana head” and this does not appear to be any type of military item. It is possible that this is a non-silver or low content silver metal hallmark.
I can’t really make out the center mark, is it a “13” or “I3” or “IB” or just an ornate script “B” or what? A two-digit code was used in Austria to identify assay offices prior to 1922 but I believe they always used block letters. The script style is more like Dutch single-letter date codes from the early 1800’s but they wouldn’t be using the Austro-Hungarian coat of arms from 50 years later.
Good sites are http://www.silvercollection.it and http://www.925-1000.com but they are just a start. Before listing it I would try and get it evaluated from someone like https://antiquesilver.org.
Without having it in my hand it’s hard to judge age. If it feels much newer overall, the hallmarks could just be newer marks imitating old ones. Let us know what you find out.
Thanks! For the 1031 exchange now a replacement property has to be identified within 45 days of closing and the money has to be spent within 180 days of closing. If we really have trouble finding a replacement property there is a little-known option for 1031 exchanges called a Delaware Statutory Trust or DST that is kind of like a REIT. It’s nice in that you just get a check and don’t have to worry about managing an income property but you lose control over it and have to put your faith in the DST, and pay high administrative costs for the privilege.
Now if the administration is successful in their aim of eliminating the step-up in basis in death then we’ll just suck it up and pay the taxes now rather than pass that burden on to our kids when we die, but I can’t imagine that change happening. Too many sacred cows would get gored. The 1031 itself is under threat, too.
6/13/21 – 6/19/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 346
Items Sold: 3
Gross Sales: $235
Highest Price Sold: $170 – ASM reproduction black powder revolver small parts lot.
Returns: 0
COGS: $74 (including consignment commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 3
$ Spent on New Inventory: $47.45Congratulations on taking the plunge for AC. We have relatives in Texas, a couple in their 80’s, who have never had AC and no interest in getting it. They do live on a creek in Hill Country in a small, stone house with good cross-ventilation and lots of shade trees but still, that’s hardcore.
As for eBay, it was a week in the doldrums with a $170 bright spot, but I was otherwise occupied with selling a house. It’s one we bought in Norfolk, Virginia while stationed there 33 years ago. We had multiple tours there and then kept it as a rental when stationed elsewhere. The kids were born there and we made good friends and liked the house and the area so we were fully intending to move back in upon retirement. That was until we got hooked on Jacksonville. The pandemic-driven sellers’ market is no secret but I didn’t realize how good it was until we put a house built in 1937 with no recent renovations on the market in an area that is on no-one’s list of best places to live on Tuesday and ratified a sales contract on Friday for $25K over the listing price with four competitive offers on the table. We have not had good experiences selling our houses before so it was a nice surprise. We’re going to have a capital gains problem, though, so now we have to try a Section 1031 tax deferred exchange and experience the joy of trying to buy something while the market is still awful for buyers.
