Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Week of 5/14 – 5/20
Total items in Store: 317
Items Sold: 3
Gross Sales: $79.63 (w/o eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $23.82 (including consignment commissions but not the original cost of family castoffs)
Highest Price Sold: $29 plus shipping (USN Norfolk Naval Shipyard Challenge Coin)
Average Sales Price: $26.54 (not incl eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $18
Number of new items listed: 12Late to the party again. Back in the doldrums for sales last week, but at least I got some listing in. I need to keep at it.
How did you determine the authenticity of the cannon?
Eyes, hands, and brain. I started picking antiques and collectibles for auctions and antique dealers for fun when I was a teenager – going on 50 years now – so I’m confident in my abilities to identify when something is really old and spotting fakes and reproductions (even older ones) in manufactured items. So I start with that and research from there. For the cannon it started when I saw and felt patterns of wear and patina and craftmanship and age tells that can’t be faked or would cost too much to be worth it in a reproduction. I lucked out with the Royal George shipwreck connection because internet searches brought up many similar items to mine for sale and already sold to make detailed comparisons. (I got the idea to ask $1,500 from a few antique dealer web sites.) So armed with that, I felt safe in guaranteeing its authenticity in my listing. Why not? I offer free returns anyway. In a higher price range I might have paid for a certificate from someone with credentials, but that’s such a racket outside of the big companies that do trading cards, etc. You’re just paying for an official-looking piece of paper. Mostly they’ll put on there whatever you tell them to put on there, within reason, unless you can find a real expert in your narrow area, which is very difficult.
A few good finds at one yard sale this Saturday. This numbered print from 1965 by listed artist Barclay Sheaks was $3. I try to avoid framed prints with glass because I hate photographing them and I hate packing them for shipment but for $3 and with that iconic ‘60’s look I could not put it down. Initial research indicates it’ll be good for at least $75 so I’ll probably list it for $120 or so OBO. Coincidentally, most of the subject matter of his work was from in and around Hampton Roads, VA, where I lived for many years.
The same sale had this incomplete chess set of Japanese Kokeshi dolls in a nice blond oak dresser box for $1. They are unsigned, unfortunately, but they do have some age on them. I haven’t zeroed in on what to put them up for yet but I’m working on it. (The box will be good for $15-20 by itself so I’ll sell it separately.)
Did the seller know he had a piece of that shipwreck?
I doubt it. He’s a regular at that flea market, an outdoor seller with a larger setup of mostly used tools at fairly high prices. He’ll have a small card table by his truck of what he thinks is precious; old knives and military that’s invariably priced too high to make enough on resale. When I picked up the cannon and he said it was $20 I was very surprised it was so cheap. I just figured it was at the very least an easy $100+ since I could tell it was an early piece. At the time I did not know anything about that particular shipwreck or the relics from it. I did try and negotiate with him for a better price but he wouldn’t budge.
Of course, my #1 sale of the week was the antique model cannon at https://www.ebay.com/itm/275668988210 that sold for $1,000 plus shipping and discussed elsewhere. But a runner up were these US military Vietnam era camouflage pants that went for $80 plus shipping: https://www.ebay.com/itm/275591632654 . They were found at a specialty clothing thrift on the Drag near UT Austin in the camo clothing rack for $15 mixed in with the cheap Woodland BDUs. Someone was asleep at the switch. They were post-war dated 1979 or I would have gotten more for them.
Week of 5/7 – 5/13
Total items in Store: 305
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales: $1,210.80 (w/o eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $41.46 (including consignment commissions but not the original cost of family castoffs)
Highest Price Sold: $1,000.00 plus shipping (antique brass miniature cannon relic from HMS Royal George)
Average Sales Price: $201.80 (not incl eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $7
Number of new items listed: 5My highest price sold was that interesting miniature cannon souvenir from an infamous UK shipwreck that I found for $20 at the flea market and posted about in Scavenge of the Week here a while back. I started out shooting for the moon at $1,500. That resulted in many views, many watchers, and a few low-ball offers and indignant emails about my ridiculous asking price, but no real bites. After a while I began sending out offers at 50% off (still shooting high, even at that) to no avail but someone offered $1,000 out of the blue so off it went. I had a couple other sales in the $80 range that made it a great week for me.
Congrats on your sleeper find, Retro. Looking forward to hearing about it. I went to the single yard sale Saturday that was within a reasonable distance for me and it was fun for sure. I paid $7 for about $150 worth of stuff at BIN prices that I’ve researched so far but what really intrigued me was a 1997 Airstream camper van conversion that was in pristine condition with 70K miles on it, a working AC unit on top and a trailer that went with it. Not something we’d have any use for but boy was it sweet to look at and dream about.
The other big exception is when your items are returned to a different address, then that return address will be displayed. I’ve been using a nearby private mailbox service for my main address for a while as a return on outgoing labels as well as for item returns so that’ll work for me.
Week of 4/30 – 5/6
Total items in Store: 302
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales: $116.35 (w/o eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $34.00 (including consignment commissions but not the original cost of family castoffs)
Highest Price Sold: $44.89 plus shipping (Commander Military Sealift Command 2 Star Admiral Challenge Coin)
Average Sales Price: $19.39 (not incl eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of new items listed: 0Still neglecting my store but doubled my gross from last week, to look at the bright side. Good tip from Sharyn regarding going to PirateShip for qualifying media mail items in non-book categories; I do that as well.
I was very impressed. It does seem to be a hot new place to live. There are some areas that were really bad when I left in ’79 that are now pretty decent residential with restaurants and shops so there are definitely more options for livable neighborhoods within the city limits than there used to be. Overall there are strong cultural and historical attractions in Philly of course, and recreation with the shore and the mountains not too far away and the weather is not too bad. I read somewhere that it is now the third trendiest and most affordable city in the country.
I previously got a lot of use out of a similar service called LetterTrackPro. These services provide a USPS “Intelligent Mail Barcode”. I see the TrackLetters site calls their barcode “usually used for business mailings”; I’m sure it’s the same thing since USPS is set up for it. It’s the same small barcode you see on virtually all first class letters you receive, either printed at origin or by the post office; sometimes it’s a sticker. eBay used to accept it when I would put the number in, but eBay would not load updates, so there was never even carrier validation. Also, the last entry you will receive is only “Out for delivery”. There will never be a “Delivered” entry. I see that the TrackLetters home page shows a typical sequence at the lower right.
I would send a message to buyer when I shipped the item that even though there was a tracking number, they wouldn’t see updates, and that I would be happy to check tracking if they requested it. I had a similar statement in my listings.Since there was no advantage for tracking on eBay, I viewed it as solely a customer service benefit. Better than just a stamp. BTW LetterTrackPro may be less than the $0.20 each that TrackLetters is charging. I haven’t used it in a while since I can use the new eBay Postcard Envelope for postcards that they recognize and I want to keep my TRS status. I send all other items at least first class package with real tracking to destination. There’s been talk of eBay allowing their envelope to be used with patches and such but no progress on it that I’m aware of.
Week of 4/23 – 4/29
Total items in Store: 312
Items Sold: 2
Gross Sales: $36.51 (w/o eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $13.26 (including consignment commissions but not the original cost of family castoffs)
Highest Price Sold: $26.52 plus shipping (USN Communications Security Mgmt System Challenge Coin)
Average Sales Price: $18.25 (not incl eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of new items listed: 0
Kind of embarrassing to put up these numbers but they are what they are. I had more Time Away so no offers out during that time or several days before, since accepted offers out have to be shipped at my usual handling time. Usually I have found a slight uptick in sales when I initially go on Time Away but not this time. I was helping my daughter move to start a new job with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I grew up in Philly and lived there into my 20’s but have not been back in many years so it was fun to see familiar places. I got excited when I drove by the Melrose Diner in South Philly but surprised to see no one inside in the middle of the day until I realized it was closed. Unfortunately, the closing is permanent and it will be torn down. Another landmark gone.Week of 4/16 – 4/22
Total items in Store: 314
Items Sold: 9
Gross Sales: $373.64 (w/o eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $119.82 (including consignment commissions but not the original cost of family castoffs)
Highest Price Sold: $98.89 plus shipping (USN Naval Support Facility Thurmont (Camp David) Commanding Officer’s Challenge Coin)
Average Sales Price: $41.52 (not incl eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of new items listed: 9Last week was decent but it’s been crickets since then. Which I guess is fine since there’s been a lot going on outside of eBay for me.
Week of 4/9 – 4/15
Total items in Store: 314
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales: $142.53 (w/o eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $41.93 (including consignment commissions but not the original cost of family castoffs)
Highest Price Sold: $54.00 plus shipping (1st Marine Division Vietnam 1969 Challenge Coin)
Average Sales Price: $23.76 (not incl eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of new items listed: 6Back in the doldrums this week but at least I got enough listings in to maintain inventory.
@JasonK Great to hear about your work in used trains, and how you cultivate repeat sales. It’s instructive to see how you successfully work a supposedly “tired old” niche area. With acquiring inventory so competitive these days, I think there are real opportunities in developing a niche where there are better buying opportunities, either where there’s an aging collector/dealer base you can draw from before it gets to auction or sale as you’re doing, or where the stuff is often dirt cheap at the auctions and sales like Ryanne and Jay’s old pottery and porcelain. I’ve been trying to go to the hard-core sources in militaria like you’re doing with trains but boy those old codgers are tough nuts to crack. But I’ll keep at it.Why is it worth this much? Who knows.
Maybe because that model was the very first commercial handheld cell phone. There was a very interesting article in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal interviewing the guy who invented that phone in 1973. His crew at Motorola considered several different several variations – flip phone, a folding book phone, a sliding phone, a capsule phone – before settling on the 2½-pound block they called the “shoe phone” in homage to the 1960s sitcom Get Smart. They decided on all one piece so there wasn’t the chance that it might break in the middle of a demonstration. The way it used a cell network was an innovation as well since the existing huge brick car phones were more like taxi radios, using specific radio channels. It took them 10 years to get it to the market and it cost $4,000 at retail.
If anyone wants to read the article it’s firewalled but supposedly this is a free link:
So I am shying away from purchasing challenge coins unless I source them in person at estate sales etc.
@BigSally yes, that is a wise practice. Many fakes and cheap copies out there. I get mine from fellow vets as well as estate sales. I’ll occasionally try and buy lots online if they look right, there are enough indicators of authenticity, and the price is right, but I usually get outbid.
