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Thanks Ryanne – yes, I have some of those by Shenango (the H-35 code says yours was made in the second half of 1977) and I have seen the same Navy pattern by Homer Laughlin, Caribe China, Jackson Custom China, and others but any I’ve ever seen all have the usual maker backstamp for the year made. So I’m thinking that this one is a manufacturer different from any of those. Noodling with the design I’m coming up with something that either looks like this:
Or this:
Hmm I don’t see that but I did change the orientation of the image on Imgur so it shows up here and it does give it a completely different aspect. Looks like it might be a swan. I’m going to try a rubbing. Thanks!
9/26/21 – 10/2/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 382
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales: $133.34 (not incl shipping or taxes)
Highest Price Sold: $39 plus shipping – USS SULLIVANS challenge coin on consignment.
Returns: 0
COGS: $37 (including consignment commissions but not including original cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 18
$ Spent on New Inventory: $2.50Sales have been very slow though I have been trying offers to watchers and putting older items on 50%-off sales. Guess it’s just not my turn right now. I have been ramping up on the listing and now my wife will be out of town for a couple weeks so I hope to continue to really crank it up for a while without distraction.
9/19/21 – 9/25/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 371
Items Sold: 10
Gross Sales: $317.43 (not incl shipping or taxes)
Highest Price Sold: $160 plus shipping – Belgian FN49 rifle bayonet.
Returns: 0
COGS: $69 (including consignment commissions but not including original cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 27
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0I would double check your spam filter to make sure it hasn’t decided out of the blue that eBay emails are spam and also your eBay account settings for notification preferences in case something got changed and if neither of those are the problem, you could at least try calling eBay.
I love those stereos but don’t have the patience to mess with them myself.
This consignment challenge coin is for the 2-Star Admiral of the US Naval Special Warfare Command 2-Star Admiral, in charge of the Navy SEALS, etc. It is not named but still brought $280 plus shipping at auction. I started the auction at $265 which I thought was overpriced for it to test the waters.
Most small ephemera you run across is not worth a whole lot but when you can get so much of it for pennies and it’s so easy to list and ship, it’s a no-brainer. Part of a large lot a flea market dealer gave me, this Super Save Trading Stamps Booklet was from the long-gone Hamilton’s Market Grocery in Frederick, Maryland. It sold on a best offer for $8 plus First Class Package shipping that I made an additional $1 on. Not intentionally, but for some reason eBay calculated postage is a crap shoot for me. Sometimes too much and sometimes not enough. I do wish eBay would let us use the Standard Envelope with tracking for things like this to put more money in our pocket.
Here’s an interesting original signed and numbered etching by Don Swann of the Jamestown, Virginia historic church tower ruins. It was on the wall of a country thrift here in FL for $5 and sold for $31 plus shipping on a best offer.
As I’ve mentioned before, the Japanese self-defense force challenge coins can sell for more if you’re willing to sit on them for a while. This one is for the Commanding Officer of a Japanese destroyer, JS ASHIGARA, and sold for $74 plus shipping, going to Australia.
This is a WWI-era US Army Infantry Enlisted Collar Disk Insignia. Besides real age that can’t be faked, the metal composition, textured background on the face, and screw-fastener back help identify it. It was from a lot of insignia for which I paid about $6 each and this one sold for $29 plus shipping. It was about the most common insignia in the lot but sold first.
I’ve never had the option of getting a home pickup for my FedEx Home packages and I would assume they won’t come get a Smartpost either. That being said, the last Smartpost label I printed off eBay said both “Parcel Select and “Smartpost” in the upper right hand box so I just took it to the post office and they had no problem taking it as a Parcel Select package. They scanned the USPS barcode in the center of the label and ignored the FedEx barcode. That was last year – don’t know if that will still work but might be worth a try.
9/12/21 – 9/18/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 350
Items Sold: 4
Gross Sales: $110.31 (not incl shipping or taxes)
Highest Price Sold: $41 plus shipping – Partial press kit from the 1979 24 Hr Pepsi Challenge Race at Daytona.
Returns: 0
COGS: $8.27 (including consignment commissions but not including original cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 22
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0A very slow week. Some conspiracy theories were making the rounds of YouTube from people who said that when they sent an offer, the prospective buyer received an error message that the seller does not ship to their location when they tried to buy on the offer. Don’t know if it’s true but I have had zero purchases from my offers out for a couple weeks. That persisted until this Sunday, when I sold 4 items that almost doubled my gross from all of last week. So hopefully things are back to normal, if there really was an issue.
Hmm let me try that grip photo again:
Great sales on those vacuum tubes, Steven. I picked up a big box of them at the flea market a while back for $1 with the idea of delving into testing them but learned that the proper equipment to do so is expensive and even with the right equipment they are not easy to test conclusively as good. The ones I bought were not in the original boxes so it’s not unlikely they are bad. @Sharyn I’ve had the same problem so I now draft my post off site and then copy and paste.
This consignment challenge coin is from the NATO Implementation Force for Operation Joint Endeavor in Bosnia etc in the mid-1990s. Not very glamorous but there is interest in the coins. It was a short, relatively small, highly successful NATO mission in which the US played a major part. Though not the best condition this coin sold for $130 plus shipping.
An obscure corner of the postcard collecting hobby is inhabited by art cards of the early 1900s that were mass produced with a faux brush stroke finish. Generic landscapes are usually one of the least desirable types of cards in general, but the Oilfacsim and Oilette series by Raphael Tuck are an exception. (My theory is that they were featured in a YouTube video at some point.) This is one of 4 a buyer bought together, each selling for $8.89 plus combined shipping.
This is a card with photograph from President George H.W. Bush’s Presidential Funeral in Washington DC, a family item. It sold for $18 plus shipping.
This is a pewter license plate featuring the official coat of arms of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Another family item, it sold for $40 shipping included.
This is a one-piece wood pistol grip from a cheap vintage Italian-made reproduction antique black powder revolver, a copy of the US Colt Model 1851 Navy. Inexpensive Italian and Spanish made reproductions of US antique revolvers and rifles of varying quality have been available since the 1950s but there has only been a relatively recent explosion of interest in them with a commensurate rise in prices, probably because even with the proliferation of gun control laws they’re easier to purchase than regular firearms and still can be shipped direct to the consumer (in most areas). EBay allows the sale of parts for antique firearms (other than the frame or receiver) with certain restrictions. This grip sold for $50 despite it being from one of the cheaper, less desirable brands (ASM – Armi San Marco) and having condition issues.
8/01/21 – 8/31/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 355
Items Sold: 36
Gross Sales: $910.31 (not incl shipping or taxes)
Highest Price Sold: $77 plus shipping – US Navy ship plaque.
Returns: 0
COGS: $214.49 (including consignment commissions but not including original cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 67
$ Spent on New Inventory: $12I’m providing August totals because I think I missed a week or two in there. The month seemed exceptionally slow but my gross ended up not too far off my typical annual average of $250 a week. I have upped my listing game and I do need to keep it up.
As for “The End”, I can’t really improve on the many kind words said in replies to your last episode other than to echo the recurring message that your podcasts have had a consistent positive effect on me like they have had on so many others, and in many ways, large and small. Thank you. And thanks for continuing to provide your unique forum of crowd-sourced content. Speaking of that, I rang your tip jar today to become a patron, and I encourage others who find value here to do the same if they have not already. Also, without the podcast to spread the word on YouTube, how do you think we can get eBay sellers who haven’t found you yet to visit and join the conversation?
8/15/21 – 8/21/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 344
Items Sold: 13
Gross Sales: $359.16 (not incl shipping or taxes)
Highest Price Sold: $66 plus shipping – bronze and wood presentation wall plaque from the USS VELLA GULF, a US Navy cruiser.
Returns: 0
COGS: $82.05 (including consignment commissions but not including original cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 27
$ Spent on New Inventory: $1Oh, I see what you’re saying. I was able to recreate your glitch by pretending I was a buyer of one of my items, from a different browser, and rather than entering a USVI zip code for a US address, I used the pull down country selection menu. That is a strange glitch. Some idiot at eBay put those locations on the international list and should not have. I can only hope that buyers from those locations have registered their correct addresses as US so their shipping charges are automatically calculated correctly when they check out, just like those of us on the mainland. Like I said, I’ve had a few items go to territories and the buyers didn’t seem to have any trouble figuring it out with my calculated shipping.
Yeah, there’s a bit of a learning curve with international shipping. But I think it’s worth it. Just remember: I often snipe items for resale from sellers who won’t ship international because I know my international buyers will pay lots more.
@Timo – I’m not sure what you mean by your country dropdown box not working correctly for PR/USVI. I have shipped to both and packages go same as domestic mail with a zip code as LTT says. It’s not international mail to a different country so I wouldn’t expect it to show as such. Any buyer’s mailing address from there will have a zip code.
I also ship international directly and have been since I started selling on eBay in 1997. I use eBay labels for the most part. I have found that international Pirate Ship labels (First Class or Priority) are usually the same price as eBay now. I also find that Pirate Ship’s Simple Export Rate is within a few cents of eBay Send. No surprise there since Simple Export Rate packages goes to a consolidator similar to eBay Send, except that Pirate Ship’s consolidator is in New York instead of Kentucky. The printed label only shows it going to NY.
I have found that my eBay account does not play well with Pirate Ship’s Simple Export Rate tracking, though, and it confuses buyers. A label from off eBay requires a manual entry of the tracking number, and the Simple Export Rate tracking number generated upon shipment only shows final delivery to the New York consolidator. Ebay recognizes that as delivered. Pirate Ship has some kind of proprietary internal system to show tracking from New York to final delivery so it is accessible but requires additional steps. The first time I used it my foreign buyer got an eBay message that their package had been delivered in New York and they were very irate until I figured out what had happened. I ended up sending them a Pirate Ship link and an apologetic explanation. Maybe there’s a workaround, @Lukastreasuretrove?
For all buyer locations US and foreign, I use eBay calculated shipping. So long as I enter size and weight correctly, it’s been dead on for years. (Except for the dreaded FedEx packages.) I add at least $1 handling fee to cover insurance, and I also use Shipsaver (with a threshold of $50 and above). Post Office First Class International Package (up to 4 lbs with dimensional limits) is not insured, otherwise.
One thing about Shipsaver is that they have a list of destination countries for which they won’t insure packages. Any place they won’t insure, I don’t ship to, as I figure they have the data that tells them where it’s too risky. Ebay allows you to pick and choose countries to exclude. I found that once I picked the excluded countries, eBay listing flow automatically populated my preferences for all new listings. Also, there are special requirements for jewelry and a few other things to be aware of with Shipsaver. A claim can get denied if you don’t follow their requirements.
If you ship direct international, the eBay label generated will be the proper customs form. For First Class International Package it is a single sheet that can be adhered to the package like any domestic label (after you sign and date it). Priority International will generate a four part form that you need to put in an adhesive clear plastic envelope available at the PO, after signing and dating. Ebay will automatically populate the contents description line on the customs forms using your listing title which can be an invitation for a hold up in the foreign country’s customs while they open your package to figure out what it is. Also, there aren’t enough characters; it’ll only accept about half of the eBay listing title. I recommend shortening the description to a very short, generic statement as to the contents. (If you use Pirate Ship you’ll have to generate all the information from scratch anyway.) So, for example, a listing for “Vtg Smith & Wesson Dark Brown Leather Police Duty Belt Holster Inside Thumbbreak” became simply “Belt Holster, Leather” for the customs form. I usually take the extra step of providing the proper Harmonized Tariff Number but you don’t need to do that.
One last thing about international: Ever since Managed Payments came on line, eBay labels does not generate the proper customs form for APO/FPO/DPO packages so I always go to Pirate Ship for those addresses.
Bottom line is that eBay international labels are fine (except APO etc) and calculated shipping functions properly but there is a learning curve. I actually find the eBay international label interface to be slightly more user friendly than Pirate Ship’s.
