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Yay I’m first! Great sales, Steve! I love your model cars. I tried to buy a really nice used baby blue ’64 Fairlane bone stock with a 289 automatic in it from a big new car dealership once in Philly. I was about 19 or so at the time. Of course they had priced it very high and I honestly thought they’d sell it for what it was really worth (at the time). I was there about an hour and went through three levels of salespeople before they finally realized I was not budging off my low ball offer and kicked me out.
I bought a small wholesale lot of these ‘70’s or 80’s vintage East German Army surplus leather military pistol holsters for a couple bucks each back when the market was still saturated with their stuff a while after the Berlin wall came down. Though this particular model worn by the border troops is less desirable the prices are going up as the supply from over there is drying up and this one brought $21 plus shipping.
https://imgur.com/uZSwF2n
More surplus: This US Army fatigue shirt is the 100% cotton OG 107 pattern with straight cuffs of a type manufactured in the 50’s and worn into the 60’s. All the patches including the gold printed US Army tape and the white name tape are period correct and certainly all original because it wouldn’t be worth faking it. There’s nothing real exciting about a leg buck sergeant in the 5th Infantry Division. Can’t recall what I paid for it – bought it a while back but my daughter absconded with it to wear. I finally got it back and it sold for $49 plus shipping; would have gotten more but for a large hole on the back shoulder.
https://imgur.com/wIfIOgI
This random ugly gift shop slate painting came out of our family donation box. I don’t even want to know what my wife or daughter paid for it because it was probably bought new but it sold for $20 plus shipping.
https://imgur.com/cLBv4s6
Gun guys and gals wear hats so when I saw this Gemtech Suppressors ball cap for $2 at an indy thrift I thought it would not take long to sell and I was right. It went for $20 plus shipping.
https://imgur.com/KW6t4Fe
I am nowhere near as knowledgeable as others here on the forum about shoes so I mostly stay away from them but the quality and Euro look and feel of these black leather Camper Pelotas fashion sneakers convinced me to take a chance at an indy thrift for $5 when I was getting no reception to check prices on my phone. Sold for $64 plus shipping.
https://imgur.com/05NEMjDWhat a funny example of how to describe really ugly art and make it sound awesome. Great find, Ryanne!
Neat shirt! It’s a nice example of one of many camouflage pattern uniforms recognized as in use in Vietnam by ARVN rangers and airborne and their advisors starting in 1966. These were manufactured in VN using US-supplied ERDL camouflage rip-stop cotton material (as Antique Frog noticed). There should be one or more large rectangular maker’s ink stamps inside but if the shirt was heavily washed they may be hard to see or faded out. The collectors call it the “invisible” camouflage pattern. With a full patch set as typically worn this would usually have Vietnamese jump wings sewn over the right pocket but that’s not a big deal.
While with real provenance this shirt could be worth a couple thousand (the number of advisors in that period were only in the 100’s), without provenance I think you’ve done the right thing by just using your key words and putting it up for auction to let the buyers decide what it’s worth. You’ve already got 30 watchers and a couple bids – it’ll go higher. Especially with that odd patch. It’s intriguing.
I’ve been collecting and trading militaria for many years. There are collectors who argue about the most minute differences in patches or sewing techniques or other identifying features to identify an original Vietnamese uniform by inspection but the truth is that with so many of the Vietnamese uniform items, it is very difficult to tell if something was made in 1966 or 2006. Everything may look right but without provenance, this ensemble could have been put together yesterday with the really good copies available. Personally, I don’t buy any “rare” Vietnam uniform or insignia items as originals unless there’s provenance, and by provenance I mean I got it from the guy or an estate and was shown pictures of the guy wearing it in VN, or some documentation like a DD-214 showing service in VN in that era, because military guys like to collect uniforms too and the previous owner could have bought it post-war. Good news for you is that there’s plenty of interest in this stuff and even reproductions bring a good price. Good luck!!
I would box/shell it with cardboard. Besides the bits that poke out, too many odd angles and spaces for a soft wrap to remain intact to protect the wood and the paint, even heavy contractor bags.
In the period photos of ARVN paratroopers that I’ve seen there is no epaulette patch. That makes sense to me because they would not hold up very long in the field with LBE and rucksack straps, rifle slings, etc. wearing on the shoulder.
https://imgur.com/Bl6zfao
https://imgur.com/xFc0ZSn
But the ARVN airborne battalions allegedly each had unit insignia as well that was worn on the epaulette (I say allegedly because I have not seen them in period photographs), and some airborne uniforms have turned up in collections with them, like this one with a 9th Airborne Battalion insignia.
https://imgur.com/MBDUB6T
The battalion patches are sold on eBay also. As Antique Frog says Vietnam War patches are still being made (and the uniforms are reproduced, as well), but they have a distinctive look that is very different than this one. Assuming there really was such a thing as a battalion epaulette patch, I’d say this was either a soldier’s amateur attempt to create his battalion patch out of thread and/or I agree with Jay it got destroyed in the wash. Even when I squint it’s not matching up with any of the alleged airborne battalion insignia that I have seen, though. (BTW, even reproduction items sell well.)Useful info from everyone, thanks! I’m a part timer but my greatest time sinks are scavenging and research. I enjoy them too much. I was an attorney and they used to say that the most successful small firm and sole practitioner attorneys are NOT in love with the law. They are business people first, and lawyers second. Spending too much time going down legal rabbit holes in a solo or small practice is a recipe for failure. I think there is an element of that to eBay selling. If you lean towards hoarding or are too interested in the history of the items found it can be bad for business.
Thanks for the tip, Ryanne. That app (another is AfterShip) will also be handy for us diehards who still refuse to use GSP for foreign buyers. Though the number seems to be dropping every year, there are still countries where USPS tracking drops off for First Class Packages and leaves you without a delivery confirmation showing on eBay or USPS. I’ve had a few foreign sales where the buyer complained of no delivery and I’ve been able to plug the USPS tracking number into AfterShip and successfully track it down. It’s nice to have multiple sources for this information as one app may cover some different countries than the other.
I think lederhosen are made of leather. I’d guess it’s some kind of German/Austrian band uniform piece with the non-Cyrillic Germanic inked name and Euro style numbers.
The 5 acre property sounds interesting! But I’m with Jay, I’d want to be sure I know why so cheap. Could be environmental – people do some surprising things on rural lots where no one is looking. Also check with the city/county to make sure they aren’t planning on a waste treatment plant next door or something.
We looked at a FSBO waterfront cottage once that was on a big lot close to town. It was a teardown and the owner was touting how the zoning and lot lines would allow building a big house, or even multi-family. But it took me doing some digging at the city to learn that due to wetlands and the septic nothing bigger than the existing house could be put on the lot.
Great thought-provoking article! I do think Welch overcomplicates it a bit with his ten levels of this and three levels of that etc. but the points are well taken. He also contradicts himself in advising at the conclusion not to get out of your lane. He did it himself by cultivating multiple selling personas. In the old pre-eBay days I did it by taking my low-level stuff to sell at the junky flea market, my mid-level to my antique coop booth (also there were better antique flea markets in the area I would use), and what high level I might luck upon got sent to Sotheby’s etc. or sold direct to better dealers. Of course I did not get the best price for the latter, which is part of Welch’s point.
Thanks for another great video, Steve! Slow sales for me this year, with several absences over the last six months and corresponding long handling times probably contributing. The latest was from 10 days in Sydney, Australia for the Invictus Games, accompanying my wife on a work trip. First time to Australia for me – what a cool place!
As Steve says, military ball caps are a dime a dozen but they do sell. There are some desirable ones that can fetch good money, especially original military issue uniform items. Most that you see are aftermarket. This is an original issue one from the Japanese destroyer SHIRANE (love the cute chin strap). Found for $1.50 at an indy thrift, sold for $65 to a China forwarder.
Fish dish! I saw this signed studio pottery piece at an indy thrift for $5 and was reminded of an SL forum participant who posted a while back about making a killing on some random fish dish they found (at least that’s how I remembered it). After getting this one home and researching it I discovered that I was not going to retire on the profits from it, but still I got $35 in less than a month.
Usually I am clueless on jewelry and have bad luck selling any of it but this random costume jewelry pin that was a $1 yard sale pickup (unsigned) caught my eye and it finally sold for $30.
This was a father-son project. Being 15, my son believes everything he sees on YouTube and swore to me that buying limited edition hip-hop fashion clothing on the day of release before it sells out was the way to riches on eBay. Being unable to convince him that buying things for $1 or so and selling them for frequently astronomical profit margins was a much better business model than paying high retail prices for fleeting fashion and hoping there’s a sucker out there willing to pay an even higher price for said fashion, I agreed to conduct a test of his convictions. So at his direction I sniped a small collection of Supreme clothing in the first minutes the line was released, back in 2016. We actually made some money on it, though the net profit was quite underwhelming given the investment and some items were very slow to sell. Two years later this is the last item from that batch to go, a crew-neck sweatshirt we paid $155 ppd for (paying that much for a sweatshirt was physically painful for me) and sold for $239 plus shipping. Fortunately his enthusiasm for that stuff was short-lived. In the meantime he’s turned into a good thrift store shopper, making me proud.
The boxes I get at the grocery store often have all kinds of stuff printed all over. If I don’t turn them inside out, I use wide blue painters tape on all markings.
I enjoy your auctions discussions; always one of my favorite subjects.
Jay, you mentioned the second part of the auction where the expensive stuff sells and speculated about the strategies of the bidders there. At the auctions I would go to regularly in the pre-eBay days I would sometimes see newcomers who would buy an expensive item with a simple strategy of outbidding everyone else, assuming there was still profit to be made. That was a good way to get burned. There could be a collector bidding against them, in which case the collector might be willing to go up to a retail price or higher. Then there were some antique shop and coop booth owners who would bid high. They were really collectors or just hobbyists, not in it as a business. They’d buy something worth $250 for $300 because they liked it, only to put it in their shop or booth for $350 and let it sit for all to admire. Now there are the eBay sellers thrown into the mix, who may or may not know what they’re doing.
In any event, I try never to take another bidder’s willingness to bid as an indicator of value. Besides the above, they might be drunk or in love.
Too bad the one auction experience was bad, it’s unfortunately not that uncommon. A larger auction house active in the collector car market is still probably the best way to sell a larger stash of old cars, tools, and parts like it sounds you’ve got. You could review the Collector Car category on Proxibid for likely reputable auctions houses attracting national interest or google it. Car people love barn finds and cutting down trees that have grown through a car in order to pull it out of the spot where it has sat for decades.
You really do need niche expertise to pay more for expensive items. It’s pretty easy to buy a table or box lots at an auction for pennies an item where a quick look over tells me that some of it will be thrown out or donated, some of it will be bread and butter $20-$30 items, and some of it might be higher dollar once I’m able to do the research and be pleasantly surprised, but the minimum of bread and butter items makes it worth the purchase. To pay $50 for a single item you need to know that you can sell it for at least say $150, but if the price is already $50 at an auction or elsewhere it’s because the auctioneer or seller know enough about it to think it’s worth at least in that ballpark. Your depth of knowledge has to be better. You want to be the only one in the room who knows it’s a $150 item. But that won’t happen every day and it takes time because you’re spending more time sourcing to make those occasional scores. It’s hard to scale up volume with that model.
