Vintage/Antique Photo Albums

I reecently listed an awesome older photo album on Ebay and the bidding heated up quick. I started it at 99 cents and as of this post its a few days into the auction and up to $41.00 already.

In any case what to look for? A nice old album itself is desirable (that holds the photos) and people like when they are identified ones. So if you see some older photos and you know who the people are (from the front or back of photos) those usually do better. Older photos like those shown in this blog post are what to look for. This is the Seymour family album some pictures which date back to the 1800s!

Sell an Oil Well on Ebay - Oil industry collectibles

Well ,its not exactly a real oil well but a vintage 1972 decanter of Jim Beam Whiskey (empty of course) made for an Oil show that took place in Odessa, Texas. I just listed it for sale on Ebay.

Keep your eyes open for oil field memorabilia as oil prices climb, there is a lot of oil wealth around and people pick up things on Ebay. Look for anything will older oil wells on it, old oil stocks, old oil lottery information etc. I think this piece is a cool one!

Vintage Savin Rock Postcard (West Haven, CT)

I just wanted to post this picture here as I recently sold a wonderful collection of postcards for someone and it included this card. While I was a kid when Savin Rock Park was being torn down I have seen how nice it was from the many postcards I have sold showing the park. The one in this blog post was one I had not seen before, and is a natural picture maybe even before the amusement park part was built! Enjoy!

Selling the Odd Coins - ECUs what are they?

Well I am far from an expert in coins, especially worldwide coins. However no matter what type of coin you have or find you might see they do fairly well on Ebay. As I have stated before, many times when researching items you learn about things you never new before. I had never heard of a place called the ISLE OF WIGHT. As it turns out its an island off of the UK, the Beatles played there years ago. In any case they had a tourist shop and before the EURO was developed there were coins called ECUs. These were sort of a pre-euro currency "european currency units". The tourist shop on the ISLE OF WIGHT has some of their own for use on the Island mainly . When the shop closed the contents were sold on Ebay, I was up late one evening and grabbed a lot of really wonderful items including these coins you see pictured. I sold off many of the coins and just received an inquiry for the rest of the lot from someone in Germany today. So do not forget to look into coins for sale on Ebay!

Selling Items to Get Holiday Cash - A note on Consignment Pal

Why not sell your unused items for cash using the Consignment Pal Resale Directory?SAN ANTONIO, TX (November 14, 2008) – With the holidays approaching, how are you going to pay for Christmas gifts? Instead of piling up credit card debt, why not sell unused items around the house? It’s simple. Gather your items to sell and the professional sellers do the rest. But how do you find a seller? Finding local sellers to market or buy your items for cash just got easier thanks to the national Consignment Pal Resale Directory at consignmentpal.com. The Consignment Pal community includes antique shops, business liquidators, consignment shops, eBay stores, eBay Trading Assistants, non profit stores, resale shops, etc. Depending on the seller, you can consign or receive cash on the spot for your items. “There’s not one best way to sell everything,” says Linda Miller, founder of the Consignment Pal Resale Directory. “To get top dollar, you have to pick and choose the right types of sellers.” Finding the perfect consignment seller, eBay store, or resale shop is easy because the directory includes store descriptions, specialties, maps, zip code searches, and eBay listings.What can you sell this holiday season? Almost anything! The key is using a seller who specializes in your items. You will make the most money with a professional who understands the marketing details and pricing strategies unique to your item. This is especially true on eBay, where seeing and touching the item is replaced with a detailed description and pictures. What about selling fees? Commissions vary based on the type of seller, quantity of items, location, and services required, though they generally run from 25% to 60%. For more on selling your items, see “How to Sell Items” at http://consignmentpal.com/How-to-Sell-Items. If you want to sell your items online on eBay, please see How to Sell Your Items on eBay at http://consignmentpal.com/How-to-Sell-Your-Items-on-eBay During this Thanksgiving and Christmas season, remember the non profit stores which are also listed in the Consignment Pal Resale Directory. With relatives coming for the holidays, clean out your clutter. Share your unwanted items with your favorite charities and enjoy tax advantages come April. The PayPal 2008 Holiday Survey found that “73% of online shoppers intend to give to charity this season.” Why don’t you join them? Ready to begin? Picture Christmas gifts for more than just your loved ones. Gather the items to sell. Find a local Consignment Pal at consignmentpal.com. You are well on your way to a happy holiday!About Consignment PalThe Consignment Pal Resale Directory at consignmentpal.com helps you find resale related shops and businesses where you can shop, sell items for cash, sell items on consignment, trade, or donate items. Consignment Pal community members include collectors, resale shops, shops, consignment shops, eBay Trading Assistants, eBay Drop Off Stores, non profit stores, art galleries, business liquidators, etc. Consignment Pal launched at the eBay Live Conference in San Jose, CA in June 2005.

Ebay Creates 30 day Fixed Price listings for 35 cents (sometimes less)..

Recently Ebay has made some substantial changes to its fee system. Now sellers can list items in fixed price format for 35 cents and the listings stay up for 30 days. This represents a significant up front listing discount (insertion fee discount) especially on higher priced items.

Ebay is using its "Best Match" technology to sort items in searches. So far, we have determined that the following things are important in getting good placement.

1- Having a listing that has sold before and continues to sell . This is the "self fulfilling prophecy" secret as they will promote what is selling.

2- Having "FREE SHIPPING" on your item (if possible) . Ebay seems to also be promoting this in search.

3- Having a multiple quantity in your listing (more than 1 to sell). I currently have a listing of 10 items which has sold 6 in its first week on FP 30 format! Ill see If I can pull up the yoyo picture for you (that is the item).

While it remains to be seen how this new format works out over the coming months, there are even more breaks when it comes to media items like books , cds etc. They have a new rate of 15 cents but a special sale rate of 5 cents per 30 days.

I strongly recommend trying out this new format as more changes will come in January from what people are speculating and Ebay stores might wind up being a discount plan for this format of listings .

Great Ebay Event Coming to Kansas in October!

If you missed Ebay Live this year in in Chicago or even if you didnt you should check out this great even being planned .. the Kansas Jubilee Ebay Convention to be hold October 3,4th 2008 which includes some great teachers, eBay and paypal representatives and which looks like an all around great time! Per their website posted below..

"3 years of planning brings exceptional talent to Kansas. We have brought experts in eBay Selling, Buying, eCommerce, Mission Fish (charity selling), eBay Stores, eBay Motors, Marketing, Catalog photography, and much more from all corners of the United States to present workshops, seminars, and panels in a two day learning and networking opportunity"

Please check out this link and consider attending!

http://www.yabie.com/

Almost anything with Horses in it has a good market on Ebay !

I just had to post these photos to the blog. It is not a secret that horse items sell well on Ebay. People who love horses , really love to collect horse items, horse racing items and read books about horses. Pretty much anything with a horse in it is a decent thing to sell on Ebay! I found some older horse photos and really loved them. I particularly love the one I blew up with the woman all around a watering hole on horses set some time ago. While I might never own a horse I can certainly enjoy all the nice horse items passing my way for ebay sales. Horse owners tend to be wonderfully educated, caring people as well, they make excellent buyers ;)

Keep those Vintage Puzzles coming!

Recently we found another 20 year old sealed puzzle that just looked like an excellent Ebay item. It is of the Palace Gardens in Williamsburg and it is a two-sided puzzle! Brand new in package! When looking for puzzles that might sell well on Ebay, keep in mind some very basic hunting points. 1- Buyers like sealed puzzles so they know for sure (in most cases) the item is in great condition. 2- If the puzzle is not sealed, assemble it to show them it is complete 3- Does the puzzle image interest you? If so it might interest buyers 4- Look for odd puzzles like different shapes, two sided puzzles, glow in the dark aspects etc. Good luck hunting. Here is a picture of our recent two sided Eaton Puzzle from the 1980s we are currently selling.

Vintage Cofee Maker (Samovar) Forman Manufacturing Brooklyn NY

Here is an item I will be putting up for sale on Ebay soon. It is three piece set of an electric Samovar made by Forman Mftg in Brooklyn NY and is in great condition. It comes with the sugar bowl an creamer and has all the parts inside (percolator type parts) all in great condition, cord included as well.A while back a comparable listing was put up by an auction house (Ebay Live auction). I do not believe it sold, it was missing a part or two and they had some crazy price on it of about $1200 estimated value. Sometimes it is hard to price items. Generally speaking I would like to use the auction format so I dont undershoot a good price. However, given the current softness everywhere in retail sales and on Ebay I was thinking maybe Id try out using Fixed price with Best offer and start high and let people make offers. I will keep you posted on this item! It certainly looks great and might wind up serving coffee here in the house if I do not get a great price for it :)

Why Ebay might need Local Trading more than they know..

Once again to me its common sense. Gas prices are high, and shipping costs are way up over what they were just a few years ago. Since I first mentioned Local pick-up trading its become one of the most successful and fastest growing internet models first with sites like Craigslist but also more recently with brick 'n' mortar stores offering online sale with local pickup

While not every Ebay seller could offer this service, I think Ebay would have a leg up over Amazon. Combine this with revenue share on content and auto-affiliate for stores (for new sign ups and cross promos with other seller items) and Ebay would have the model that noone could touch . Here are some clips from the news...

Wal-Mart's Online Pickup Program Proving Successful by Todd Sullivan July 12, 2007 Wal-Mart's (WMT) buy-online-pickup-in-store strategy has reduced customer shipping costs by $5 million while sharply increasing new customer acquisitions and in-store sales, the world's largest retailer reported Tuesday. In announcing that it is extending the program to more than 3,300 stores in the U.S., Wal-Mart released statistics to show the strategy is working. Wal-Mart's approach is different than the traditional approach at retailers like Target (TGT) and JC Penny (JCP) which use the Web to help move in-store merchandise. Walmart.com promotes "tens of thousands of products" that are not available in stores and ships them free to a local Wal-Mart, where customers can pick them up. Since the launch, about one-third of all Walmart.com sales have been placed through Site-to-Store and "more than half-a-million total units have been shipped through Site-to-Store, saving customers more than $5 million in shipping fees." Great, but is it growing sales? Wal-Mart said that "more than 50 percent of Site-to-Store orders [came] from new customers who make their first purchase at Walmart.com using the service." The chain also reported a 20 percent increase in the number of Site-to-Store "customers who spend an additional $60 on purchases in the store when picking up their orders." Bingo. Wal-Mart also claimed the $345 billion chain reported a weekly gasoline savings of 1,000 gallons and a monthly box reduction of 20,000 "as a result of transportation and packaging efficiencies." Increased sales and decreases expenses . . . very nice indeed.

Also from the article "Online sales Lose Steam" "But Ms. Koehn and others say that online shopping is running into practical problems, too. For one, Ms. Koehn noted, online sellers have been steadily raising their shipping fees to bolster profits or make up for their low prices. In response, a so-called clicks-and-bricks hybrid model is emerging, said Dan Whaley, the founder of GetThere, which became one of the largest Internet travel businesses after it was acquired by Sabre Holdings. The bookseller Borders, for example, recently revamped its Web site to allow users to reserve books online and pick them up in the store. Similar services were started by companies like Best Buy and Sears. Other retailers are working to follow suit. “You don’t realize how powerful of a phenomenon this new strategy has become,” Mr. Whaley said. “Nearly every big box retailer is opening it up.”Barnes & Noble recently upgraded its site to include online book clubs, reader forums and interviews with authors. The company hopes the changes will make the online world feel more like the offline one, said Marie J. Toulantis, the chief executive of BarnesandNoble.com. “We emulate the in-store experience by having a book club online,” she said. The retailers that have started in-store pickup programs, like Sears and REI, have found that customers who choose the hybrid model are more likely to buy additional products when they pick up their items, said Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst at Jupiter Research.

And this article from February...

The online/in-store answer for retailersEcommerce hubs are working hard to improve their websites to increase user engagement and revenue. But the best solution could be as simple as in-store pick-up. Some indicators point to pick-up being the key for future online shopping.by Kristina Knight Rather than waiting for an item ordered online to be shipped, many online shoppers prefer the in-store pick-up option. Many of these shoppers will actually visit several etailers to find in-store availability so that they can have the item as soon as possible. When in-store pick-up isn't available, for instance with online-only retailers, a new service from Shopatron can be used. The Shopatron platform helps etailers connect with brick-and-mortar stores in the consumer's area so that practically any item ordered online can be picked up within a few hours or a day.

More soon on this topic..

(picture is of Ebay's 1999 look of Ebay Local -Seattle)

Selling Craft kits on Ebay

Craft and project kits are very popular on Ebay! I will be honest , I never even heard of some of the things that sell well on eBay but since selling them I am always on the lookout for them. Pictured here is a latch hook rug kit. Actually if you look, its the image of the rug that will be created. Rather than show a broader photo of the box and a small image of what the kit makes, I always choose to crop the kit showing the great looking image of what the final product will show, with a picture of the box as the second photo in the listing. Rug kits of all kinds tend to sell well as do supplies. Also be on the lookout for vintage weaving (loom) type items as well -more soon - Marty

Unusual Coca-Cola (COKE) item with Christie's tags

Recently while out hunting for items I found this one pictured here! It is a 27x20 in. image under glass modern artwork of some kind. Its not a poster, or a lithograph but the image seems to be attached to the back of the glass. It is very nicely done. On the back there are Christie's (the auction house) tags! I paid $5.00 for this , and I am pretty sure it is not a super high dollar value item but I am trying my sources to see what I can learn about it. I posted the item on the collectibles and art boards on Ebay but did not have much luck from others. I tried Christie's website where you can search for past auctions but the search didnt seem to come up with any meaningful results. I tried calling but they are closed until Jan 3rd.

On this item I would be looking to find out the artist and more about the piece if possible. It could sell on its own without that information as just a cool piece, but it always helps! Ill post back when I learn more! If you have any info do write in!

Selling Graphic Novels from the 1980s/90s on Ebay

Another area that sometimes runs extremely HOT on Ebay is that of Graphic novels. Basically book sized Comics down with super fine graphic and captivating stories. I have always done well with them. I try to find ones that are from the 1980s or so and most sell fairly well on ebay. You can usually tell just by looking at the covers that you have something interesting. Here are a few examples..

Selling Vintage Newspapers On Ebay

One area that is both interesting and rewarding is that of Vintage Newspapers. They are fun to read and then re-sell on eBay. If you have a good source for pre 1940 newspapers, they make for excellent reading material and usually always get at least 1 bid.

I just finished a batch of 1933 Depression Era Newspapers from North Dakata and sold them on Ebay. Reading them gave me a better perspective on that era than I learned in school and in books. I highly recommend buyer a few papers to check them out!
I got started after reading a scrapbook I will be selling. A woman put news clipping from about the same era in and it was just amazing stuff!

Selling Monopoly Games - Local Style

Hey everyone! Sorry its been a while since I last posted :( Lots to report though.
Here is something new for you. As you know lots of people grew up with mononopoly games being a staple of family life! Well many local versions of the game were made for towns/cities even colleges. Whether officially licensed games or just used as fund raisers these games do well on Ebay! I sold a New Haven game recently and already have a big on one for Oxford ,CT . Keep in mind items with state or town or city collectibility generally do well on Ebay. Here are some pictures for you!

New Ebay Stores Awareness Campaign!

A homegrown effort by Ebay Store owners has lead to the creation of a campaign to promote awareness of Ebay stores ! High praise to Sandy (Ebay seller: sandrarn83) for thinking of this and also following it through to completion. Thanks Sandy!

Behind the Red Door you'll find millions of items never found in regular searches. We, the proud eBay Store owners, want you to have the best shopping experience available on eBay! Click on the logo above to visit my Store or click on this link to see the millions of items from all the other fine eBay Store owners.

Aliens , UFOS, Always interesting to buy and Sell on Ebay!

I just had to show your these pictures! As you know Holograms are very hard to take pictures of . Selling this Alien card set with a silver looking foil picture would just not do it justice!

So in this blog post I will tell you how to take a picture of an Alien Hologram to get this affect!

First you need to be outside without a flash! You need to have some sunlight, and something to lean the picture and or holographic card against. You need to angle the items slowly left to right to get the right affect then be sure to hold the camera to get the most of the holographic image in color as you can.

It makes your Aliens sell better and when they sell better they are known to not use their ray guns as much ;)

Check out this guy! This set I am selling (still some left), has real artist depictions of aliens seen in real events with dates and the story on the back. Done for charity, these were some extra packs I purchased to benefit the charity and of course sell to you!

Selling Art On Ebay - Notes from a non-artist type..

Recently I have been fascinated by Art. I am not sure if it is an escape from reality thing or just an appreciate that grows as we age. In any case, I have always had some luck selling unusual pieces of art which I find out and about on my Ebay searchese of flea markets , tag sales etc.

Recently I came across an oversized poster booklet (in quantity) and and Artist named Christo that did the banners/flags of an orange/salmon looking color in Central park recently. I loved the posters and picked these items up cheaply. The images are of art done on a grand scale. From islands and bridges being wrapped to umbrellas set across miles of hill or in raging rivers. Ebay has developed an interesting art market. It is not just the antique pieces or pieces by lesser known masters but markets its developing all by itself . For now ill leave you with some pictures of the posters in the large posterbook by Christo, but my next blog installment will be on the ACEO artist trading cards! Thanks for reading my blog! :) -Marty

Flashback to An Important Moment in Time

As we all know Ebay is just as much a community as a place to shop. I thought I would let you in on a very special moment for me a number of years ago when my daughter was younger. After running and playing at a friend's house all day my friend took this picture of us. It stuck in my mind because at that time I had a lot of worries on my mind, my mom was very ill, work was tough, but it was that friend who captured the moment and created a memory that would last a long time for me that made the day special for my daughter and I. Now my daughter, Jaime, is just as much an Ebay shopper and web community member as anyone. Just a little personal story to place a photo in the timeline of an Ebayer.