A little more than two months ago in Selling Vintage Magazine Articles On eBay I took a look at two sellers who were selling articles, advertisements, and photos taken from vintage magazines as individual items in their eBay stores.

After looking at the business model these two sellers were using, I decided to test it for a few months and see how things went. I started by listing a total of 49 articles and full page ads. These came from two items I had whose condition was such they weren’t sellable. A November 1896 issue of Metropolitan magazine and a six bound issues of Harper’s Monthly magazine from 1873 and 1874.

Although I have picked up several more magazines as sources for additional listings, due to various circumstances I haven’t had the time to list any additional articles or ads.

To date, without any promotion, twelve of the articles and ads have sold. The most recent was the Colt pistol advertisement shown above that sold for $12.99. Prices for the other items sold have ranged from $9.99 to $24.99 with most of them being in the lower end of that range.

Total sales have been $166.88. My costs to generate the sales have been $20 for the magazine and bound volume; approximately $6.00 in listing fees plus final value fees and PayPal fees which I haven’t kept track of individually. My net profit on the twelve sales comes to somewhere between $110 and $115.

That works out to roughly $55 a month which admittedly is not a huge profit. My sell-through rate for the forty-nine listings, however, was close to 25% which is good enough to demonstrate some potential.

After the initial forty-nine items were listed, if I had set aside enough time to list just ten additional items a week there would have been a total of roughly 130 articles/ads listed. Even with a sell-through of only 15% that would have resulted in another twelve items sold. If those twelve items had all sold for $9.99 each the net profit would roughly double to $100 a month.

In the original article I said:

“…..with a little work, I don’t think $500 to $1000 a month would be an unrealistic expectation after six months. It could be quite a bit more than that if someone really applied themselves to it. It wouldn’t be that much the first few months because they would be building their inventory, but after six months their inventory should be high enough to produce decent results.

As I said, this wouldn’t be for everyone. But, if you are looking for an eBay business model that will provide between $500 to $1000 a month within the next half year, it may be something you should look into.“

I still think the potential is there for someone who has access to several antique shops or auction sales that would provide a steady source of vintage magazines at reasonable prices. Even eBay itself might prove to be a viable source if the magazines were bought in bulk.

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