I was a bit surprised that Midwinter Stonehenge Wild Oats pattern dinnerware I had on eBay didn’t do that well. Of the four auctions, only the salt and pepper set sold and that only for the starting bid of $9.99. I had thought both the coffee pot and the 4 plates would sell for sure, which just goes to show how smart I am.

The three unsold listings have been re-listed and are once again live and will end on this coming Sunday evening.

Overall, a total of eleven of the sixteen listings sold for a total of $518.58.

The best money makers were the two Zenith Trans-Oceanic radios that I paid $25 each for. The sold for $203.50 and $136.27. They were followed by the Canadian Pacific Railway plate which sold to someone in Canada for $78.77.
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Here are the links to the eBay auctions for the Midwinter Stonehenge Wild Oats pattern dinnerware I bought last week after reading about the pattern in Lynn Dralle’s newsletter.

I’ve also included links to the other eBay auctions I have running this week, along with where I got each item and what I paid for them.

The fifteen pieces of Midwinter Stonehenge dinnerware were split up into four auctions - the coffee pot, the salt and pepper set, four cups and saucers, and four salad/bread plates. I paid $5.00 for all fifteen pieces at our local Boys Ranch thrift store.

I I have twelve other auctions running this week which are:

A book titled Isabel Bloom: The Artist And Her Legacy. I paid $.50 for this at a local thrift store.

A 1996 Dayton Hudson Marshall Fields Santa Bear mug. Another thrift shop purchase for $.10.
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While I was enjoying the easy life fishing in Canada Stephen Banks graciously filled in for me on The Auction Rebel. In one of Stephen’s posts, titled “How To Turn IRON Into Gold“, he shared some thoughts on buying Griswold and Wagner cast iron cooking items for resale on eBay.

Yesterday Stephen sold a Wagner Ware 5 cast iron skillet with a pie slice logo for $512.00. I don’t know what he paid for it, but I’m guessing there’s a pretty nice profit built into the final bid.

Congratulations Stephen!!!

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Sunday evening the auctions for the first week of the March $1000 A Month Thrift Store eBay Challenge ended. As I’ve already said, I was pretty lazy the week before. To make matters worse, of the twelve thrift store items listed, only four sold for a pretty dismal total of $50.06. Most of the unsold items will go directly into the eBay store, but one or two may be re-listed.

By the time I’d decided to continue the Challenge through March, most of the week had already passed and I was still in a lazy mood, so there aren’t a lot of thrift store items listed this week either. I did get motivated on Friday and made the rounds of all seven stores and was able to buy a few things. One of these was the Watkins salesman’s sample case I’d mentioned earlier, since they lowered the asking price. I also bought a nice Bakelite poker chip caddy along with a large number of old poker chips.

After one week of completed auctions, here’s how the figures for March look so far. All four items that sold have already been paid for with PayPal so the first weeks figures are complete.

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Sunday evening 47 seven-day auctions began. With the exception of the “Mask Of God” set ob books, which is a relist of a sold item that was never paid for, these auctions consist entirely of books and material I purchased last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday during my trip to Bismarck and at the two book sales in Grand Forks. The majority of the items are books that came from the FOL sale in Bismarck and the AAUW and FOL sales here in Grand Forks.

The items that have the most potential are probably Reminiscences, Memoirs, and Lectures, Reminiscences, Memoirs, and Conferences, Cocker Champions, and A Century Of Spaniels. At the same time, they may not even receive a bid.

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A look back at Paperpleasures46’s top ten eBay sellers for April provides a couple of insights.

First, I’d spent a lot of time in March running around to hockey tournaments, so I needed to get back into the eBay frame of mind and it’s taken a while go get moving again. I tell Arlene I’ve just been enjoying an extended mini-vacation. She tells me it’s because I’m staring my 60th birthday in the face in a couple months and I’m beginning to think I’m getting old.

Whichever it is, I thought we’d look at the top ten eBay sellers for April for Paperpleasures46 and maybe learn something from them.

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Twenty-seven auctions ended last night on eBay with sixteen selling for a total of $975.29 and a sell-through rate of 59%.

All twenty-seven items that ended last night were purchased in Milwaukee while I was there for the NCAA Frozen Four hockey tournament. There were hockey games on Thursday and Saturday, so I visited a few antiques malls on Friday and these items were what I’d purchased. My total investment in the twenty-seven items was $155.50.

The obvious high-point of the night was the book “Sigma Alpha Epsilon In The World War” that ended up bringing a high bid of $705.00. I paid $27 for this book. Inside I found the “Knights Of Columbus Theater Program” so my $27 investment actually brought a $714.99 return.

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The big auction Saturday I wrote about a little over a week ago turned into a giant disappointment.

Arlene was outbid on every item of interest at the auction she went to in Bagley. The auction in Moorhead turned out to have only one item I was interested in (an early furniture catalog from a company in Grand Rapids, Michigan) and the bid I left with the auctioneer there wasn’t high enough to win the catalog.

The auction in Kindred may have had all kinds of great things in it, but I never had a chance to find out. The attendance of the sale was way underestimated by the auction company holding the sale. It was held inside Kindred’s Community Center and by the time I got there about a half hour before the sale began, the building was so packed with people it was impossible to get inside. They were literally saying “we’re sorry” and turning people away.

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Last night the auctions for the items I bought at the new Goodwill Thrift store last week ended.

Seventeen of the twenty-two items sold for a sell-through rate of 77%. The final bids for the seventeen items was $476.82. My cost for everything from Goodwill was $61.30. However, since I had to end the Peruvian silver auction earl, the cost of the twenty-two items mentioned here was $41.30. After listing fees, final value fees, and PayPal fees I should still realize a 700% or more profit from my investment.

This morning at about 11 o’clock the 228 free listing items ended with 91 of them selling for $489.71. The sell-through rate for these was about 40%. Not that high, but since these were all items that had already been listed on eBay at least twice previously, I’m happy with what they brought. Everything that didn’t sell will go into a garage sale this spring and what doesn’t sell there gets donated to the Salvation Army. They go there because their prices are so high I hardly ever shop there so I don’t have to pick through my old junk.

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Yesterday (Sunday) I launched 25 auctions made up mostly of items I’d picked up at some of the local thrift shops the previous week along with a few re-lists of items that hadn’t previously sold.

The re-listed items are the 1985 Montgomery Ward catalogs, the Lenscraft cigarette lighter, the two World War I books, and the Wilton cake decorating book.

The Peruvian sterling silver set is has also been re-listed. On Saturday I realized I said there were a total of 20 pieces in the auction description when in fact there are only 16. I canceled the bids it already had, ended the auction early, corrected the description and listed it again last night.

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