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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During a day of garage sales you will likely see a lot of different craft related magazines. Most of these are targeted primarily at women and related to needlework (such as crocheting, needlepoint, embroidery, quilting, cross stitch, etc.), scrap-booking, and rubber stamping.

You can often buy in good sized lots for a quarter or less apiece. Most people don’t pay much attention to these, but some of them, when marketed correctly on eBay, can be quite profitable.

The magazines listed below will nearly always sell in lots of various sizes (mixed issues, single years, and small or large consecutive runs, However, with some of them you can maximize your profits by selling the individual issues by themselves.

In some cases any of their individual issues do well on their own and in other cases only the earlier issues do. I’ll try to denote those magazines which individual issues sell well, but it’s always best to check eBay’s closed sales to help determine how you should market these.

Several of these magazines are published in England, Germany, Japan and Australia so if you live outside the US you should be able to find them also.

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The auctions for the seventh week of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge ended last Sunday evening. There were thirty-one Challenge items listed and twelve of them sold for a total of $355.65. The sell-through rate was 39%.

At first glance neither of those figures is very attractive. However, since eighteen of the thirty-one items were re-lists, I’ll take those results and move on. Ten of the thirteen new items sold, so my sell-through rate for new items was 77% which is perfectly acceptable.

After seven weeks of the Challenge, here’s how I sit. Note that I’ve added an additional column to the chart beginning this week so a running total is included.

As mentioned last week, there is no mileage expense shown for week seven because all the items listed last week were either re-lists or items I’d purchased the previous week but hadn’t had time to list before leaving on vacation.

My listing fees for the current auctions are also somewhat high because I messed up listed several items in two categories. I need to start paying more attention to what I’m doing I guess.

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Yesterday afternoon I received an email from someone praising the just launched The Exponent Trading Company. Their recommendation was that I get in now because “there was a lot of money to be made from it for those who got involved early.”

I’d looked at the site and began writing a post about it for The Auction Rebel which I was going to finish today. That’s no longer necessary, because Terry Gibbs beat me to the punch and the opinions he expresses about it in ” Just Say NO To The Exponent Trading Company” pretty much parallel my own.

“………The Exponent Trading Company is basically just a eBay selling management solution wrapped up in a multilevel plan. This is done in order to get people excited about getting something for nothing.“

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According to Wikipedia, The Gentleman’s Magazine, first published in 1731, is considered to have been the first general-interest magazine targeted at the general public. Since that time, there have been thousands, if not tens of thousands, of magazines offered to the public. Some have been short-lived, lasting for only one or two issues. Other’s have enjoyed fifty, or more, years of continuous publication.

Today, while many of these magazines - both old and newer - find ready buyers on eBay, information about them and their value may seem scarcer than the magazines themselves. The information is out there, but can be hard to find.

If this is an area of eBay you are untested in exploring, here are a few sites you may find useful. Most of these sites are maintained by individual or universities and their navigation is often a little confusing, but if you explore their navigation bar and links, they contain a lot of useful information.

Collectible Magazine Back Issue Price Guide

Magazine Art

Magazines

The Pulp Gallery

Visco

I have many similar sites in my bookmarks. If enough interest is expressed in this area of eBay, I’ll do a follow-up with more of them.

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Somewhere at most garage sales you will find at least a small pile of Jigsaw puzzles and those piles almost always contain one, or more, Springbok jigsaw puzzles priced at a dollar or less. There’s a large collector base for Springbok jigsaw puzzles, and while most of them aren’t worth buying, some will provide nice profits when sold on eBay.

All you need to profit from these puzzles is a little knowledge and fortunately there are two excellent sites on the net devoted to Springbok jigsaw puzzles where you can learn as little, or as much, as you want about these puzzles.

We Love Springbok Jigsaw Puzzles contains a lot of information about Springbok with pictures and puzzle counts. It also has a downloadble Springbok Jigsaw Puzzle Price Guide . The price guide hasn’t been updated in some time, but it’s still a great resource to help you determine which puzzles are valuable and which ones are not. I have a copy I’ve printed out in a looseleaf notebook that resides permanently in the back of the Explorer.

Another good research resource is Mike Helland’s Springbok Fever. Springbok Fever concentrates on the puzzles Springbok created between 1963 and 1973, the period that produced most of the more valuable puzzles. While it doesn’t contain any pricing information, the majority of the Springbok puzzles produced during that time frame are pictured.

There aren’t many Springbok puzzles that will bring three figures on eBay, but there are enough that bring well into the mid to high two figure range that, when purchased for twenty-five or fifty cents will still bring a nice profit. It’s worth your while to at learn at least a little about them.

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The premiere issue of Toy Collector Magazine is now available for download in PDF format.

Each monthly issue of Toy Collector Magazine will contain articles and news of interest to both the antique and modern toy collector and to toy train collectors. The June 1 premiere issue is lavishly illustrated and has more then one hundred pages. A new issue will be available free on the first of each month.

If you have any interest in collecting or selling either antique or modern toys, I recommend you head over to Toy Collector Magazine and download the first issue and sign up to be notified by email when each new issue becomes available.

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There were no $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge items listed for week six of the Challenge because I wasn’t available to ship anything for eight days while fishing in Canada. The Challenge returned for week seven with a total of sixty-three garage sale items that were purchased over a two week period prior to leaving for Canada.

These items ended on Sunday evening with 36 of them selling for a total of $895.83 and a somewhat dismal sell-through rate of 57%.

Because I’m still pretty much in “catch-up” mode from being gone a week, and because of something else that has arisen since my return, I’m not going to list each of the individual sixty-three items. The total of what I paid for them is shown in the table below. Anyone interested in what the individual items were can check out my closed auction on eBay for the week.

Six weeks into the Challenge, here’s what things look like so far.

Note that there is no mileage expense shown for the auctions currently running this week. That is because these are all either re-lists from the previous week, or items I purchased before leaving for Canada but didn’t have time to list. Therefore, any mileage expense is included in the $45.08 from the previous week.

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Get Unlimited FREE Inventory To Sell On eBay

I’ve been selling on eBay since 1998 and when people learn I make my fulltime income by selling on eBay and training others to successfully build an eBay business, I get asked this same question at some point in our conversation…

“How do you find an ongoing supply of good stuff to sell??”

Well in this post I want to discuss the easiest business model I’ve found to ensure you…

1. An unlimited supply of quality merchandise
2. Guaranteed sales on eBay at predictable price ranges
3. Zero cost for inventory

NO INVENTORY COST!!!

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In keeping with Gary’s $10,000 Garage Sale Challenge — I’d like to offer two (2) items I purchased recently at two estate sales within the 50-mile radius of our rural Upstate NY town that I scout for inventory.

These were found at a large well attended town wide sales day after 2pm and both were negotiated down to $1 & $5 respectively from the asking price of $10-$15, which I must say were fair prices for the items, but I try and keep every dollar I can in my pocket!!

eBay Item #1 — Waring Chrome Bee Hive Blendor …Near Mint condition!!

eBay Item #2 — Zenith Trans-Oceanic Royal 3000-1 MultiBand Radio with original paperwork including a very HTF Service and repair guide with schematics (tech drawings)

I was wondering to myself how was it that so many people had let these two items slip through the cracks, until from all appearances I was destine to rescue and offer to a collector somewhere for a nice profit too, I might add!!

Would any of you readers have been willing to invest in either of these items with the sole propose of simply reselling on eBay…even if they did cost just $1 & $5 bucks??

Pre Auction Estimate: $150 - $250 (total both items)

The auctions will close next week.

Happy Hunting Everybody & Good Luck!!

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