At one sale over the weekend I purchased three pieces of carnival glass.

The pieces I bought aren’t particularly valuable, but there are pieces that will bring four, and even five, figures from collectors. Rare or common, if you have acquired a piece to sell on eBay, it will almost always bring more money if you are able to include the manufacturer and pattern in the auction headline and description.

To do that, you need some kind of a carnival glass identification guide comes in handy and fortunately there is an excellent carnival glass identification guide available on-line at Dave Doty’s Carnival Glass Web Site.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Manvel, North Dakota is a town of about 400 people located roughly 10 miles north of Grand Forks and this weekend they are celebrating the 125th anniversary of the town.

Part of the celebration is a city-wide garage sale that consisted of four sales. All four were located within a three block stretch of the same street. Working my way down the street, the first three offered nothing of any interest, but the fourth one was like a flashback to twenty-five years ago.

Amid the baby cloths, furniture, Harlequin romances, and used small appliances was a six-foot table filled with things “that came from my Grandmother’s when we moved her into a rest home a month ago.” Nearly all of Grandma’s stuff was priced at 5 cents, 10 cents, a quarter or 50 cents.

Here’s a picture of what I bought.

Included were:

Continue Reading

Popularity: 6% [?]

More and more my family is becoming dominated by women!

Earlier today, at 1:48 AM I once again became a Grandfather. Claire Elizabeth, my fourth granddaughter, made her appearance weighing in at 7 pounds 5 ounces and 20 inches. Claire and her mother, Tracy, are both doing great.

Popularity: 5% [?]

The eleventh week of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge is now history with the auctions that ended on Sunday evening. There were eighteen Challenge items listed and thirteen of them sold for a total of $608.69. The sell-through rate was 72%.

This last week, once again, there were nowhere near as many sales as one would expect this time of year. Our wet weather from two weeks ago changed into, what for us, is a heatwave with temps in the mid to upper nineties most days. I’m guessing the people who didn’t want to get wet two weeks ago, didn’t want to sit out in the heat last week. It will be interesting to see how many there are this week because it sounds as though temperatures will be about the same for the rest of this week.

Similar to the previous week, last Saturday provided one garage sale where I purchased a large number of books for either $.25 or $.50 each that all went on Amazon. My total investment was $22.50 and the books were listed on Amazon for a total of $1237.83 with several listed at more than $100. A few have already sold
for a total of just a few cents under $475. Apparently I should have included Amazon when I began the Challenge.

Here’s how things look after the eleventh week is completed.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 11% [?]

My first wife, Gayle, passed away a number of years ago from breast cancer.

The particular type of breast cancer Gayle suffered from is somewhat rare and one of it’s characteristics is that it rapidly spreads to the bones and the brain. Another characteristic is that it is that the likelihood of having developing it is genetically passed along from generation to generation.

Gayle’s mother, Elvina, also passed away from the same cancer a few years later. Her sister, Jurene, developed a similar cancer. Luckily, Jurene’s cancer was diagnosed early enough that with a mastectomy along with chemo and radiation treatment, she has now been cancer-free for several years.

My only daughter Tracy, who is 32, has the genetic make-up that makes a similar cancer a very real possibility in her future. So much so, that doctors have recommended that she have a proactive double mastectomy by the time she reaches the age of 40. I also have three granddaughters with a fourth one due within a week.

Quite frankly, the prospect of what they may have to cope with in the years ahead scares the hell out of me.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 5% [?]

Today Darren Rowse posed a question to readers of his blog - How can I make Problogger more useful for you?

Unlike the majority of blogs you find on the Net, The Auction Rebel isn’t monetarized so I can make money from it. There are no Adsense blocks scattered throughout every post. There aren’t affiliate links in every other post.

My goal for The Auction Rebel isn’t that it make money for me, but rather that it provide information that will help make money for you.

With that in mind, I’d like to pose the same question to you - How can I make The Auction Rebel more useful to you? What would you like to see here?

As Darren did, I’m going to provide some general areas of discussion and then let you, the reader, go from there.

• Topics - Are there general, or specific, topics you’d like to see more of? Less of?
• Types Of Information - Reviews, tutorials, short tips, single posts or multi-post series, more “getting started” information - what interests you most?
• Posting Frequency - Shorter, more frequent posts? Less frequent, in depth posts?
• Blog Features - Is there something not here now that you would find helpful in building your eBay business?
• Community - One of things I would like to see evolve here is more interaction between readers. How can that be accomplished? How can I entice you, the reader, to share more of your experiences, questions, successes, and failures?
• Other Stuff - Anything else?

While I can’t promise everyones suggestions will be implemented, I do promise they will all be read, and some thought given to them.

Here’s your chance to help make this blog more useful, and enjoyable, for you. You can share your ideas and suggestions using the comment box below, or you can mail them to me directly through the Contact Gary link in the top navigation bar.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Write a book about self-improvement or how to make money and you stand a good chance of having a best seller on your hands. These days, no one knows that better than Robert Kiyosaki. He’s developed almost a cult following and his first book, “Rich Dad Poor Dad became an instant best-seller and has allowed him to build a “how to get rich” empire.

I have no idea how many of his fans have actually followed his advice and made money, but his books present an opportunity for you to make some nice profits on eBay.

Earlier this evening I had a listing of 13 Rich Dad Poor Dad books end at $172.50 with 20 bidders and 20 people watching the auction. You can also get an idea of what smaller lots will bring by taking a look at eBay’s closed auctions.

The Rich Dad Poor Dad series is made up of two different parts - books written by Kiyosaki himself and those written by other authors but still part of the series.

I may be missing a title or two, but as near as I can tell, here are the titles in the series.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 8% [?]

The Christian Science Monitor, in it’s latest edition, has an interesting article titled Why We Do What We Do On eBay. The article, based in part, on a study done by University of California Berkeley economists, talks about some of the bidding idiosyncrasies shown by bidders on eBay.

While it’s interesting reading, and may be food for thought about ways you might change how and when you list your auctions, they aren’t really pointing out anything earth shattering. Most of the strange behavior of today’s eBay bidders has been on display by bidders at regular auctions for long before eBay came on the scene.

Popularity: 5% [?]

The tenth week of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge is now history with the auctions that ended on Sunday evening. There were thirty-nine Challenge items listed and twenty-one of them sold for a total of only $320.69. The sell-through rate was a somewhat disappointing 54%.

There were a surprisingly small number of garage sales in Grand Forks last week. We had been having some pretty wet weather and I think the prospect of rain, which never materialized, over the weekend made many people opt for another weekend.

As a result, my Challenge purchases for the week only amounted to eighteen items. Among these though there are a few items that should do fairly well. I did manage to buy 11 current college textbooks for $.25 each at a garage sale put on by two young college students. Those went onto Amazon where seven have already sold for a total of a little over $370. I have a hard time understanding why they would put them out for a quarter each when they could have driven a mile and a half to Barnes & Nobles where I’m sure they could have gotten $150 or more for them. Aren’t we teaching our young people today respect for money?

At the end of the tenth week of the Challenge, here’s how things look to date.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 9% [?]

Today Juliz Schultz has a rare post to her blog titled “Buy High Sell Low“. Julia talks about taking advantage of the infamous ’summer slow-down’ on eBay to build up your inventory for the time eBay picks up in the fall.

While I don’t agree with everything she talks about (for example, while a summer slow-down may exist if you are selling what is essentially ‘retail’ merchandise, I don’t believe it exists within the antiques/collectibles market), but she does offer some good ideas regarding potential sources for eBay inventory.

And I couldn’t agree more when she says:

“One of my many mistakes as a buyer for my business is being short sighted. I have a tendency to think if it doesn’t resale for the price I want in the next few weeks it isn’t worth the bother of picking it up. This is a mistake especially when you have room for inventory. As the stock market dictates a buy low and sell high mentality so does the wholesale - retail business. We need to keep in mind that holding inventory that is sure to go up in value is an investment and will return significantly if we are patient and wise in our listing timing.“

In fact, I recommend you take it one step further.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 8% [?]