During the last week a couple of family obligations have come to a head and pretty much taken up all my time that would normally be devoted to The Auction Rebel. Hopefully things should return to a semblance of normal by the weekend.

In the meantime, here are a few links that have appeared on other blogs in the last few days that you may find interesting and useful.

In the most recent Carnival Of eBay Sellers on the PGA Auctions blog, there is a submission titled eBay Secret Niche Revealed - Niche # 1 that may ignite your interest in golf.

Yesterday on the ephemera blog there is an interview with movie star trading card collector Troy Kirk. While the interview is interesting, the real gem located here is to Troy’s The Moviecard Website. It’s loaded with information and a great research source for anything movie trading card related.

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Phil Dunn is a co-author of the book “The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing” which was written about two years ago.

He also has a blog titled eBay Marketing Writing and Advertising Tips for PowerSellers and Sellers - Insider Info that bills itself as “Advanced marketing, design and exposure techniques for eBay Sellers. Based on the book “The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing” (McGraw-Hill, July 2005). Tips, tricks and strategies that help you generate eBay sales now. Insider selling knowledge.”

It all sounds pretty impressive doesn’t it?

Today Phil’s blog contains a post titled “Big News For Sellers (and buyers)” in which he links to an article on the Motley Fools investment site dealing with eBay’s “new buyer and seller database mining features.” He then asks:

“Any thoughts? Excitement? Enthusiasm? Let us know what you think of this development, and tell us how you intend to use it (if at all). “

Yup, I’ve got three thoughts Phil …….

My first thought is that Motley Fool didn’t post that article today. They posted it nearly two years ago. On November 11, 2005 to be exact.

My second thought isn’t so much a thought as it is a question. How the hell can someone who provides insider tips for Powersellers not know anything about eBay Marketplace Research?

I’ve been using it just about daily for about as long as your eBay book has been in print.

My third is a question to myself? I wonder if I should rush out and buy a copy of your book? After all, both Amazon and WalMart have discounted it. I wonder why?

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Week seventeen of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge ended Monday evening with twenty-three of the twenty-nine items listed selling fora total of $1099.86. The sell-through rate was 79%.

Garage sales in Grand Forks come to a near standstill over three day weekends such as Labor Day weekend. Rather than stay in town for three or four new sales on Saturday I chose to take a break from garage sales and spent the morning at a flea market and the afternoon digging through a few antique shops.

That means only twenty five of the thirty-seven items listed on eBay this week qualify as Challenge items.

After week seventeen, here’s how the $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge is progressing.

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It’s Tuesday which means it’s time for ‘Weekly Winners.’

This is your chance to do share with other readers some of the items you sold on eBay last week and do a little bragging in the process. By contributing you will also be helping others broaden the scope of what they can be looking for when they are out on the hunt.

These don’t have to be three or four-figure, mega-buck, items. Did you sell something for $20 or $30 that you paid one or two dollars for? These are the week-to-week, bread and butter items, everyone needs. I encourage you to share them with other readers.

The guidelines remain the same as before.

• Use the comment section of each week’s Weekly Winners post to tell everyone about your winners.
• Please limit yourself to four items a week.
• I encourage you to include a link to the completed auction (if you don’t know how to do this, see below).
• Share some information about the item with everyone - what it is, where you got it, what you paid for it, what it sold for, etc. Remember, links to closed auctions disappear after a few months, so the more you share regarding price, condition, item description, etc., the more useful your information will be to others once eBay deletes the item from their database.

To insert a hyperlink to your eBay auction simply insert the following code (with your auction URL and item name) where ever you want it in the comment box.

<a href=”CUT AND PASTE THE URL TO YOUR AUCTION HERE”>INSERT DESCRIPTION OF YOUR ITEM (i.e. 53 Dr. Suess Books)</a>

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During the month of August a total of 86 Garage Sale eBay Challenge items sold. Here are the top ten items along with what they brought and some thoughts on each of them. Since there were three items that sold for the same final price all three will be shown, making a total of eleven this month.

1. A nice Reuge music box - I paid $4.00 for this and it sold for $204.52.

Music boxes of various shapes and sizes show up frequently at garage sales and quality examples by established manufacturers are always worth picking up if the price is right. Many of the Swiss manufacturers such as Reuge and Thorens will regularly bring into the three figures and there are plenty of others that will approach that figure. Hint: look for wood boxes that are either inlaid or have distinctive grain.

2. Hand painted Royal Bayreuth bowl - I paid $.15 for this and it sold for $152.50.

This was one of the items I purchased at the Manvel city-wide garage sale. Royal Bayreuth isn’t all that rare, and many pieces don’t bring this kind of prices. What this one had going for it was that it had animals on it and most of it’s inside surface was covered by the design. Many pieces have much smaller designs.

The wide variety of colors in the painting doesn’t hurt it’s desirability either.

3. Old Zenith long range wooden table top radio - I paid $1.00 for this and it sold for $133.55.

This was one of several old wooden radios and related items I found at one sale. They were priced at $2.00 each/or make an offer. I offered the lady $5.00 for everything and she accepted. So far, I’ve listed three of them. All three sold, but this was the only one that came near three figures. The other two sold in the $20 to $30 range. You can make money with these if you can buy them cheap enough, but before going on a buying spree, keep in mind that many of the wood radios from this era were good sized, and finding a box to safely ship them in can be a headache unless you are ready to spend some money at the local UPS store. They aren’t cheap.

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Historically, garage sales have been few and far between in Grand Forks over three day Holiday weekends. Last week, between Thursday and Friday, I went to about a dozen garage sales. Knowing Saturday would provide even fewer sales, I decided make a trip to Shady Hollow Flea Market in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

Shady Hollow is a weekly flea market held every Sunday between Memorial Day weekend and the weekend after Labor Day. Over the three long weekends during the summer - Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day, they expand to a three-day sale - Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

The Shady Hollow Flea Market began sometime in 1969. When I first started selling antiques and collectibles, this was one of the first two flea markets I set up at on a regular basis. It was never a large market, but always attracted quality dealers and, as a result, a large number of serious buyers who readily spent money. During the years I was setting up there it wasn’t uncommon to make $1000 to $2000 in sales by 8 o’clock in the morning.

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