Since it’s publication two years ago, Buying Stampin’ Up Sets At Garage Sales has produced more email from readers than any other post on The Auction Rebel. Because of this continued interest, and because much of the original information is no longer up-to-date, I thought I would revisit the subject and put together some more current prices and information.

The popularity of rubber stamping and scrap booking has grown over the last two years, resulting in increased interest by both sellers and buyers in these sets on eBay. This increased popularity has also resulted in a growth in the number of Stampin’ Up sets showing up at garage sales.

The increase in sets available at garage sale provides the savvy seller with the chance to garner some nice profits selling sets on eBay. However, this increase also means you can get stung if you aren’t careful.
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Popularity: 12% [?]

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When I was a kid Hopalong Cassidy was my hero. I had the complete Hopalong outfit - shirt, pants, cowboy boots, the double holsters with matching six shooters, bandanna, and the trademark hat. If memory serves me correctly, I even had several pair of Hopalong underwear. The only thing I was lacking was a white horse. Even though we lived on five acres on the very edge of town, no amount of begging could get my parents to agree to my own version of Topper.

I insisted my parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and siblings all call me Hoppy. I spent three or four months making sure mom and dad knew I had to have an official Hopalong Cassidy bicycle for my sixth birthday. There likely wasn’t a more excited kid on the planet when one mysteriously appeared on our garage the morning of my birthday.

I ate, slept, and breathed Hopalong Cassidy. My goal in life was to become Hopalong Cassidy.
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Popularity: 18% [?]

The auctions for items purchased during the fourth week of the 2008 Garage Sale Challenged ended on Sunday evening.

Of the eighteen qualifying items listed last week, fourteen sold for a total of $348.10 with a sell-through rate of 78%. Included in the $348.10 of the duplicate of History Of Olga ND & Sacred Heart Church which was sold to the under bidder via a second chance offer. In addition, seven books sold on Amazon for a total of $174.30.

The highlight of this weeks sales was a Twin City typewriter ribbon tin that I paid $13.50 for at a small antique mall that sold for $331.62. While it doesn’t qualify for the Challenge because I’m only using items purchased at garage sales, thrift shops, and auctions, it does show there is still a market for hard to find tins in nice condition.

Here’s how things look after the fifth week of the Challenge:

As the table shows, I don’t have any auctions running this week. I’m leaving on Saturday for a week of walleye fishing in Canada so won’t be home next weekend when they would normally end.

I did purchase several Challenge items last week. These items, along with anything I buy between now and Friday will be scheduled to launch on June 8 and end on June 15 after I get back from Canada.

Photograph by emdot.

Popularity: 40% [?]

The first month of the 2008 Garage Sale Challenge is complete and sales have been respectable considering the garage sale season doesn’t pick up a full head of steam until June.

Here’s a list of the top 10 best selling items from the Challenge. Hopefully the list will give readers some idea of the kind of things that can be found at garage sales and thrift stores that sell well on eBay.

1. A University Of North Dakota School Of Mines Vase by Julia Mattson - $202.50 - 380026946104

2. A University Of North Dakota School Of Mines Vase by Flora Huckfield - $177.50 - 280226328140

3. A battery operated Polaris Mustang snowmobile in it’s original box - $108.15 - 280228701737

4. Lenci Clothes Book - $94.87 - 280228702064

5. A University Of North Dakota School Of Mines vase by Julia Mattson - $69.95 - 280226328046
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Popularity: 42% [?]

If you regularly shop at garage or yard sales for antiques and collectibles to sell on eBay you know there are plenty of days when you go home empty-handed. However, if you are willing to take a little more time at each sale, you may be surprised what you can find that will make a “day-without-antiques” profitable.

Here are ten things that regularly show up at garage sales that will pay for your gas and make you a nice profit when sold on eBay.

1. Adult Halloween or Holiday costumes. That big pirate, Easter Bunny, or Minnie Mouse costume that no one else is paying any attention to can easily bring $50 or more when listed on eBay.

2. Current college textbooks. It’s amazing how many of today’s college students will pay $125 for a text book and then put it in a garage sale at the end of the school year for two or three dollars. If you live near a college or university campus watch for these. Most any textbook with a copyright date of either the current or the previous year will bring $30 or more on eBay. Just hold onto them and list them in August before the school year starts.
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Popularity: 47% [?]

Monday evening saw the end of the auctions for the items purchased during the third week of The 2008 Garage Sale Challenge.

This week saw eighteen items sell for a total of $589.03 with a rather disappointing sell-through rate of only 56%. However, eight of the thirty-two items listed last week were re-lists and if I subtract those the sell-through rate for the new items was 71% which is more in line with where I hope to be consistently. In addition, nine books sold on Amazon for a total of $298.12.

The most disappointing item this week was the Fisher Price Toy Wagon pull-toy which brought only $27.99. I’d felt that, as a minimum, this would have ended somewhere between $50 and $75.

Over the course of the week, I received several emails from interested buyers concerning the postage for this item along with one of the other listings that make me wonder if buyers are suddenly paying a lot more attention to what actual shipping costs are for things they are considering bidding on. I’ll be writing a post about this, and how it may affect sellers, tomorrow.

Here’s how things look after then end of the fourth week of the Challenge:

Popularity: 41% [?]

The auctions for the items purchased during the second week of The 2008 Garage Sale Challenge ended Sunday evening with much better results than the previous week.

Of the thirty items listed, 26 sold for $923.70 with a sell-through rate of 87%. In addition there were sales of $247.40 through Amazon for books purchased as part of the Challenge. The total qualifying sales came to $$1171.10.

Buy far the best sellers for the week were the three pieces of UND School Of Mines pottery and thirteen VHS tapes about the Iditarod sled dog race held each year in Alaska. The results from these VHS tapes were surprising to me. I’d originally bought them thinking they would all go into one lot. Then when I got home a did a little checking I decided it would likely be more profitable to list them individually, but my expectations were nowhere near what they ended up bringing.

After the second week of the Challenge, here’s how things stand.

Popularity: 45% [?]

Intentionally or not, eBay is providing a window into how your feedback percentage may change once their new Feedback 2.0 is rolled out in the US.

Feedback 2.0 has recently been launched in Australia. You can see how what changes may be in store for your feedback percentage by using eBay Australia. Here’s how to check.

Go to eBay Australia. Using the “Advanced Search” link in the upper right hand corner, do a search for “Items By Seller” inputing your eBay ID. Click your feedback rating at the top of the resulting page, and you will be able to see what your feedback percentage would be today under the new Feedback 2.0.

Under the system currently used in the US, my percentage is 99.9%. Under Feedback 2.0 it drops to 99.7%. Not a huge difference, but there are reports of some seller’s percentages dropping by as much as 2-3%.

As might be expected, as this becomes wider known, most of what you hear about this is going to be negative. However, it’s important to realize that for every seller who sees a decrease in their feedback percentage there will likely be another seller who sees an increase in theirs.

Kudos to Randy Smythe of My Blog Utopia for the heads up on this.

Photograph by absolutwade.

Popularity: 48% [?]

William W. Johnstone is the author of well over 150 mass market paperback book for men. As is often the case with mass market paperbacks, most of Mr. Johnstone’s individual titles don’t have stellar sales records on eBay. However, he does have a growing number of faithful readers and there’s a way you can take advantage of this.

The majority of William W. Johnstone’s titles are part of one of seven or eight different series he has written. These series range in size from three or four books up to more than thirty books. It’s these series that can provide you with nice profits when sold on eBay.

The secret to profitably selling William Johnstone books on eBay is to buy and sell them in lots within each series. For the purpose of this article, we will look at his six most popular series and one fiction genre his works is also popular in.

The First Mountain Man series consists of 14 different titles. A lot including all fourteen titles will usually bring somewhere between $50 and $100 on eBay. Smaller lots made up of between 6 to 10 titles usually also sell, but only in the $15 to $20 range.
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Popularity: 56% [?]

The first weekend of the Garage Sale Challenge is over. I visited a total of 45 garage sales and one Friends Of The Library book sale between Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Maybe it was just my imagination, but an awful lot of the sales seemed to be almost entirely infant and baby clothing.

While I bought a few things, none of them were spectacular finds. Mostly pretty humdrum stuff.

Here’s what my expenses look like for this first week.

The following items will go live on eBay starting Sunday evening and run for seven days:

• 31 Elizabeth Hiddleson crochet pattern booklets - I paid $.10 each for these
• A boxed set of 6 Transformers Find Your Fate Juniors books - I paid $1.00 for this
• A boxed set of Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty Novels - I paid $3.00 for these at the FOL sale. They are paperbacks which should have been $.50 each, but when I checked out the lady behind the table, who had to be at least 65, said, “I’m going to have to charge you $3.00 for these. They’re kind of nasty you know.” I asked if she had read them and she just got a big grin on her face.
• Faery Wicca books I & II - I paid $1.00 and probably should have walked away and left them on the table
• Boxed sets of the first and second season of The Sopranos TV series - I paid $6.00 thinking they had to be worth buying due to the popularity of the show. Was I ever mistaken. Being VHS doesn’t help either. I’ll be happy to get the opening bid for them
• Designing Tessellations quilting book - I paid $1.00 for this
• Uncommon Heroes & Behind The Scenes - two books about the 1997 flood here in Grand Forks. I paid $.50 each for them. Although I listed them in auction format, I’ll probably have to put them in my store and wait for someone to come along who is interested in them
• 4 Pyrex Nesting Cinderella bowls - I paid $1.00 for them. Definitely not the most popular colors or pattern, but I hadn’t bought much that day, so I succumbed
• The History Of Grand Forks County - I paid $.25 for this
• The first season of Brothers And Sisters TV series on DVD - I paid $5.00 for this
• 2 large talking Teletubbies - I paid $1.00 each for them
• 8 Haviland Pompadour floral dinner plates - I paid $3.00 for all 8 of them

In addition, the following books were purchased and put on Amazon:

• Introduction To Maternity & Pediatric Nursing textbook - paid $1.00
• The Second World War by Winston Churchill - a boxed set of soft covers - I paid $5.00
• Secrets Of A Jewish Baker cookbook - I paid $.50
• John Hopkins White Papers, 2006 Vol. I - I paid $1.00
• Effective Appellate Advocacy - I paid $.50
• The Ancient & Shining Ones - I paid $.50
• Gilbert Law Summaries - I paid $.50.

Popularity: 15% [?]