Blog

Pretty hand made things usually have some resale value

Not much of a sale and I could have held out for more but sometimes the need to move items in a hurry comes at a cost

I think everyone knows by now that old advertising stuff like this has been in big demand for some time now and is fairly hard to find and no one wants to give it up. I was asking 2k for this piece knowing I would have to come down some but no one told me my price was crazy either and some rare pieces you can name your own price.

Finding 100 year old Christmas cards is more common than you might think but old Halloween stuff is super rare and highly collectible!

Viewers know I don't really deal with much clothing. However, true period CASUAL stuff like this is nearly impossible to find. Think about it - who saved home made tye dye t-shirts from over 50 years ago? I found these wadded up in the attic with some old stuffed animals and while most people would have just thrown them out - I knew the potential. Right away several people were asking to buy them but letting them fight over them via auction got us a really nice price. 

I knew right away when I saw it that someone would pay up for it. I took it off the wall where it had been hanging since 1964. It was so ugly that it just had to be worth money and I've been seeing peacock stuff back in style lately in the modern catalogs. Shipping it was a chore but it found a new home pretty quick.

Another attic find - this chair looked like it was hardly used. You know I love this period and it didn't take long to find it a good home for a solid $100 sale

This was a really unassuming item and I was surprised to learn that it had strong potential value. Sometimes I see obscure items like this have previously sold for a high price so I fish hoping to get a similar price for mine. Last year eBay developed a new tool that allows sellers like me to see when a potential buyer 'watches' a given item and send that person an unsolicited discounted offer to buy it. I do this almost on a daily bases and about 15% of the people take it and this person was a taker! Loving it

This was so old it had to be worth at least $200. I just had to gut shot the value and I got one taker. Great history!

We've been short staffed since the quarantine in April this year and let me just admit that I am exhausted and some days my work has been sloppy. People on eBay want to see what they're getting and my mistake with this lot was showing the bags full of marbles and not explaining that I dumped them in the other photos. This was actually three separate lots that came in over the course of a few weeks and I had already tried selling one lot with no takers so I sort of hodge-podged the listing to include them all together.

Let me just say that sometimes people go nuts over silly cat and dog figurines. This was not a Lladro or Herend or any high end brand so this sale was a total shock as I would have taken thirty bucks for this thing, We've learned that it really pays to auction unusual pieces like this and I'll tell you my secret that figuring out and naming the species can sometimes really help.

Construction photos like this would be a blessing to any museum or historical society but sadly those places usually don't have money to purchase these things so I can only hope whoever buys they will share them down the road....

Regular viewers may recall I sold a green one of these a few months ago. This was a brand new oven range from like 50 years ago. It took about a year to sell which by all reasoning is too long for most items but I do like selling stuff from this period and you'd be surprised how many homes I visit that still have the original appliances so it's no surprise I was able to sell a second one.

Original art can do well, even if it's in poor taste - Dogs playing poker anyone??

Some old paper ephemera can be extremely rare and therefore difficult to price. Sometimes I just have to guess what someone is willing to pay and I've gotten pretty good at it.

Old toys never fail

Figures like these were sometimes made into lamps, or planters but this one was neither. I'm wondering about the person who was looking for this and what made them buy it.... I could ask, but I won't

People sure do collect some obscure things. 

Love vintage lamps!

Love selling old toys!

Old clocks don't bring much money these days. Most of the time when I find them they are broken and the cost to fix them is usually more than they are worth. 

Often times when we clean out someone's estate, we find things that are still unopened in the original package - maybe it was a gift that never used or was a gift that never got given or an impulse post holiday purchase.

This item was in the original box and looked almost brand new. I love selling stuff from this time period!

Some old trophies can be big hitters. This took a really long time to sell but eventually it made a home run.

Old architectural items are usually of interest to collectors.