Our eBay Philosophy - Always evolving

MON 15

Two BIG, BIG!! mistakes in one auction:

I accepted that a piece from an estate was �white jade� and deduced that this meant nephrite jade which does come in this color. But a kind eBay�er who know stone said that this item looked suspicious and recommended a common test for jade that I had never heard of. Jade is harder than steel, so it cannot be scratched by a needle or sharp knife blade. Well this one scratched like butter. I pulled it out and found that it was alabaster.
I looked at the decoration on a soft stone incense burner and deduced from my 12 credits in Mezo-American history and archeology that it was a �quetzalcoatl� piece. I was close but off by about 12,000 miles, according to another eBay expert who felt certain that it was an oriental motif and the �feathered serpents� were in fact dragon heads and the howler monkey was a foo dog. I�m doing a lot more research on this one. Trying to be delicate, I am not sure how a foo dog would be posed in this traditional primate �presentation�, but I am going to spend more time on it.

Mar 28

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Random notes based on lessons learned the hard way - In no particular order

In more than ten years of buying and selling on eBay, one cannot help but get better as time goes on. So I must first apologize to all of my customers who could have got better service, better items, better communications or better shipping, if only I had known then what I know now. And in a year or so I will have to repeat this about my 2008 transactions. I choose to be guided by the wisdom of Albert Einstein:

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Flat Rate Box versus "right-sized" boxes

Like all wonderful ideas, the USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate boxesare a great boon to eBay shippers and customers, but they pose a dangerous temptation for misuse. For small but very heavy items (blocks of granite come to mind), these are wonderful. BUt it is too easy to try to cram in fragile items with too little packaging protection. I have caught myself lusting after the low fixed rate for glassware, but then realizing that if it's safely packed, it often doesn't weight enough to justify the "flat rate" fee schedule. Just recently I had that option. Six depression glass luncheon plates, all bubble-wrapped with cardboard spacers between each one would fit nicely in a "large" flat rate box. After some indecision, I arrived at the conclusion that double-boxing and bubble-wrap or peanuts between boxes was really the best way to prevent "impact damage" in case the box was dropped or had something dropped on it. So my new rule:

Flat Rate is the great rate whenever it involves things that are NOT fragile (here we are back to the blocks of granite again), but not when the contents are at all fragile.

Buying and Selling

I buy the things that I sell here at yard sales, barn sales, estate sales, flea markets, country auctions and sometimes at local antique shops. I have been an auction runner, ringman and auctioneer and served an apprenticeship under one of the great Vermont country auctioneers. From experience I can identify some things worthy of calling to your attention, and have a marked fondness for strange and unusual items which show up from time to time. I also have some idea of how much I can pay and still expect to make a profit. Interestingly, I will dicker some, but not as much as the stereotype might suggest. I am polite to people who believe that they should be paid the "catalog" value of common collectibles, or people who are trying hard to be clever by misrepresenting a piece or refusing to name a price for anything until I have made an offer. If you would like to be a "picker" (a buyer of antiques and collectibles), my best advice is to find someone who does this well and volunteer to drive, carry, pack and unpack and to listen quietly. There are some things that they just don't teach in books, and cannot be found with Google.

I calculate mark-ups and profits globally, not on individual items. I learned early on that if I don't lose money on some of the things I buy, I'm buying enough. If I insist on holding on to some things until I get "what they're really worth", I could tie up my limited capital and miss the opportunity to use the lesser amount to purchase other more profitable items. If a seller wants to sell a bunch of things, only some of which I really want, I find that it is often most wise to purchase everything offered at a fair price and bite your tongue while selling off the less attractive things. And I try to remember that I are not just buying things, I are also buying my own reputation. When I purchased a large lot of stamps priced $1.00 per group, I negotiated a lower price for the entire lot. But when I got home and went through the stamps with more care, I found one envelope filled with dozens of stamps, each worth far, far more than I paid for all of the stamps I had bought, it was clear that this envelope came from a different set of lots and had been moved into the "dollar box" unintentionally. I returned that lot to the seller. I passed up a few hundred dollars in profit, but over the years I was repeatedly offered first look at many other lots that made me thousands in profits. A reputation for strict honesty has opened many doors closed to others.

One parting thought. If you see a buyer trying to take advantage of eBay and PayPal with grossly inflated shipping costs or offering less than legal items with &clever& listings, be skeptical. Some of my favorites:

this $6.00 bottle of wine is sold only for the collector of round green bottles
This $300 hard drive is used and just happens to have my complete collection of every Star Trek episode of every series and every movie. I will erase the drive upon request
This dagger with a swastika, skull and two lightning bolts was probably made by a local indian tribe because the swastika was an Indian "good luck" symbol

So Here's rule #2:

People who take advantage of others are likely to take advantage of you as well !!!

Packing is an Artform

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