eBay, collectors, flea marketing, antiques -- any interest?

I'm yearning for a continuing thread on eBay buying and selling, collecting of any kind, flea marketing, antiques and antiquing, and all that fascinating stuff.

I know there are many eBay sellers and buyers on DU.

I KNOW there are many who treasure hunt at thrift shops, flea markets, garage sales, rummage sales, second hand stores, estate sales, etc., and who love to share stories of their cool finds.

And I know there are many who would like to discuss their collections

I know you're out there. If ten DUers want a permanent thread on this topic over in the personal interests forum, we can get one! If you're interested, please say so here.

Do you collect something?

I love flea markets, garage sales and thrift stores. Best place to find cast iron skillets books you wanted way back when but didn't pick up, I have found lots of cheap clothing at thrift stores.

I don't buy so much anymore because I'm trying not to collect stuff, if you know what Imean, but I love to waste time in these places. :-)

....(I have 12,000 pieces of sheet music in my basement)...but dammit, the itch is irresistable!

I don't have a good weekend if I haven't been treasure hunting.

God help me if I move-
The things weigh a ton, but damn they sound good.
I'm an audiophile- down with digital.
Analogue is king.
BHN

I have some vinyl, too. I've been looking for a long time for just the right player.

Ebay has some great listings right now...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130142385196&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1
Enjoy!
BHN

as soon as I can get that new USB turntable to rip my vinyl to mp3s.

I've got an Aiwa stereo w/ turntable and double cassette recording deck. I bought it in 1987 so I could listen to Billy Joel on SNL on stereo. lol. Funny how your tastes change over the years. :-)

you can get a cable and go from the tuner to your computer. I've done it from a 50-year-old reel-to-reel tape player!

But the USB turntable sounds really cool!

it's a total piece of junk.

It's not that I think the Awia isn't a good system, I just am running out of room for the number of toys I can have.

I also wouldn't buy a turntable on eBay unless it was from a dealer with excellent feedback in regards to shipping turntables properly. A friend of mine purchased a nice used Thorens on eBay for just under $300.00. That was a good deal until it arrived. It was improperly packed, the platter came off, and the tonearm was bent. Took him forever to get his money back. I've worked on hundreds of turntables over the past 35 years and believe me, be very, very careful buying used turntables from auction sites. If you don't know what your doing or have a friend that does, your best bet is to buy a new one from an authorized dealer. Decent ones vary in price from $300.00 to several thousand dollars and come from manufacturers such as Rega, Thorens, VPI, Music Hall, Linn, Technics (certain models only), Sumiko Project, and a few others.

If you're looking for something dirt-cheap, you can sometimes found great deals at yard sales, flea markets, pawn shops, estate sales, Goodwill stores, etc.. In many cases all these tables need are proper setup and a new phono cartridge. You can buy new cartridges from Audio Technica or Grado on the internet for as little as $39.95. They need to be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and possess the proper tools, alignment gauges, and stylus pressure gauge.

I love snooping around the local thrifts and flea markets in search of cast iron skillets. I've got enough to cook for an army now! But you're right, the old cast iron is the best.

Those are also good places to find air popcorn poppers - perfect for roasting coffee.

Those are also good places to find air popcorn poppers - perfect for roasting coffee.


I admit I never thought about it. How do you do that? How does it work?

Sounds crazy and cool.

Here's a quick description:

http://coffeetea.about.com/library/weekly/aa031903popcorn.htm

I look for either the Poppery or Poppery II models to roast coffee with, and I've found both easily at thrift stores - usually about three or four dollars for a Poppery II, a couple of dollars more for a Poppery.

The only thing I'd add from the instructions above is to roast in a well-ventilated area - coffee oils smoke and it'll smoke ya out if you don't roast under an oven hood or next to a fan venting outside.

The link also doesn't mention that you should store your beans in an airtight container for a day or two - they need to degas before you grind them for the best flavor.

You can find green coffee beans at http://www.sweetmarias.com

For about half of what you pay for crappy Starbucks you can roast your own and it's much, much fresher and tastes amazing.

That sounds so easy to do!

And I even saw that my fav variety green is basically 1/2 the cost of the roasted version. :thumbsup:

edit: If you don't mind, I'm going to post the coffee roasting info in Cooking and Baking. They love DIY kitchen projects. :-)

my coffee plant sometimes produces a handful of beans. Next time I get a crop, I could try to do it myself. Cool.

...but there wasn't enough interest at the time. Maybe time to try again?

I always wished there would be an antiques and collectables channel on television, too. There must be as many people interested in that as are interested in cooking!

in their homes!

...do you mean dumpster diving? <joke>

I like rummaging in their homes if there's an estate sale. Wheeee!

but I don't have any room left on my favorite forums list. :(

I'd love to have that type of forum!
BHN:thumbsup: :hi:

Thanks!

I am an antique nut. I have a fairly good amount of antique furniture, lots of
carnival glass, depression glass, and date-lined art-deco glass. I have bought and
sold on ebay for years. I go to estate sales and auctions on a regular basis.

Wish my house was bigger!!!

That's what I love about this. I learn new things all the time.

A great deal of it is considered 'art glass' by companies
like Walther, Bagley, Sowerby, etc.

through a third party.
Just go to eBay stores and type in "Three Sisters Web Sales". Thank you.

I started collecting art glass jewelry- thankfully it
doesn't take up much space...yet.
LOL
BHN

Usually come by regular mail.
My son and husband buy big items usually shippped by UPS.

I think they are a 'diamond cut', with a 'pineapple' band around the top. They are all glass, including the screw on tops and threads...

Thanks for any info,

Ghost

the pattern looks like early (boston)sandwich glass but, I have a 1920's
era sugar dispenser with a glass screw on lid. I tend to gravitate
towards the vaseline editions of whichever pieces I get.
If you have a flourescent black light, put it under it. If it
glows grainy yellow it is flint glass. If it glows brilliant
yellow or green, it is vaseline. Usually the flint is older.
Also check for mold lines, if they do not run the length of the
piece, it means it has been fire polished and would be classified
as elegant glass. The more mold lines sometimes are an indication
of age.

I didn't see any mold lines on them, like some of the other pieces I have. I'll have to look for a blacklight sometime this week.

I even sent a pic of them to replacements.com , and they didn't know what they were. ALl I know is that they are some old salt & pepper shakers...

I am inclined to think it is elegant glass. Possibly Heisey or Cambridge.
Cambridge made some lines in the late 1800's.

at an auction site:


They are really pretty.

http://www.rubylane.com/shops/theporcelainkingdom/item/GLS-1755

I'm still trying to find out more about these, at least enough to know what they are....

Last year I bought a pink depression glass butter dish with a lid for $20 on ebay.... turns out it's worth $450 the last time I checked..

i'm living in a two-bedroomm apartment with several hundred African violet plants. It's a bit crowded ... :7

I love to go to all the places you mentioned. I get some great deal and now that the kids are finally moving out I have extra room to put my 'collections'. Years ago my dad came over, looked at my newest find, and said "I worked 40 years so I could get rid of stuff like that".

That's the fun of it. My former in-laws wanted nothing to do with antiques, as it reminded them of poor days on the farm. They wanted all new stuff, and refused Grandma's marble-topped dresser and all the things an elderly farm couple would have.

I'm sure many people do not appreciate the whole "shabby" or "cottage" trend. And now those styles are going out of fashion again.

I'll keep kicking periodically if needed.

Tell mw where I can browse for them and I'll go there.

It scans all of the online sites.

It is: www.bookfinder.com

:thumbsup:

:kick:

..http://www.abebooks.com

go via the ebates.com link and you'll get an extra 5 or 6% back. They actually mail you a check every 3 mos. if over $5.00 is owed.

www.ebates.com is where you go to join up.

www.bookfinder.com shows abebooks.com results too btw

:thumbsup:

as opposed to what I'm not finding at the dry hole thrift shops in this area.

Having spent several summers haunting auctions in Deerfield, Amherst and other parts of Western Mass, I came to adore them. I could make a fortune if I lived near them. Aren't there some near you? And isn't there a well-regarded flea market in Ware or somewhere close to that? Or maybe you are way up north -- too far away?

bidding has gone through the roof. You can still find great stuff if you're willing to pay a retail price. For local resale, however, it became impossible to compete with dealers who come up from New York and Boston for goodies to take back and make a bundle on. They often bid more than the price I could sell things for locally or on ebay. The flea market tends to be overpriced, too, and very junky. I do have the occasional bit of good luck at yard sales or church bazaars. Today I found a late 1800's Native American photograph by a fairly well known photographer. I guess I was kvetching about thrift shops because around here it appears the employees buy all the good stuff before it hits the sales floor. (In 1998 I spent $5,000 over the course of a year at one of the thrift shops - last year I spent $200.)

Thanks!

:kick:

Hubby and I occasionally buy rental storage units. At times it makes me feel bad, but someone is going to buy them, so the guilt isn't quite so strong anymore. We also take the personal items back to the owner of the units, if the renter comes back looking for them. Quite often they are never heard from again.

Two weeks ago, we purchased one and I just finished two auctions for a Hudson Bay blanket and an Early's Whitney blanket for the cost of the storage unit.

I love buying and selling on eBay and think a new forum would be a great idea.

Why not just join an ebay group?

I'm a collector, myself, but I don't see the point of talking about my cool stuff here.

the format/layout of this website is so easy and wonderful to communicate on)

I collect marbles...yes, marbles.....anyone have any old marbles they want to unload?

I buy lots of stuff on EBay and would be interested in a forum. :-)

occasionally other things

count me in

If the seller says "hasn't been tested" that usually translates to "I'm looking for a sucker to unload some junk on".


And count me in on an E-bay group.

I've inherited three collections. The ones that interest me the most are the metal soldiers and cars and my collection of movie posters. I also have about 100 different Radio City Advertising "Cards" that were posted in the NY Subways. I haven't seen them anywhere else and I've never seen them on E -Bay. They arent' the size of your typical Lobby Card as they were made to fit into the frames in the subway cars.

...how Debbie Reynolds' character is publicized through the subway show cards? Is that what you are talking about?

Alas --no Singing in the Rain though. I have mostly films from the early/mid 60's

I want to learn more about selling on ebay. I know there are lots of things to know before actually selling something, and I need to learn them. :thumbsup:

I collect diecast cars, mostly Nascar diecast. I also collect knights on horseback like this.

I used to collect 1/64. I have 400-500.

At the moment I have 1,300 like this these.

I've got some unique collectibles that I picked up at garage sales...I want to figure out how to sell them.

...that those wishing to have a new personal interest thread must agree on a mission statement for that thread. Here's my suggestion, and I hope you will all chip in with your thoughts:

The mission of the eBay, collectors, flea market, antiques thread is to allow DU members to coach those who wish to engage in the trade of selling, offer knowledge in the art of buying, celebrate lucky finds, tell the stories about the "one that got away" and, most importantly, offer some hope to those looking for an alternate source of income in this age of outsourcing and lost opportunities.

mostly designs for various products that I've done for the company over the past 18 years, but some stuff from the films as well. I make enough for my house payment every month, so that's not bad. Plus, I've met some really nice people while doing it.

As for myself, I collect old illustrated books (1600-1930).

I was fortunate to obtain a couple of boxes of books that had been in a gr gr aunt's estate in Connecticut, and the home had been in the same family since the early 1700s. Some of the childrens little religious books were 18th century, and I sure have enjoyed studying them.

Perhaps when we get our permanent thread you could post some pics for us.

i'm hopelessly addicted to African violets on Ebay! (One plant recently went for almost $300, no I didn't buy it but bidding can get pretty crazy for rare plants).

I recently bought a 15" fossil ammonite from the Cretaceous! Only on Ebay! :D

I had no idea. African violets on eBay. I need to get out of my rut on eBay and browse around more.

There are a wide range of products, from blooming plants to plantlets. Watch out for Afr. violet chimeras tho', don't buy unless the plants have bloomed true.

...to buy for someone as a Christmas gift. I learned a lot. Hadn't known previously that orchids were so altered by growers. Is that what you mean? Are they cloned?

go to avsa.org and click on photographs. It will blow you away. African violet collectors can get a bit crazy (LOL! Iike me).

Most varieties descended from a species called Saintpaulia ionatha. There are other Saintpaulia species as well, which are also sold as African Violets-- they're pretty cool.

Most African violets on Ebay are not cloned because it's so easy to propagate them from leaves or suckers. Some special ones, the chimeras, that have a characteristic pinwheel shape, can only be propagated from suckers, and even that's not a guarantee that they'll have the same bloom as the parent plant.

PM me if you have questions. :)

I sell on Ebay for a living. Mostly designer & vintage women's clothing that I find in thrift stores. I'd love to exchange ideas with other sellers and share some of my experiences.


K & R!

Long time ebayer. Concentrate mostly on Japanese, Chinese and South East Asian antique ceramics, stoneware and porcelain.

I've always admired folks who sell heavy and breakable stuff. I see them in line at the post office with hand trucks and lotsa boxes.

I've bought quite a lot of stuff off of Ebay.

I collect old/rare books, artwork, music, coins, and a lot of other things.

Actually, I should be selling on eBay right now. My shelves are packed full and I'm about out of space!

Yikes!

:kick: & recommend!

I buy and sell on ebay. Also, I have a b&m shop for antiques and books...is that going to make me flame bait? "Honest antique dealer" is NOT an oxymoron!!! LOL