Yard, Garage, Estate sales and Ebay

Well since we won't be traveling due to all the obstacles I decided to price up some items for sale in my antique booths and get some items on Ebay for sale. A lot of times when my wife and I travel I'm hunting in thrift stores and stopping at yard and garage sales looking for "treasure" to sell. Sometimes "saleing" can turn an otherwise lackluster day into an exciting and profitable one. I can't tell you how many times I have actually paid for the cost of an out of town trip with items I've bought on the trip and then selling them either on ebay or at my antique booths. At the very least I pay for the gas.

I have been a mail-order stamp dealer for 35 years now and that still accounts for the bulk of my collectibles sales but over the past 6-7 years I have been adding more to my income from sales of items I've picked up from yard, garage and estate sales or the local Goodwill and thrift shops. Stamp dealing is my true area of expertise but as a general rule you don't buy stamps for resale in your own home town. I have to buy most of my stamp inventory from auction houses or wholesalers in New York, Chicago and other major cities. When it comes to antiques and collectibles you don't have to go any further then within a mile of your own house many times and there's the added bonus of getting out and socializing with the seller and other buyers looking for a bargain. Since I'm buying for resale my motive of course is different than the average yard saler but it doesn't change the excitement of the hunt.

I first started yard saleing at the request of my wife who wanted the company and I figured, "sure, I'll maybe find some tools I can use". And that was my main goal as I chauffeured my wife around the area and dug through boxes dragged out filled with God knows what in the homes and yards of strangers. I really can't remember when it dawned on me that some of this "junk" for sale could be possible money makers. I have long been a collector of art pottery from the early 20's-50's, especially Hull Art Pottery which I always hunted for in antique stores when we traveled and decided I would broaden my search at sales from the garage to household and kitchen items. I didn't find much Hull pottery but was finding items from other manufacturers and items made by Wedgwood, Waterford, and other names that sounded familiar that I knew were not cheap when originally sold.

Since I had been selling stamps on Ebay for a couple of years with a good deal of success I decided to take a shot at selling some garage sale purchases also on Ebay. To sell stamps I used a scanner to generate pictures of the stamps I had for sale. However you can't scan a 3 dimensional item like a set of dishes or lamp or sterling silver item. You needed a digital camera to get pictures to sell items like that on Ebay. Now back in the late 90's digital cameras were far from cheap and many listings on Ebay didn't even have pictures for the items for sale. Since I figured I could use a digital camera for other business purposes I bought a Sony Mavica for the low price of $495 to take pics for my ebay items. The mavica was a very handy camera for my needs since it stored the pic files on a floppy disk you could just pop out of the camera and into the computer and upload you picture for your listing. Having pictures for your listing was a big advantage over other sellers because it removed a lot of the mystery for the buyer as to what they were bidding on since depending on just a description was a risky situation. Well before very long I found myself selling $500 or more a month of garage sale items that I may have paid a total of $50 or less. This was getting exciting to say the least and I was definitely hooked on yard sale hunting as a money making "hobby".

TO BE CONTINUED.....................................