Why I Love Selling Antiques and Collectibles

The thing that keeps me going with this online selling stuff, is the thrill of the hunt! There are so many interesting and unusual things out there to learn about, I can never get enough! Here's my newest discovery, Sang de Boeuf Pottery. I found these beautiful pottery pieces at a local estate auction. What made me bid on them was this auction was filled with some pretty nice Oriental antiques and furniture so I guess I assumed these were also good quality pieces and they had the feel. Remember my last post talking about that gut feeling? Yeah that one is what I went on with these! Well it turns out the Sang de Boeuf glaze was used by the Chinese starting back in the 16th Century during the Ming Dynasty, quite fascinating how this extremely difficult technique using copper and iron oxides was hidden from the Europeans until the late 19th century.

What is hard to see in the pictures is the true color, they don't call it oxblood red for nothin'! And there are small flecks of a purplish blue that seems to pool up by the edges... oh and speaking of pooling, at the base the glaze thickens and settles in what looks like a pool of blood as well.




On these pieces I acquired, one of them has some Chinese symbols inside the lid, if only I had an interpreter! It's not like I can just put it in an online translator! LOL! So if you know Chinese and can help me out here I would love it!



I'm always fascinated by what the history of an antique piece could be. What do you think these were used for? Food storage? Spices? Hide gold or silver coins? And to think who in history may have held these pieces, I mean we're talking a couple hundred years of history! When did these make it to the United States? Were they someone's prized treasures or just utility vessels for a wealthy family? So many questions!

I do have these currently listed for sale online if you'd like to take a look at more photos

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360270286996

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220618618172

Go With Your Gut aka Product Sourcing the Fun Way

Something I've learned over my nearly 12 years selling online, go with your gut! When I am out and about shopping I don't even have one of those new fangled phones to check if something is going to be a good seller or not, and yes often I get some duds BUT many times I hit a good one meerly by listening to that little voice in my head that says.... hmmmmm that looks interesting.

Someone once told me if you are not losing money on 10% of what you buy for resale you aren't buying aggressively enough to hit the big one! And this has worked well for me over the years. now you need to stick with something you know at least a little about, enough to be dangerous so they say. For me I tend to veer towards glass and pottery, mostly because I'm fascinated by all the different styles, types and forms.

Most glass is unmarked and you just have to get a sense of what is good glass and what isn't, best way is to handle as many pieces as you can! Go to antique shops and other places where you can handle quality glass that is already identified, soak it in... then when you are out shopping for resale pieces you can start getting a feel for what might be a good piece.

Same goes with pottery, good pottery just has a feel about it. I'll give you my latest example and success story. I picked up this interesting wall pocket at a local thrift store, why? It was different, and not knowing a thing about it I knew for the price I could even sell it as a contemporary decorator piece so home it came with me. I then deciphered the name on the back, Richenda Stevick 1935. Hmmmm.... wasn't much on a google search except for some information about a piece someone was selling back in 2002! They called it CA Faience, so I did a bit more research and came up with a good enough description to list it on Ebay. The fun part is Ebay was having a listing sale so I started it at $79.95 why not? I immediately got the opening bid!! Wow! I would have been pleasantly surprised right then! It sat with a few watchers all week and ended at $191.34!! Can we say I did a little happy dance?

So moral of the story... take a chance if something speaks to you! Is it unusual? Weird? Seems to be one of a kind? Go for it if the price is right (my rule of thumb under $10 for the unknowns). Now go find that treasure!

What are Your Thoughts on Speed of Shipping?

There has been a recent discussion on Facebook about the speed in which sellers in the e-commerce world are expected to get things shipped. It seems the single person do-it-all business is supposed to work as instantaneously as the big multi-employee business who has a shipping department where that is all they do!

Now don't get me wrong, I think shipping should be timely, and I myself ship almost instantaneously when something is purchased and paid for, but there have been times where this wasn't possible, and my stated policy is 2 days handling to allow for such things that come up from time to time.

So is this stated handling time hurting sales? Do people really look at this before they purchase or only after the fact when they are leaving stars on eBay? Personally I think if I get the item in a timely fashion that's what matters, within a 5 day window works for me if I have paid for Priority rate.

Is it even fair of a customer who takes a week to pay, to then expect instant shipping turn around time? EBay still lets them rate me on how quickly I ship no matter how slowly they paid. I don't know about you, but I am a mom of two small children, one of which is autistic. I do the laundry and dishes for our family of four, I handle all of life's little emergencies around here and run the household while my husband works. I manage my time as well as I can, but most buyers don't realize what goes into selling online.

First there has to be time to go find the merchandise. In my particular field that means scouting thrift stores, yard sales, auctions and wherever else treasures may be lurking. This takes usually about 10 hours minimum of my week. Then the items have to be cleaned up, photographed, the photographs have to be cropped and re sized as needed, the listing needs to be written up and launched. Oh and sometimes some pretty extensive research goes into my items as well. So you can see even before an item is sold there are many hours of work involved.

So the item sells, I am usually prepared for the closings and ready to ship the items paid for promptly, they go right out! But then come the stragglers. So keep in mind in order to ship those items quickly I have to stop the process of what I'm doing getting ready for the next batch of merchandise - so I think it's pretty fair to say shipping within 2 days is reasonable... don't you?

What are your expectations when shopping on the web, particularly EBay?

A Lesson Learned

I still tend to be one of those people who believes in doing business on a handshake and that someone is trustworthy until they prove otherwise. It does get me in trouble at times but therein lies my dilemma. Do I become suspicious and untrusting every time I have to deal with someone? Nope I just won't, it's not in me! But here's my latest in needing to be a little smarter in dealings on the internet.

I'll back up a little bit, Raja is my children's St Bernard, mainly for Noah who is autistic and needs someone to roughhouse with a bit. We acquired Raja from a lady we lived near in Tucson, AZ, she loved him but she was riddled with guilt as she worked away from home for long hours leaving Raja alone all day. She was so pleased when we got Raja and we stayed in touch and passed pictures and stories. When the time came for me to make a move to Reno, NV, it was diffficult finding transportation for him. Planes no longer allow animals checked as baggage, not that I would even have wanted that! And most transports wanted $1000 or more which just wasn't possible. I was turned on to an organization called Pilots N Paws and put out my request.

A man named Sam contacted me that he would be able to fly Raja up in his private plane, originally the date was a week before I was leaving but he said no problem I can keep him until you get there. This sounded like a dream come true! I kept insisting he take some payment and it was refused, he stated he was a volunteer and this is what he did. So plans went forward, then he emails that his travel was pushed to the week after I was due to leave, so I contacted Raja's previous owner and she was thrilled to be able to babysit him for me.... for a week.

I flew up to Reno as scheduled on April 24th leaving Raja in capable hands. Sam and I emailed back and forth trying to line up a new date... his plans kept changing but didn't seem like any worries as Raja was fine at his former owner's home. Then things started getting a bit more serious, Raja's babysitter was leaving on vacation! So I pressed Sam who agreed to go pick Raja up and keep him until the time came to come up to me. I was told June 1st and if not then the 17th at the very latest. I was becoming concerned as after all this is my son's therapy dog! Noah has cried himself to sleep missing his dog, and a day doesn't go by that he doesn't inquire if Raja is coming today... it's heart breaking to a mom! As I pressed Sam I kept hearing how much he was enjoying having Raja and that he was living it up and I needed to just shut up... the tone had turned!

I started investigating other options for getting Raja up here... I recommend anyone with anything of size to ship go through http://www.uship.com/ ! I found a kind soul there who for $200 would bring Raja to me so I contacted Sam with this information, he would not return my calls or my emails. I discovered the address he had given me was that of a gas station, so now I'm a bit panic stricken! I contacted the sherriff's department of Pima County, AZ, they were less than thrilled to take the report or help out at all, but did say they would contact him (apparently he showed up in their computers). In the meantime I let him know via email I had contacted the police, this got a response! He emailed back telling me how neglected and abused the dog was and that he was contacting the ASPCA and I would not get my dog back! I played a little hostage negotiator and emailed him back pleading a bit to remember I had not had the dog for over a month and to contact my veterinarian to check on Raja's condition before I left... he took the bait! Little did he know my vet was also a good friend and her husband is a police officer!

I'm not sure what she told him when he called but next thing I know the transporter is telling me a meeting is set up for 7pm to get Raja!

As you can imagine my heart is skipping beats by this time... 7:30 I got the call, Raja is safely in the possession of the transporter and will be on his way here shortly! My mom got to see Raja before he left and says he looks fine and is happy... I broke the news to the kids, probably not a good thing to do at bedtime! They were so excited it took a couple hours to bring them down.

So here I sit knowing Raja is on the road heading this way back to his family, his boy! And the lesson learned in all of this, know who you are dealing with! Things I should have done, get confirmed information on who this person was, verify address, and get him to sign some form of contract when he took possession of the dog stating what the terms were. At the very least this would have made it easier for the police to intervene had he not given Raja back.

So this is also why my post is late, a day of pure torturous stress consumed everything! but back on track and I will catch up with yet another post later tonight!!

It's Been One of Those Days!

So I thought I would go get these root canals, be a little sore, then off and running life as usual right? Oh noooooo..... My face is back to be swelled up like a chipmunk storing a winter's worth of nuts!

So I call and get told how oh yeah we probably should have put you on antibiotics, we'll call something in... so back on yucky antibiotics for a week, and hoping they work really fast as to not ruin my weekend with a chipmunk cheek!

So as if that isn't bad enough I go to transfer some funds from one account to another and discover our account got hacked and someone has had a hay day charging up things with our money. Thankfully they weren't smart enough to wait until payday to do this and we didn't have too much in there... but geeze! The bank has frozen the account and we get to dispute all the charges which shouldn't be too terribly painful, but I sure want to catch whoever did this and have them taught a little lesson.

I may have done a major faux pais with a recent thrift shop purchase. I bought a whole big bag full of Polly Pocket toys and dolls, I am watching the kids play with them as we speak. I'm not sure what possessed me to look them up on Ebay but shoot shoot shoot they are big sellers!! How soon do you think a 3 and 5 year old will get tired of Polly Pocket toys? Am I wishful thinking? Evil mom? I mean could you take a toy away from these two?

Why I Sell What I Sell or Thoughts From the Dentist Chair

So little else to do while sitting there getting a double whammy root canal but think. Trying to distract my brain from the chilling grind of the drill, ache of the jaw being held open by the blue latex drape of doom.... I stare up at the fluorescent light fixtures... hmmm how does a bug get inside there anyway?

Oh yes... distraction.... where did it all begin? I won't go into the whole sordid take of my childhood except for the part of my favorite aunt who lived in Carpinteria, CA... just south of Santa Barbara. It was an escape I looked forward to each summer, 2 weeks spent with Aunty Lynn and Uncle Bob.

Aunty Lynn was a collector. The first collection I can remember was dolls, gorgeous antique dolls made of porcelain bisque. I didn't know then what I do now about them, they were just so awe inspiring for me back then with their lifelike skin color and pouty faces, and the clothes! I just loved the clothes those French fashion dolls wore. My aunt had some of the best, Bru, Jumeau, German made too... her entire room was FILLED with them! She got me started with some smaller versions of my own. My family always talked about how I would surely inherit that doll collection since Aunty Lynn had only one child who had no interest in them.

Then one summer they were gone...all gone! She had changed her passion to Native American artifacts like baskets, pottery and paintings. My Aunt was like that, yet she had a love of all things antique and shared that passion with me by taking me to local antique stores, and teaching me what things were. She also volunteered in a local thrift store and here are where some of my most cherished memories lie.

I can remember being so excited to go work at the thrift store. We would go in the employee entrance in the back... that always made me feel so special... and inside we would start going through the new donations, oh the great things we would find! I think I was fully ward robed from that thrift shop for many years... is why I am such an avid thrifter to this day.

In that store my Aunt would let me help run the cash register, this is where I learned my first customer service and retail skills. I cringe thinking how nowadays if the electricity went out and the calculator broke kids today would not know how to make change for a $20 bill!

So before this grows into a novel I will wrap it up saying.... finding my niche in antiques and collectibles came naturally, through the love of an Aunt who I think still goes with me to the thrift and antique stores, I miss her so much... lesson learned sell what you love and you will love selling and sharing that love with others.

Can She Do It? 30 Articles in 30 Days! the Challenge Begins!

So I have taken on the challenge of writing 30 blog posts in 30 days, I know the first few days I will be fine, but those of you who know me, know that after that it will be a challenge, I get sidetracked easily! But here goes!

I have been on this roller coaster known as e-commerce since 1998, that is a long time considering EBay was really in it's infancy back then. Do you all remember when you could list things to sell on EBay without pictures... and they would sell!! I do!

I also remember this as the time before digital cameras (we are so spoiled now) and I would take my pictures, go drop the film off to get developed, get the pics back and hope they were usable! Oh and then had to scan them to get them onto the computer and then... high tech eBay listings with pictures! woohoo!

I had a huge addiction to eBay back then, I bought and bought and bought - it was SO FUN!!! Selling was pretty fun also - remember when priority mail rates were the same no matter where in the country it was going? just went by weight.... ahhhhh the good ol' days.

So my challenge these days is to keep it fun, especially since my items are mostly impulse items and those a collector would buy if they didn't already have one. I am always trying to keep in mind what would entice me to buy this item, good photos, good price and good quality... GOOD STUFF!!