Got Me A Live One...

Gotta reel this baby in...lol. Of course, because I am selling for a friend I have to have a live one. She emailed me 8 minutes before the auction ended, and asked to have 5 days for payment. John had told me to "work my magic" and working my magic includes a willingness to wait 5 days for a higher payment so I agree.

3 minutes AFTER she won the auction:

 Hi again :D
I would like to ask you if you could take a closer photo of the ear with the green, just to see it more clearly :)
Only if u can...
sorry to bother :)

UGH. You ALREADY WON the item! But I take several nighttime pics, which I hate because either you've got dim incandescent lighting, or you've got bright flash glare and what you're trying to picture never looks right. She seems happy with the results, okay.

Today when I check to see who had paid:

Hi, sorry to bother you again i wanted to make you a question.
Does the doll have her original top knot and the final knot?
Thanks

WTF? I start typing "You already won this item, why are you asking questions about it now?" But quickly rethink it and type:

 "I am not the original owner, so I don't know for sure, but it looks original"

 There's always one nut in every bowl. This smacks of the Cabbage Patch nutjob I had a few months ago, I should have just never answered her. It's not worth the extra $3 in my opinion. I was just hoping she'd drive the bid up, and not win and I got burned for my strategy.

Still Truckin'

Until the next nutcase or 4 comes along.

Despite other peoples complaints about no traffic and no sales, I keep on trucking with the ebay sales. When one batch of crap runs out of steam, I change horses in mid-stream and change the merchandise for a bit. I don't stray far from my comfort zone, because when you do that, you fuck up, and buyers screw your ass over.

Today I had someone wanting to pay with a money order. If I didn't think the Gestapo was watching, I'd have taken them up on it, but like a good brownie, I informed them it was against policy and that I had to stay on the straight and narrow.

A friend of mine who runs a brick and mortar shop came across a shit ton of things he knew I dabbled in, and offered for me to take the items and list them and split the proceeds because he and his daughter don't have time to deal with them.

When a guy came in and sold him the stuff, I was there, and he could see me salivating and shitting bricks over some things that came in the lot. He gave them to me and said "work your magic" and I have. I put 3 hours in research, and an hour or two of photography, another hour and a half for the write ups.

He also made me take 3 rubbermaid containers of collector plates that he had previously called me in about and told me "same deal". Seeing as these aren't your run-of-the-mill Bradford Exchange crap, and I have a knowledge base because I used to collect them, I reluctantly agreed. Now they sit in the living room taking up a ton of real estate, but I've got enough bids on some of them, that 2 of the containers should be gone by the end of the week.

There are hardly any auctions going on this week because of the holidays, so I have very little of my own inventory to deal with. Works for me though...not having to waste gas, then time at an auction, and being out several hundred in cash flow for a week and just doing what I normally do if it were my stuff...a no brainer.

I did things my way and offered free shipping on some shit and will also cover the fees, so it will be more of a 40/60 split when all is said and done, but that's fine, all I have into it is time and packing supplies, so it's a more than fair deal for me...though it seems that when I sell someone elses shit, I tend to get the crazies, such as my MIL's plates that attracted a negative doling buyer and also a thief.  We'll see...

Stupid Is As Stupid Does, Sir

Today I got this message.

Hi, I just saw this doll and want to double check on her size. Is she only 8"??? Thanks in advance.

Title of listing:

Ideal Betsy Wetsy Doll 8"

Item description:

Vintage Ideal Betsy Wetsy doll. 1950s.

This one is 8" tall and has short wiry textured brown hair and blue sleep eyes.

Good shape overall.


Nope. Never said she was 8 inches tall...ever.

Jebus. Where do they farm these vegetables? How in Christ does someone this dumb even earn a paycheck to buy things? Somehow they were literate enough to fill out a job application in order to earn money in order to buy things, but in 4 sentences of reading they somehow missed that the fucking doll was 8" tall?

Going Postal

Had a few issues with the P.O. lately. Twice now I have gotten packages with "postage due", but instead of being that buyer, I paid it and shut up about it. I am not going to bust someones balls over .20 and .85.

Yesterday though, I received back a parcel of paperwork that I sent my lawyer in regards to my out-of-control mortgage servicer. I sent it December 1. I mailed it at the counter. A worker looked it over, stamped it, and threw it in the pile. When it returned 9 days later (this was going only 11 miles away!) it had a large sticker saying it was "unmachinable" and undeliverable because of a clasp on back, and that .21 postage was due. Like I said...I mailed it via the counter postal worker! I did not just drop it in the mail. If something was wrong, why was it not noted and charged for then? Now my paperwork is 10 days late. I would have faxed it, but the cost of faxing is ridiculous these days. And can I just scan it and send it to the assistant via e-mail? Of course not. Ugh.

Today I had an auction end. I looked as I was about to send the invoice, and due to ebay's lovely glitch of page-jumping when you change something in the shipping stats, I must have accidentally hit the drop down bar at "flat rate envelope" and charged $5.75 shipping for a 2 pound item that is now going to Washington state.

Fuckin' A. I believe this is how some sellers get defects. When something like this happens and they miss it, they attempt to weasel out of paying the difference and try to get the buyer to cover it. Myself, I am going to eat the cost...Merry Christmas plushie buyer, due to my not double-checking things, you just got a bargain on shipping.

Broken Items Have More Value Than You Think

Being an auction regular, I often see people turn their nose up at an item that has a chip or a crack or tablecloths with holes in them. They assume it has no value because it's damaged.

I have bought a cracked Tiffany Spode jam jar at an auction, a chipped Sevres vase, and chipped and cracked Limoges pottery, I have bought tablecloths with stains and holes in them (by the way, many of these stains can be removed with boiling water and Oxi-clean as long as the item has no metallics on it).

The reason I buy these is that I get the item cheap in order to learn about it. By buying busted up items I get a hands-on learning experience about the workmanship, and feel of the item. You can ID fakes more efficiently if you've owned the real thing.

When you're done with the busted item, if it's not extremely rare (Sold the Tiffany jar for more than I paid, use the Sevres vase, plan on using the Limoges on my walls), you can use it for mosaics, or with fabrics...quilting, pillows.