eBay Seller Chat with Patti in CT: Everything Reseller, Self-Service Farm Stand, Gardener, She’s a Hustler 😀

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Transcript

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Hey, eBay sellers, you have landed on Episode 201 of eBay the right way. Today's date is January 22 2025 and my guest today is Patty in Connecticut. No announcements this week, so we will go straight into the chat with Patty. Hello resellers, welcome back. I have a repeat offender today. Patty and I looked up the last time you were on was in April of 22 it doesn't seem that long. No, it doesn't, it doesn't but you've been busy with your regular job, your eBay job, traveling life in general. So first of all, let's tell the listeners where you are. I'm in Vernon, Connecticut, so we're about 20 minutes north northeast of Hartford. Okay, okay, and maybe just recap what brought you to eBay, and a little bit about your regular, full time job. Yeah, so I started basically when eBay started in the late 90s. I'm on my second reseller, you know, account, and I started my new one in 2003 after I got my first divorce and bought another house. But I really started back in the days where people were mailing you checks, and you just kind of mailed things away on a wing and a prayer. But yeah, I just, I always loved the platform. I just found that it's, it's it's, you know, no holds bar, you can sell whatever you want, and so I've just kind of taken it and run with it. Over the years, my full time job, I've worked at my job for 35 years. I'm a senior manager in a family run chain of liquor stores. We circle Hartford. I personally run a 10,000 square foot store, and I also do most of the marketing. So I have another office in a in another location, so I'm I'm busy. We work long days. I work for 11 hour days, and yeah, and then I do eBay on the side. Wow, that's a busy life. Was there something in particular that made you start selling on eBay? Yes, my ex husband's mom died. She died pretty young. She died at an early age from cancer, and they were just kind of shocked and wondering what to do with all our stuff. And that's when I had heard about eBay. And she was a collector. She collected, like, just little trinkets, and she had a lot of fentanyl and things like that, even before, you know, I even knew what any of that was. But I was like, Hey, let's try it and and things sold, you know, very quickly. It just kind of, you know, gave me the impetus to just continue on. So I bet you learned a lot selling her items. Oh, definitely, yeah, absolutely. I mean, in that, you know, you make mistakes, you know, what not to do, how not to ship, you know, do the box in the box, and, you know, all that stuff, especially with glassware. So I kind of learned early on, you know, kind of the hard way, and how to ship and how not to ship. Okay, I'm playing I spy with your background. Are those, like, Delft tiles in the back, that is actual, it's their little drawers. And they are from, it's from Holland. We have really good friends that live in Holland, so they, they gift it to me. It's like little, I don't know, apothecary cabinet, yeah, it's like a tiny little chest of drawers. But I noticed the blue and white tiles, yep. So, yeah, that's definitely a a bolo. Oh, yeah. What's that camper thing on the bottom shelf? Oh, that's a bird house. Oh, it is. Okay. Yeah. Now people are going to be scared to come on this podcast. She's going to be looking at my background. Well, you can always blur your background on Zoom, I know. And you didn't mention the life, the life size Raggedy Ann that's sitting next to me. Is that for sale? No, that's just my childhood doll, and she has the the seat of honor in my, in my, in my room. Here. She's your very quiet co worker. Yeah, exactly. She scares the grandkids. Oh, I guess so. Yeah, it is definitely what. She's probably three, three feet tall. Yes, yep, big one. Okay. Okay, all right. Well, that's all I'm going to say. Your background is very neat and tidy. Thank you. Okay. Well, you post on the group frequently. Do you want to talk about some things you sold, or maybe even how your business has changed over the last three years? Or yeah, I am. I actually have a couple of consignment customers that I work with. I just started doing, well, I actually started doing consignment, you know, pretty much during the first couple years of eBay. And I know there's a lot of problems and, you know, negatives to go with consignment selling, but I've always been very upfront with people about what they have and what things are worth and the expectations that they should have, and so people always have really have come to me over the years, and I stumbled upon one consignment customer that I've been working with now for, oh, almost four years. She had an estate. Her mom had passed. Her mom was a collector. Her parents had money from their parents, and they were teachers, so they were just able to just kind of amass a huge collection. And the first thing that I tackled from her was a whole closet full ephemera. It was movie memorabilia, movie posters, lobby cards, just you name it, if it had to do something to do with an actor or a movie, she collected it, and I kind of went into it with a well, we'll see what happens. And what happened was we were really successful, selling most of our stuff from that closet. And then she came back to me two years later with another big, lot of things, and these were even higher end items. There are mostly autographs. So I've sold over the last two years, just numerous, numerous autographs, like Ruth B Ruth Ginsburg, Charlie Chaplin, Frank Sinatra, Vincent Price, like just, I mean, I would say at least 50 autographs from her collection over the years. And yeah, so, so that's been very lucrative and very successful. And I probably you have those authenticated? No, well, that that's, you know, a seller's choice, really. I just was curious if you did. I sold that autograph book a few years ago. I didn't have any of them authenticated. Yeah, I've always been very upfront in my listing that it's not authenticated. And I've also privately told people that if it comes back and they authenticate it and it comes back fake, that I would refund the money. And I've done that three times over the two years, something has come back unauthenticated, but the cost of authentication is crazy. It's so expensive and and she my consignment customer, wasn't interested in putting the money out, and I really wasn't interested in it, since I didn't really have any money put into it. So I just kind of went with with that. I think it's more important with hard goods like handbags and sunglasses that are frequently faked. You don't want to sell a fake but, you know, autographs, that's a different situation. You know, how many fake Charlie Chapman autographs are out there? Yeah, you know, I guess there are some. I also kind of question a little bit the authentication process, because I think that's subjective as well. Yeah, I had one autograph. It was Salvador Dali. Oh, I had some providence from the estate where the woman had gotten the autographs. And I sold three autographs that were fine, and then one came back where the authentication said that it was fake. It was from JSA, and they basically said that the slope was wrong the way, you know, I read the whole the whole thing, and I'm just thinking to myself, well, Salvador Dali was a drunk. And he probably signed this when he was drunk. Now, what's that famous piece with the stop watches melting the clock that Salvador Dali artwork is called the persistence of time? But yeah, I was like, you gotta wonder, what was he drinking or smoking when he did that? Yeah, exactly. Well, that's interesting that you actually had his autograph pass through your hands. Yeah, yeah. It's just, it's, it's kind of cool, just the the amount of history. You know that some of these things have, um, so, yeah. So I've been, I've been working with her for and then now she's just given me a whole lot of, like, high end costume jewelry. So now the that'll be fun to go through. I also, on my own, have sold, like, a lot of costume jewelry. I bought a couple of bulk lots and auctions and things like that. Okay, I like doing that. It's fun. They're small, they're easy to ship, you know, it's kind of just a, you know, not that, what's the word? Just, it's, it's just, it's just, just fun things to home to new people. Always, like, a discovery, you know. Is this really gold, you know, like that kind of stuff. Okay? So you have two consignment clients still, yep. So the other one is an actual family member. My my first cousin, who's my was my age, died a year and a half ago. A patriotic Yes, sir, yeah. It was sudden, but he was a collector of in the 90s, like comic books, Star Trek, Star Wars, you know, all that kind of pop culture stuff that went along with that. And I mean, I'm talking obsessed collector. I mean, he had every single playmates toy that came out of Star Trek, every single figure, bins and bins and bins and bins and bins of comic books and, oh, records, vinyl records. So his wife had tried a couple of times. She had people come in and look at the collection, and she wasn't really happy with the offers, and so she just said, Hey, why don't we just sell it together? So I've been working on all that as well. Going, are comic books kind of tedious. They're very tedious and they're very It's time consuming because there's so many little intricacies that you don't even think of. You know? It's like, oh, this comic book has like, two variant covers, and one variant covers worth more than the other variant cover. And so it's, it's, you kind of have to, like, look up almost every single one to see, you know, if one's worth a little bit more than the other. So I've been doing that. I've also been doing a lot of lots, and the lots have been selling. I think, yeah, that seems like, for time efficiency the way to go. Because if a collector sees something in there that's valuable, they're gonna they're gonna pay for it. Are you doing auctions or fixed price? Fixed price? Yeah, auctions. I've just found for myself, it's just easier to figure out a price, put the price on it. I always put it a little bit higher than I want and accept offers. That's right. And I feel like comic books are like stamps and coins that have to be graded, and there's so many little details that you might not know, if you're not a collector, correct? Like you know if the staples halfway coming out, or just whatever the intricacies are on comic books. You know, has the cover been folded or not? You know, like, like collectible Barbie dolls that are in the box. You know, if there's any damage to the box, or if it's been opened or factory sealed, or what's the deal with it? It's very detail oriented, and I feel like you have to learn all that so you can talk about it in your listing. And it may not be of great interest to everyone selling comic books. No his it and his are all what they say, bagged and boarded. So they're all in like little bags with a little carpet packing on it. And I've been when I started, I was taking everything out of the bag and then just taking the picture from all angles. And then I just realized that, like, he basically never read any of these things. He just, he bought them and put them in the bag and and so they're all in really, really good condition. So now I kind of, I kind of stopped taking them out of the bag, just because it's just just very time consuming. Um, I haven't had anybody complain yet. So which is good, yeah, I think you're on the right track there, because especially if it's a new product, you don't know how much to show, and then you they start selling, you're like, well, maybe I can pull back a little bit on the photography side of this. I mean, I always go down the rabbit hole in the beginning, you know, you just, you just kind of overdo it, and then, as you said, just, you're right, as things start to sell, you know, pull back a little bit, right? Okay, well, that's definitely an interesting product line. I don't know if I've had anybody on the podcast talking about comic books, like, in great detail, they are a comic book seller, yeah. Well, I'll tell you what. Once these are gone, I won't be okay. Well, I want to, I want to bring this up because these were in one of my books. My bolo books were some of the limited. Shin liquor bottles. Oh yes, there's one that has like, skulls on it and skeletons. And do you sell those kind in your liquor store? And have you ever bought any just to resell the bottle? Well, yeah, we had actually talked about that on our first part. Oh, we do say yeah. I was like, Oh, this is all trash to cash. It's like, all like, well, we are having, or I am having a senior moment. But maybe the listeners didn't go back that far, because a lot of people just find this podcast and go forward, and they don't go all the way back. So let's just have that discussion again and see if anything has changed. Yeah, so in my business, you were talking about the skull bottle, that's a tequila bottle, right? There's also a lot of bourbon bottles that are extremely well wells sought after. Blanton's bourbon is one of them. That's the one with the little horse on the top. If people collect the bottles, they can spell Blanton's because each horse has a different letter on it and and they're very These bottles are very allocated. You don't I would say we only get in our store maybe six bottles of blantons a year to sell. And then the next level up from that is pappy Van Winkle. That's another bourbon brand where those bottles are going for crazy money. So I'll tell you a quick, funny story, kind of an aha moment. I was it was last, last, maybe February or March. I was in my office, which is upstairs from one of our retail stores, and it was late. It was like seven o'clock. There was nobody in the office and and it's kind of like an echoey, just a really nice, just kind of a spooky place to be in at night, and I'm in my office and I'm listening, you know, not listening. I'm working. I'm working on my actual work, work. And it's about seven o'clock and I'm just like, I'm just gonna, like, kind of get a close up shop. And I just was thinking about Ebay. I was listening to your podcast, actually. And I turn around and in the corner I see two just plain boxes with a stamp on it, Pappy Van Winkle, so they're basically like a three pack box from the distillery that had the bottles in it, so they weren't fancy or anything. They were just something that the distillery put the bottles in and shipped it up to the distributor who shipped it to our store, hmm. So I look them up, and sure enough, they were worth, like, $50 Wow. I took a picture right then and there. I listed it right then and there, and it sold within, I would say, a week. I shipped an empty pappy Van Winkle, three pack box for 45 plus shipping to California. Okay, it's, you said box. You mean bottle, no whole box, just the plain cardboard, three pack box. Oh, just the box. And it was just, I mean, literally, like it was plain, it was just white, and it just had the stamp from the distillery, and, you know, the code of what bottles were in the box. And that was it definitely trash to cash, if they could all be that simple. Yeah, exactly. And then, and then in my business, so we get around the holidays, we get these gift packs with, you know, little tchotchkes, either a glass or or something else in it. Sometimes it's a flask or, you know, it's all branded with whatever the bottle in the box is. And they don't really fit on the shelf that well. So in the Chris, you know, Christmas season, we'll have a separate spot for them. And then after Christmas, first of all, all consumers think that they're paying more because they're getting the glass. And so that's kind of problematic. So we just split them up. We just, you know, take the glass out. And I usually have this huge cart that I put in the front of the store that says, glasses, 99 cents, you know, sell them on eBay. Oh, really, all you people that like to sell glass, here you go. But I sold some of that, some of that, those items myself. There was, it was a tequila Casa mi goes tequila. That's George Clooneys brand, or expert, okay, and they came with a little like salt Rimmer. It was a ceramic salt Rimmer with with a lid for free. I broke up those. I took maybe about five or six of them home. I put them up for like $15 a piece. And some guy bought seven of them. So it's, you know, over it was like almost$100 for something that was free for me, so I love it. Well, manager, nobody can say anything, right? Well, you know, I would do the same for anybody that wanted it, you know? I mean, it was funny one of my plays, I'd come up with a tin sign one day. Okay? And I just, you know, it was, it was a beer sign, and I've shown it to all the staff. Now, any anybody wants to sign, you know, I'm throwing it out. And then somebody says, Why don't you sell it on eBay? So I said, Okay, I put it on eBay. I think I got like, 25 or 30 bucks for I said, I'll buy pizza for everybody. So that's what I There you go. Hey, good for you, sharing the joy. Yeah, exactly. Do you have any other memorable sales, like, maybe that didn't come out of your liquor store? Yeah. So we, I really am lucky in this area. We have, we have a lot of just, like, good thrift stores. There's a lot of flea markets, estate sales. You know, people who live here, you know, generally, have lived here their whole lives, and their parents lived here. And so, you know, when people are cleaning out their houses, it's generally like a lot of mid century things, and, you know, and everybody's not into eBay, so sometimes it's just, let's just get rid of the stuff, type of right? But there was one store that was, it was like a clean out company, and they had this big warehouse that they were opening up to the public on the weekends. And one of my friends found it, and we discovered it together. We went about two or three weekends, and it was a treasure trove. I mean, just tons and tons and tons of stuff. But anyway, I was looking one day, and it was, I think, due to you, I because I'm not big into, like, the plush of the stuffed animals, but I looked down and there is a little, well, I think was a bear, LITTLE BEAR, and it was, like, dressed in like a clown suit, and it had, like, all the, you know, if they had two, yes, yeah, the Eden plush found there, and it was at the primary colors, yep, I just sold that one for like $80 a couple months ago, and I could, yeah, mine went for like $100 it was like, and I think I got it for like 75 cents or something like, right? I'm so glad, yeah, that Eden plus is in one of my books. I think it's the pastel bear sells for a little more, but still, anything Eden plush is going to be old. Yeah? All I could hear is, in my mind, visual clues. Visual clues. Well, that's wonderful. I'm so glad you found that, you know, what else? No wait, that didn't get you hooked on plush. Just finding that one, I just, you know, some things, your eyes just kind of glaze over when I see plush. It's just like they all look the same to me. You know, I just, I can't really distinguish. I never had children, so that's probably why it's just like, Well, unless it's that four foot long Simba from The Lion King, he's pretty easy to spot. I'll look for him all the time, and one of these days I'm going to find him. But, yeah, he sells for like, $400 but you gotta ship it. Yeah, it's okay for $400 I'll Frank and box him and send him on his way. Yeah. I mean, I've shipped a lot of those big blow molds I had gotten. It was couple years ago. Now I, you know, if I do auctions, online auctions, I usually do, like, Big Lots, you know, I'll pick through the lot and, you know, take what I want from it. But anyway, I got like, almost a full truckload of Christmas items. It was like, it's this big seller lot in a an auction that was a couple towns over for me, and there was, like, two, like, you know, one of those, like, four foot, four and a half foot size blow molds. I think there was a snowman, and maybe Mrs. Claus was one of them. And, yeah, I sold both of them and I shipped them. I didn't put them in a box. I just wrapped them in like this really thick bubble wrap, and then I put one of those, like big industrial sized black plastic trash bags over them, and, you know, taped it, you know, pretty well, and then just shipped it ups, both of them got there safe and sound. They were nice and light, you know. And it really wasn't that much of a hassle. Yeah, they're, they can be big, but they are lightweight. So remember how much you sold those for he was, like, an 100, 150 Yeah, good prices. They are that same, that same lot that I got. I mean, I just kind of put stuff aside because, you know, some, some things she had, like, these big, huge boxes full of, like, tabletop, like, kind of like Christmas tchotchke type things. Lee Max, I think, was one of them. There was, like, a big carousel, and the carousel had people in it and it, you know, it just kind of went round and round and had a musical thing and but it was, I don't know that the box was probably like two and a half feet by three. Eight, you know, and it was breakable, so I kind of put it aside. I'm like, you know, I'll do it eventually. And I did. I sold it this year, and it sold for like, 85 or $90 so good. Yeah, I my husband that has a friend that has an automotive repair shop, and so I get most of my bubble wrap from them, because they get, like, all the automotive parts wrapped up, and she just puts it all aside for me. So, so nice, free bubble wrap. I have a next door neighbor who also has an online business, and she does like candles, and so she has some good boxes and packing material that her supplies come in, but she ships out in something different. So sometimes I just open my door and there's all these boxes and these funky it's like this honeycomb cardboard stuff. Mm, hmm. That is, is great for packing breakables, because you just, you know, line the sides of the box with that, and put your thing in the middle. And, yeah, I reuse all kinds of stuff. My neighbors know what I do, and they're like, We want this. Do you want that? I'll take your Amazon bubble mailers, I'll take your Amazon boxes. I'll take non food boxes, you know, and it's good to have that coming to you, not having to seek it out. I haven't bought a box in years. Yeah, I'm lucky. My My work has a new line account, and because shipping, we do alcohol shipping, and so I can buy boxes through that account and have have them free shipped. So you line boxes are great boxes, or economical boxes if you don't have to pay for the shipping. So that kind of works, right? Good point. Okay. Now, how many items do you have listed on eBay? All right? Now I think about 1400 so you have a store, yeah, okay, well, not everybody has stores, okay? And what is your area of specialty? Well, it varies. Right now, I have a lot of vintage jewelry. I've always loved vintage Christmas. That's kind of like my you know, if I'm at a tag sale, garage sale, or even thrift store. I kind of beeline to that. So that's things that I like to sell. I also do a lot of, like, vintage linens, table class, you know, napkins, things like that. Yeah. So what else? Oh, I do like, Vintage Books. I, you know, I dabble in that quite a bit, as a matter of fact, one, and I'm gonna say I might have seen somebody else, either on, um, on the group, or maybe yourself had mentioned, but I found them in goodwill. They were, they just kind of stood out to me because they were older, probably 50s, maybe 60s. You could just tell by the spine. But I picked them up and they were cosmetology books for dead people. Oh, like a morticians guys? Yeah. I was with a friend of mine who also sells on eBay. She's like, you always find the good stuff, but it's definitely unusual. Yeah, I sold both of those for over $100 it was very good. Yeah, I don't know, but oh, you know, I was bidding on an online auction last week, and one of the items was Andy Warhol's college yearbook. Oh, cool. I don't know what year it was from, but I looked it up, and it's online in two places for $1,200 Wow. So the bidding kept going up, and I bailed out. It got to like 150 and I bailed out because you just don't know how long it's going to take for something like that to sell. And, you know, I could have flipped it, maybe for a lower price, but I don't know that that was kind of the most unusual thing I'd ever seen, as far as books. That's a collectible, but it was on, like a books and maybe Amazon and both, I think it had it for 1200 Yeah, you have to write totally, wait for the right buyer for that, for sure, yeah, I mean for myself at this point in time, because, I mean, I'm planning on probably retiring from my day job in two to three years, and then kind of transitioning into eBay more full time. My husband holds the health insurance, so I don't really have to worry about that. Oh, he does, yes, and he's and he's a couple years younger, so Okay, so he's going to continue to work, and. And and I'm going to work, but I'm just not going to work in retail anymore. So yeah, it's very draining, well, and we're the same age, so in four short years, you can start getting social security if you want. Yeah, exactly. People look at that differently. They're like, No, you should wait as long as you can. And I'm like, maybe I'll just get it as soon as I can get it. Because you don't even know if you're going to make it, how far you're going to make it, like you may not make it to that age where you're projecting you're going to start taking it. Or there's all these different calculators, like, how much money you're forfeiting if you don't take it right away. Well, the way I look at it is, I'm a hustler, and I'm always going to do something on the side. So the other thing that we do, my husband and I do, is I have 1000 square foot garden. We have 26 raised beds, and I also sell plants in the springtime. So we have a 10 by 12 greenhouse, and I have a self service farm stand on the property that we run from May to, like, September or October. So, you know, I mean, that's that brings us some good cash too. So on that, on top of eBay, really, you're just a Martha Stewart clone with all your side projects. Except, I don't know if I can see Martha working in a liquor store? No, I don't know. She teamed up with Snoop Dogg, so she's kind of open to anything, I guess. Did you see the the Christmas thing? It's um, Martha on the mantle, and then snoop on the stoop. It's like, you know the alternatives for Elf on a Shelf, Martha and the mantle in Martha Stewart country, yeah, yeah. She lives in Connecticut. That's right for houses in the in the wealthy part of the state. Have you ever like driven by her house? No need to do that. No need, yeah, but she keeps reinventing herself. Yeah, she's not. She's also a hustler, yeah, absolutely. Did you see the special about her on, I guess it was Netflix. No, do you have Netflix? Yeah? Okay, well, it's, I don't know what it's called. There's an old movie with Sybil Shepherd playing her. It's not that. It's something recently released, and it just chronicles her life. And she did not have it easy. Everybody thinks, Oh, she's a billionaire. She's had it so easy. No, she's been bankrupt a couple times, and all that business going to prison. And, like, I feel bad when I watch that, because I'm like, I could have been like her, if I just worked harder. And then I'm like, No, I don't want to do prison. You know, you can't have wine in prison. So anyway, I got off the topic there. But yeah, you're, you're a hustler, so you sell the plants and produce, produce plants. I also do a lot of like jams, jellies, canning. The Connecticut's got a really liberal, I forgot what the laws call but you know, we're able to sell pretty much anything that you make at home on the side of the road, as long as you label it saying that it's not made in the commercial kitchen. So all the jams and the jellies and the pickles and things like that, that's wonderful. Yeah. And so I put a little Facebook page together for the farm stand. I'll post every day what I'm putting on it and and I got a little following, so that's kind of cool. I'd love to follow that, just to see maybe I'll be like, Hey, can I buy some of that blueberry jam? They even have blueberries on the property. Oh, my favorite. Yeah, I love those. Oh, that's wonderful. I didn't know you had all these side jobs. Yeah? So, yeah, life is busy, but in a good way for sure, well, and I think our generation is our retirement is going to look different than our our parents, definitely. But I'm like you thinking I'm always going to do reselling. It may change what I do and where I get it and all of that, but it wouldn't be bad to have that little Social Security extra coming in too, on top of my reselling and other online ventures, because I don't, I don't want to sit around and do nothing, yeah, it's, it's a Social Security is just a little cushion, yeah? And you know, everything else that you do is, is just, you know, little gravy. So maybe take a couple of trips, a couple of sourcing trips, and a nice RV or tricked out van. Oh, absolutely, try for a week and just hit some places. And I'm addicted to those videos about the vans and, um. Them, you know, busses and all these things, they've converted to a home. And it's just amazing what can be done. It's like, oh, a family of eight lives in here, and here's how they sleep. And, you know, they've really used the space wisely. It's just, I just love watching them to see what's possible. Yeah, absolutely. And just gotta be some you can rent for a road trip, yeah? And just, just traveling, just to see new stuff. And my husband and I really like to travel, so that would be something else, you know, I want to do in retirement. It's just, you know, we've done a lot of European travel, and I just want to explore more of the US. Yeah, absolutely, we only have a week of vacation, and so we're flying everywhere, you know, we're not really driving, but it just be nice, just to take the, you know, the meandering way absolutely and I love that method. I will fly. I'm not afraid of it or anything like that. It's just I prefer driving because you can stop whenever you want. If something interests you, you can stop and stay there a few days. You can change your route. You can, you know, if it's like an RV or something, you don't have to get a hotel. You can just park and sleep and regroup and then hit the road again. So that really appeals to me, because it's it's not paced. I've been on vacation with people where every second of my day is planned and we're gonna do this activity and that we're gonna go here and do this restaurant, and I'm exhausted. It's not relaxing. You need vacation from vacation like, I don't want an agenda. I just want to bring my stuff, have a comfortable vehicle, and just see where we go. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I have to train my husband better, because, you know, we'll be on a road trip and and I'll say, hey, there's a tax sale. Oh, right. And then he says, You want me to turn around? It's not too much trouble, sure. So yeah, down in the south, we have the highway 27 sale. It goes through Tennessee and some other states. I've been there. And do you have those up there that you is on your to do list, your bucket list? They do a lot. In this area, we have a lot of, like, town wide sales. So, like, my town always has a town wide tag sale, the town, you know, next door, sometimes there's a county one. And then I'm very close to Brimfield. I'm not sure if you've heard of that, but that's a huge like, antiques collectible show three times a year, and it's, I mean, literally, like, seven fields of dealers. I mean, it's huge, so that's kind of fun to go to more. So also, just to see the trends, because it's a lot of retail, you know, you real, true antique dealers setting up there, and things like that. But it's just kind of neat to see, you know, kind of what's hot, you know, what's the, what's, what's the, you know, the new and latest thing that's kind of in the old antique world, right? Yeah, what the millennials are decorating with. And I can't keep up with all that Tiktok stuff of, you know, somebody will have something in their video, and then all of a sudden, all her followers want it be just, you know, a Tiffany lamp, or their grandmother's fringe boots from the 70s or whatever it is. And that really creates trends when these us, they're called influencers. But, I mean, I think we did a better name, because I don't know how much they really influence, but, you know, they'll do these things, like the the Linux spice jars, yep, became so popular again, somebody had that on their Tiktok, and those went crazy. And those can sell for over 200 Yeah. I mean, I, I probably wouldn't buy anything, you know, based on a trend, unless it's, like, super cheap. But it's just nice to know the trends, just to keep your eye open number one, and also to know if you need to, like, take one of your listings and maybe kind of rework it with different keywords, you know, coastal grandma, right? You've heard of that one. Yeah, it's anything that Diane Keaton would wear in a beach movie. All that long flowy linen, big floppy hats, the sunglasses. And it's still a thing. I still see it on listings, coastal grandma, oh, and the decor is all the grandma, beach house type things. And I just think it's hilarious how these things get named, I think. And I talked about this on a podcast a while back, just the names of the trends are so crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Grandma core, yeah. Grandma core, cottage core, all that stuff, yeah. So I asked you, if you specialize in anything, did you answer that? Yeah? I just, I mean, I really specialize in something that I could pick up cheap and then sell for profit. Okay, I didn't think you said a specific idol. You just were kind of, I don't know, we got distracted talking about something. Yeah, I mean, vintage, Christmas. I do do a lot of jewelry. I'm also selling a lot of vinyl right now. Oh, really records, those actually are doing really well for me. I mean, they're not, you know, you're not making crazy money, but it's a steady 10 to 15 to sometimes even 30 or $40 for an album. And if you can get them cheap enough, I actually have picked up boxes on the side of the road on occasion, and you have to be careful about the condition if they're well cared for, it's kind of a no brainer. As far as I'm concerned, just get yourself a little record mailer when you're mailing them out, you know, make sure you're, you know, cushion them, okay, yeah. And that's evolved over the years, because back in the day, people used to ship them in unused pizza boxes, yeah? So now they they have actual mailers for that, which is great, yeah, okay. And wow, 1400 items. Do you have a basement? Or where is it? Okay? It's like one of those, like creepy Connecticut basements with the rack walls and lots of spiders. I saw one of those when I was in Illinois, and I was this. The house I was in had two basements, like, because it was a very old house built in the 40s, and then they added on around that house. So it was weird, but the old basement was, yeah, it was like the seller on the the movie The Goonies, with that guy, what's his name? That monster looking guy locked in the basement, and it was, yeah, the rock walls, and it was very damp, and I just, I just knew there was gonna be a dead body down there. Oh, it's gonna see a skull, or a hand or something. I don't worry about anybody robbing my basement, because it would probably freak, freak most people out. I mean, it's, it's got a regular cement floor, but got all the other fix, the other boxes of being really creepy. You have the space. Might as well use it. My house was built in 1890 so you are kidding. Oh, it's an older house. Yeah, yeah, and it's a front house, so, like nobody had the person who made it didn't have any money, you know. So we've taken apart whiles, and it's literally like trees you can park on the trees for the two by fours and things like that. What did I see a video about somebody taking their house apart like that, taken down a wall, and they found a Christmas present that had fallen, somehow, had fallen from the attic down between the two by fours or whatever, and it was wedged in there. And it was the person. It was the same family, but it was the younger generation living there. And it this man is like, yeah, this was a Christmas present to me in 1972 or something. And he opens it on the video, and it's some old game or something. He's like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with this. And I'm like, Well, duh, you're gonna sell it. What you have to think about this. So I thought you were going to say something like that, you find, you know, hidden treasures and revolutionary war stuff and all that you found in the garden area there must have been a barn at one point in time, because we've definitely found, like, old hinges and, you know, like Horse, horse shoes and things like that, but nothing like that. You know, we're going to make a million dollars on yet, still waiting bag of money. Yeah, that might show up. I have a friend whenever, whenever her husband goes to the store. He's like, can I bring you anything? And she's like, Yeah, a bag of 20s. Yeah? Okay. Well, this has been just an enjoyable chat, totally off topic on a lot of things, but that's okay. We're humans too. We have lives. So what do you see your eBay business doing in the future, just status quo. Keep building it. Um, yeah. So I think in the next two years I'm probably going to do, like, a hard look at some of my older items. I mean, I basically, you know, I just, yeah, I've been we, we working listings and, you know, but I just did another 20 of older items. And I just was saying to myself, you know, what? These haven't sold in four years. They're probably not going to sell, you know. So I'm probably going to just do some inventory, you know, pare down what I have. Maybe do some tag sales this summer, and just, you know, build stuff up again. I really want to concentrate on more ephemera and Smalls. I like those easy to ship. I just bought them. Actually bought two, three boxes on an online auction of summer that I need to go through. But one of them was this really nice, big, what is it called? It's just like an album where they do, like cuttings and things like that. Of like old ads scrapbook, so, like a scrapbook from 1922 filled and that looks like it's going to be worth a couple $100 that'd be fascinating to look at. Yeah. So, so, you know, just kind of like move on to other areas, and maybe you should put a eBay dead stock box out by your produce on the side of the road, and just put prices on stuff, see if you get anything for it south of my farm stand. That's what I mean. Yeah, your produce stand, that's what we call the south a produce, right? And just, I don't know, before you give up on it completely, just exactly, you know, piggyback on something you're already doing. Yeah, I'll do, I usually do, like, one or two tax sales a year too. Okay, actually had a YouTuber come to my last tag sale. It's kind of fun, really. Who was that? Um, his name was Patrick the picker. I looked him up. He had a channel, but, you know, nobody that I recognize, but I, you know, he had the camera on the whole nine yards. He asked you if he could film it. He did, yeah, oh, that's nice. That's good protocol, okay? And you're like, Oh, my, my sale is going to be famous. Yeah? Like, Well, this has all been picked through by me. That's funny. Hey, you're fame. You're famous on all different mediums, on podcast, on YouTube. You got it going, Okay, well, and you're off from your regular job this week. So are you eBay? Are you just going with the flow? Nope, I'm eBay. Pretty much every day I'm attacking some piles of things that, you know, I've kind of neglected. And actually, Sunday, I just went through and I said, I'm going to do all the I'm going to get to it later stuff. So I had a whole pile of I'll get to it later. I'll get to it later. I'll get to it later. So I took, I did 22 drafts of the get to it later. Things. Very good. Yeah, I call those later days. Today, I'm going to do all that stuff I've been saving for later, and then you get it done. And regardless of what it is, you feel accomplished because off your list. Yep, it's not out of the house, but it's getting closer, right, right? At least you worked on it. Okay? Well, that's that's being an industrious hustler. Okay, well, thanks again for coming on and sharing all your wisdom, and stay warm up there. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me. Okay, have a good day. You too. Bye. And now on to parting words. Something appropriate, since we are in a new year, and for some people a time to create new and positive habits. This graphic was circulating around social media, and I really like the reality of how small daily habits add up. So what it says is walking 10,000 steps a day equals 69 marathons per year, waking up just 30 minutes earlier is 10,950 extra minutes to get things done. That's the same as 182 and a half hours, or seven whole days to get things done. 30 minutes of exercise a day is 182 hours of strength and stamina, building, reading, 10 pages per day adds up to over 12 books per year, five minutes of gratitude journaling, 1825 minutes you can be thankful for Your Life, and one hour of studying a day is 365 hours dedicated to bettering yourself. And what if you put that studying towards learning more about eBay and what to sell you're educating yourself every single day. A to be a better seller. So I just liked that graphic. It puts us on a positive path in the new year. Next week, my guest is Barbara, who is a frequent poster on the money making Mondays. She is a baby boomer doing eBay during retirement, so we will hear all about her eBay journey and lifestyle, which I'm sure many of you can relate to, as some of you are already retired or planning for an eBay business during that chapter of your life. Thanks so much for listening and have a profitable and productive week on eBay. Bye, everybody. You.