eBay the Right Way

eBay Seller Chat with The Amazing Bill in CA: The King of Oddities including Weird Ephemera, Soda Crates, Petrified Fish Head 🐟

• Suzanne A. Wells • Episode 229

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Suzanne Wells:

Announcer, hello, listeners, you have landed on episode number 229 of eBay the right way. Today's date is August 6. 2025 My guest today is Bill in California, specifically the amazing bill in California. And no announcements this week, so we will start the conversation with Bill. Hello, listeners. I'm back with a repeat offender today, the amazing bill in California, who is just burning up eBay from every direction. Thank you. So how are you doing this morning is early there for you.

Unknown:

It's eight o'clock here, and yeah, we're doing good. I've been up. I've done some shipping for eBay, I've walked the dogs, I've done all kinds of fun stuff. I wake up early.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, what's early for you?

Unknown:

Usually five, five o'clock in the morning.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, you go for it.

Unknown:

I was up on my own at that time, so if I sleep until five, I'm

Suzanne Wells:

lucky. You work a real job too, don't you?

Unknown:

Yes, I do. Yeah, I work for a government agency.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, and what are your hours there?

Unknown:

We have a we have a flexible band that we can start at. So you can start from seven to 845, typically I like to be in at seven, but sometimes I'll get in later. So, so are you off today? No, I took, I had some time off this morning. Okay, so I took off. So when I get done with this, I got to get ready and go to the real job photo and work for the man. That's right, I feel like, I feel like eBay is my real job. That's my, vocation, though.

Suzanne Wells:

And so you're like, yeah, I gotta go work this other thing so we can have benefits and retirement and all that. Right,

Unknown:

yeah, that's right. That's right.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, well, yeah, I was looking through my notes, and I'm thinking, Oh, it's been two years since you were on. And it doesn't seem like it, but you're just posting on the group like crazy and finding all this cool stuff. So do you want to give us a quick synopsis of when you came to eBay and when all this started? For you?

Unknown:

Sure? Yeah, I started eBay. My membership goes back, I think about 21 years or something like, I don't remember something like that, so it's been for a really long time. I started, I sold a few things when it was when they had half.com Okay, so that was mainly books and maybe media. It was easy. It was really easy. You didn't have to take a picture you didn't the shipping was pretty much set, because it was all media mail, and that was kind of a big barrier of entry for me, was just figuring out the shipping and pictures and all that. And then I got into buying storage units, probably in about 2018 maybe. Right? Yeah, I wanted to sell on eBay, but I just couldn't, you know, I just didn't get the gumption up to do it. So finally, though, at about maybe 2020, early 2019, somewhere in that area, I did finally bite the bullet and figure out how to list it. I went on YouTube, and I found some people who show you know shipping and taking pictures and all that. And I had one item that I had held back from one of my storage units, which was a Mighty Mouse character glass. Some of the character glasses, most aren't very good. The Mighty Mouse is good. So I listed and sold that, and it went for $145 just within minutes. Uh, it probably, I probably could have got three or$500 out of it, but, you know, live and learn. So that's my that's my white Well, right now to find another one.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, I'd forgotten that you do storage units, so that kind of explains the amount of stuff you have and the diversity of the types of

Unknown:

items. Yeah, yeah. I haven't bought a storage unit for a little while because I've got so much. A death pile that's kind of out of control, and most my storage units are done. But I do tend to buy. I buy things, you know, I load up the bed of my pickup when I go to estate sales and I get a I like to get a big purchase and do a smaller price or, you know, relatively speaking, or that. So that's built up and built up, and I'm trying to gain some footing on getting getting ahead of that. I was doing a no by July. Is what I was calling I love that, yeah. Well, we'll see how well that works. I've been just this morning before we got started, I was looking at some estate cell pictures from one of the local companies. And it's, it's the perfect kind of sale that I love. It's messy. It's got all kinds of stuff, lots of things to dig through. So we'll see. We'll see how. No by July, I might have to say bye, bye, to know by July,

Suzanne Wells:

or over by July.

Unknown:

Okay, okay.

Suzanne Wells:

And so you're also working through your mother in law

Unknown:

stuff. Yeah, yeah. We're kind of going through a storage unit that she had. We moved her my father in law down here, where we are in California, from Washington State, again, probably in 2018 the 2019 that that time frame. And since then, my father has passed away, and my mother in law has gone into long term care. So she has a storage unit of stuff that she writes on a big unit, but of stuff. So family has gone through it, and they've, they've pulled some stuff out, and now we're just kind of going through the remnants, right?

Suzanne Wells:

Okay,

Unknown:

okay.

Suzanne Wells:

So yeah, the the no buy July, I'm like that too. As far as looking at online auctions or upcoming estate sales. It's just, it's just you have that fear of missing out.

Unknown:

And that's, that's, that's exactly it.

Suzanne Wells:

We always know we can get more. It's, it's not, it's just restraining yourself. And I'm like, you the junkie, you're the better when I start looking at pictures and they have things one by one, like one a beer can collection, and they've got it one by one. I'm like, No, that be priced too high. I want the you know, box of leftovers, and the you know titles they put on these auctions, all the other stuff or things you will like, right? But I do really like how you post sales of any dollar amount, yes, some high dollar stuff, but you also show the real side of, yeah, I only got $8 for this, but, you know, I re homed it, and I got $8

Unknown:

for it, sure, yeah, yeah, I am. I think I really have something in me that doesn't like to throw things away. And eBay is perfect for that, because you don't have to throw it away. You give it to someone else, and it clutters up their house and world. And if you get it cheap enough, it's fun. That's the thing too, with me, is it's just fun. So it's, it's okay to sell something for a few dollars, you know, I have, I've tried my hand at postcards, and I'm getting a little discouraged with, you know, like, a $4 sale on that, and then you have to package it, because you do need to, you know, sandwich it and cardboard and do that. So I'm getting a little disappointed on those. They take so long. I don't know how somebody sells, you know, a whole 2000 items store, you know, $5 a piece, free shipping on those so

Suzanne Wells:

well, it's volume. And like Julie, the postcard seller that's been on a couple times, she'll tell you, you know, ephemera in general, is a slow mover. Sure, yeah, no, it's just it takes patience, but it doesn't take up a lot of room, if you're consistent with it. And, you know, she's got, I know, over 1000 listings of postcards. So it's just, I tried it too, and I don't have the patience for it. I just it was overwhelming to me. It was so much to research because it has to do with all kinds of factors. What is in the picture? What is the postmark? How old is it? Did anybody say anything on the back that is of historical significance? All that stuff that it's factored in?

Unknown:

Oh, yeah, some, some of them are I enjoy. I've sold some cat. Logs or some other booklets. And Old, old pictures are fun again, I have a little bit of difficulty figuring price on some of the older pictures. If I'm over overpricing it or not. Yeah, I feel that too.

Suzanne Wells:

I've started just reselling the lot as is, however I get it, I just put it up for sale on Ebay that way. And you can really go down a deep rabbit hole, sorting that stuff out and trying to figure out, do I do this one on its own? Do I just put it all in a lot? Do I do them by date? Do I do them by uh, topic of what's in the photo? Do I do it by uh age of the person? Like, sure, there's all kinds of ways to sort it, and you can just get analysis paralysis trying to figure all that out. So, yeah, yeah. But I'm making some photograph and other ephemera lots on these online auctions, which they're they're cheap to have them shipped to me, oh yeah, for like, less than $5 and they're interesting to go through, that's for sure. But yeah, I decided I'm not going to sort them out. I'm just going to resell them exactly the way I get them, and conserve my time

Unknown:

once you get something. That's a real standout. I did buy a while back, I had bought a few old pictures from an antique. Well, it's she put it on Facebook marketplace, but she has an antique store. I think she's slowly trying to downsize. I got a lot of these random pictures. And one picture you could barely make out exactly what was going on, but it was labeled Tiger and bull fight, Panama City. It was like 1910 it was tight, either tiger or lion. One of the maybe Tiger, but I guess you could kind of see in the cage, they had these two animals in a cage, and you could kind of make them out, and a lot of people in the stands, and that went for about $50

Suzanne Wells:

Oh, yeah, very good. Yeah, yeah. Some of somebody put one on the group that was, was in a video too. It was of a women's prison, I think. And now it's, well, there's a national park around it with the same name, and that's all for good money. And then, of course, any of the Victorian death photos, oh yeah. There was one I saw when I was researching. It was of twin babies. I mean morbid stuff, but that sold for, I don't know, maybe between 75 and $100 or maybe more than that, just it's, it's the the really weird stuff, or the macabre, the very, you know, it looks depressing, but that's what they did back then. That was, like, we're going to take one last picture of this person in their coffin, in their, you know, death clothing. And that was, you know, that's history,

Unknown:

yeah, for sure, yeah. I sold a while back. I bought a one of the the old, it's an oval picture with a convex glass on it. And this baby was very disturbing looking that was in there. I don't think the baby was deceased. I think that it was just not an attractive child, but

Suzanne Wells:

it was unfortunate looking, as they say, it was, it wasn't

Unknown:

a great picture. But some people kept telling me, you know, in different groups, that they thought it was the post mortem or what. So I did post it, and I think I used Victorian morning in the title,

Suzanne Wells:

right? That that is excellent keywords, yes.

Unknown:

And it went, it went for about $96 I think,

Suzanne Wells:

nice, yeah, it went to a collector that probably, you know, is into that. And one there, and you never know, like, maybe the person worked for a museum, maybe it didn't go to, you know, the shipping address wasn't the museum, but it's the the curator or the person that finds items to put in their display wherever. So it you never know where it's going to end up. Unless you ask, you know, why did you buy this? And I don't do that unless they've already left feedback, because I don't want to poke a Sleeping Bear. But right answer, you get some good information about why they bought

Unknown:

it. Yeah, I'm very curious. I'm very curious about what people are doing with all these items.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, well, that's a perfect segue into, let's talk about some of your other curious items you've sold.

Unknown:

Okay. Okay, let me see here I do have a list. Oh, you know, we're talking about my, my mother in law storage unit. So here's, here's one that that's good. I after after my wife's sister and brother were here for a visit in last year. I went through a box that was trash. They brought a box of trash over to the house, and I was going to throw it away, but I'm not, I'm not just blindly throwing away a box of storage unit trash, and I started going through it, and in there it was from my wife's grandparents. My wife's grandparents were missionaries in Rhodesia. Oh, wow, prior to it becoming Zimbabwe, and then even for a period of time after the revolution, and it was Zimbabwe, they were there. So there's some different African odds and ends in there. And this one item was this dried out desiccated fish head. It was a skull. It was maybe about three inches wide, and it has had these enormous teeth on it. So at first you would, you know, it looks like a piranha. Well, they don't have piranhas in in Africa. That's a South American animal. But it was a African Tiger fish. So I think it was their version of the corona anyway. So I listed it on on eBay, and it went live, and then just, I mean, within minutes, it's so for $149 for a petrified fish head, yeah, yeah, yeah, dried out fish head that was in the trash bin.

Suzanne Wells:

Did you ever figure out what you know exact fish it was,

Unknown:

yeah, it's an African Tiger fish. Is called a

Suzanne Wells:

tiger fish, okay, yeah, yeah, okay, well, I, I've seen that stuff, and the piranha is one of the items in one of my bolo books. Because when I came across that, I'm like, what? And yeah, it's like a dried out, petrified piranha on a little stand, like it was for a display. And it's just horrifying looking, but I guess people collect that stuff, or it's the oddity of like, oh, maybe this person's a fisherman, or maybe they just collect those kinds of things in their their weirdo man cave.

Unknown:

Well, this, this buyer had actually had the word skull and his username,

Suzanne Wells:

okay, he might have some kind of scientist, you know, yeah, could be I just always go to who is buying this? And are there more of these people, you know, like, like, Why do they want this? And I just can't help myself thinking that,

Unknown:

yeah, well, the thing that gets me is the people who are buying the random ephemera pieces, you know, I sold a one page menu from a Loma Linda Sanitarium Hospital in Los Angeles, okay, one page dinner menu, you know, so you could, you know, there's a, probably a mimeographed piece of paper you check off what you wanted for dinner that night. I sold that. I think it went for 20 or $30 something like that.

Suzanne Wells:

But, I mean, yeah, you just never know. And it could have gone in a museum or play if that facility is no longer, you know,

Unknown:

oh, yeah, yeah. Menus, menus are big. Menus are and it can be very random. I bought, or where did I even get it at? Maybe it was a state sale. It was just a regular menu for some place in Washington State, and it went, it wouldn't even go for a lot of money. It went from maybe $8 but it was just, you know, the the Jack, Jack Lodge, or something like that, is what it was called.

Suzanne Wells:

And sometimes it's very specific. I came across a lot of steak and shake memorabilia, because some of those are closing, there's not as many as there used to be, probably because the food's not as good as it used to be. But some of those menus went for a lot of money, but it was a lot of a bunch of different things. And you know, like napkin holders and stuff that would be on the table and coffee mugs with the steak and shake logo, and I didn't want all that. I just wanted the paper stuff, and they wouldn't break it up. So I passed on that. But you know, even if it's a well known chain like that, if it's old enough, you know, or the restaurant doesn't exist anymore, and people it. The nostalgia they still have memories of going to that whatever diner with their family or on dates or whatever. And some of that stuff is is highly sought after, but it's very specific.

Unknown:

Yeah, sure, yeah, my one of my bucket list items are Bob's Big Boy menus and those this whatever they because they have banks or figures or those are on my list to get I want to get. Did that

Suzanne Wells:

turn into shonies? Or was that separate?

Unknown:

I'm not, I'm not sure we had the Bob's Big Boy in California, and I don't think we've ever had shown ease in in California, I have traveled to the south and the Midwest and seen the shonis there, so I think they're separate.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, I'll tell you one thing i i don't even know if there's any around me, but they had a killer breakfast bar back in the 80s to go there and just it was good food, and it was a lot, and they the blueberry muffins were so good, and, like, now it's, you know, Golden Corral and those restaurants, and it's just, you know, very mediocre. It's not even good, but, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, Bob's Big Boy show knees. I don't know if that's the same company or if they're different, but same concept.

Unknown:

Yeah, uh huh, yeah, kind of, kind of a different version of Denny's

Suzanne Wells:

Exactly, yeah, you know, and Denny's that has a reputation right up there with Waffle House, that's where you go and you've been out drinking all night. Yeah,

Unknown:

yeah, go to Waffle House, yeah? Or

Suzanne Wells:

college kids that like, that's where you go to load up after you've been out with a hard night of drinking. Yeah? Waffle House fights that, that video with a lady throw in the chair. Is that what you're like? Yeah? You know that's based out of Atlanta. And, yeah, I probably have, I don't know, 20 to 25 high school classmates that are executives there. Like, wow, where everybody went to work was corporate waffle house?

Unknown:

Yeah, we don't, we don't have the Waffle House out here in the West.

Suzanne Wells:

Oh, no, that's a sad situation. It's

Unknown:

sad. I think Waffle House is probably better than Denny's. Oh, yeah, yeah. And

Suzanne Wells:

then, of course, there's Chick fil A, and that's making its way around. Do you have them out there? Yeah,

Unknown:

we do. They've been coming out here. They've been making their way out here. So we have them.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, okay, well, just making sure you're you're in the loop, because we don't have all your good burger restaurants.

Unknown:

Yeah, in the in Atlanta, though, you have the varsity.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, now that's a very specific, special restaurant. Yes, have you ever eaten there?

Unknown:

Yeah, I have my, my wife's aunt and uncle live in Atlanta. Okay, so we've, we've been to the varsity. And then my, my wife, my oldest daughter, graduated from college this year, and she's doing an internship in Disney World in Florida. Uh huh. So my my wife, and drove her across country. Oh, wow. Uh earlier here last month, and they did stop again in Atlanta. Say hi to Annie Pam and Uncle Mike and go eat it.

Suzanne Wells:

So did you go to the original one down by Georgia Tech downtown?

Unknown:

You know what? It's been over 20 years since I've been there, so I'm not sure.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, okay. Well, yeah, that's we used to go there when we would take my grandmother back to the airport for her to fly back to Florida. And our thing was chili dogs and onion rings. Oh, wow, yeah, that, that is an Atlanta that's very historical here. So yeah, you can say you've been yeah and how to be transitioned to talking about food. Oh, menu, right?

Unknown:

It always goes back to food, right? Okay, so what

Suzanne Wells:

else do you have to enlighten us with?

Unknown:

Okay, well, kind of in that same vein, I'll talk about a soda crate that I sold. Soda crates can be really good money, and this was one of my first forays into the online auctions. You know, there's, there's a company. We're in a, kind of a small area where I am so, you know, we don't have as much broad options. There is a smaller estate sale company that will advertise on a on an auction site that's kind of based in the Central California area. So they were doing an auction for a house in our town, and I bid on a lot of crates, and I don't remember what, what I paid probably, you know, $10 or something, for, you know. About maybe five crates, and they had different ones. But in, you know, you you zoom in and zoom in and look right, and when you're just looking at the cover picture, it's very boring. Is, you know, four or five wooden crates piled up on each other, but there was one that was frosty group here. I don't know if you've ever heard of frosty, yeah. So this one, I checked out the comps, and it looked pretty good, and it didn't even have a fun graphic. It just had the name on there. And so I bought that lot of crates and got it, and that frosty soda crate sold for $293 Oh, yeah, really, yeah, and with and plus the shipping. So it was over$300 with shipping.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, and that wouldn't be too fragile to ship, because it's No, yeah,

Unknown:

yeah, you're not going to worry too much about it, not like the yadro pieces, like was like, it was just, you know, so, and it didn't go very far. It went, it went up into the bay area here in California. So not too far, but it is, and it's kind of

Suzanne Wells:

big. So you're in Northern California, we're in

Unknown:

we're in central California. We're at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. Okay, okay,

Suzanne Wells:

alright. So, yeah, I do see those soda crates on online auctions sometimes, and I've seen them sell for good money too.

Unknown:

Yeah, for good money. I think Coca Cola tends to get you see a lot of Coca Cola ones, and I think they're pretty plentiful, so they probably don't get as high of a price as some of the, you know, more obscure ones,

Suzanne Wells:

or, yeah, the ones that aren't made anymore, right? And we are covered up with Coca Cola stuff, you know, especially in Atlanta. And it's, it's, there's so much of it, there's so much of it mass produced, and most of it's not worth anything. You know, it's just like anything else that is was so mass produced. You really have to, like Disney, you really know your stuff, like which things are valuable, and which things were limited edition and all of that. So now, when you say, oh, Disney sells well, well, it all depends, is it, you know, a collaboration of a Christopher radco ornament with Disney, their collaborations can do pretty well. Sure, there's not, you know, millions of them made, but it's a lot to sift through when you're looking at those types of items, Disney, Coca Cola, even Delta Airlines,

Unknown:

because there's two, is the Coca Cola. Collectibles, people tend to think they're worth a lot, so they are priced up yard sales or state sell or so they're not really worth much, but everyone thinks they are, so

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, and then sitting next to it, you've got some old, rusty thing that will sell for $100

Unknown:

Oh, sure, sure, yeah, I'll gladly, I'll gladly take some of that rusty, weird stuff that think people think it's trash.

Suzanne Wells:

So enlighten us on old, rusty stuff that you've sold.

Unknown:

I bought a a while back. I went to an estate sale that was advertising a lot of glass. It had a lot of glassware at this estate sale. And when you go there, it wasn't it was there was an outbuilding, kind of like a very large metal barn. I don't know why the people had it set up like this, but that had a lot of old glassware in it. And when I went, I went later in the day. There was I didn't go right at the beginning. I went up maybe 10 o'clock in the morning after the crowds had died down, and I didn't have to stand in line, and I was walking around, and right near the entrance there was this very, um, elaborate looking machine. And it was a, it was a bow maker, so you would put ribbon on one, one part.

Suzanne Wells:

I thought I was thinking hunting bow. No, a pretty bow. Yeah,

Unknown:

bows. I think they probably had them in department stores. And I got, I got that it was not, it was nothing to look at. It looked very weird. And you know, all that. And obviously, you know, people have been there buying glass all morning long. And I got that for, I don't even, you know, not much, not much at all. And it went, it was well over 100 $150 in that range. Wow. Wasn't fun to ship. It was, you know, a bit of a chore to ship. But it was good. And then at that same sale, before I ever went to the outbuilding, where most. It was out, and they had a couple C trains also. But before I ever got to that, you walk through the field, that was a parking area, there was this little shed, little wooden shed, and that's where I like to gravitate. So go in there, and you know, it was maybe six by six. It wasn't very big. They might have discovered the well maybe, but there was a lot of old wood and dusty stuff, and there was a gas can in there. It was Jacobson mower gas can that was made to do your mix, had their logo and all that. And I threw that on my pile that day, and that went for maybe $80 Okay, so that was an old, rusty Castaway, you know, that was just there, and everybody else at the sale walked right past it so they could go buy the uranium glass or the stretch.

Suzanne Wells:

I love that. Yeah, that's me. I'm always looking for those little hidden gems that nobody's paying attention to. Sure, you know, if it's an online auction, it's like nobody's bidding on this. And what is it? And what, you know, I like the the online auctions with, you know, they've got, like, 40 pages of stuff. It's just so much, and you seem to be able to win more because there's so much stuff that people aren't bidding on everything.

Unknown:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Or I think they, I think people get tired of looking through all the pages of it, right? So, yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

I won a bunch of brand new shoes now I'm having these shipped to me, but they were like Sketchers and like the lightweight knit comfort shoes, so they weren't heavy, and they all had the boxes and were brand new. And then there were all these lots of makeup, just piles like the department store stuff that's expensive. And so apparently this lady liked to buy shoes and makeup. And so anyway, I bid on those shoes, and it was like Clarks. And what's that one? That's the comfort, easy, spirit, stuff like that. It's like mid range, but they're not cheap, new. And I won a bunch of them for $1 a pair. And then I contacted the company, and I said, when you ship these, I don't want the boxes, because that's going to make the package bigger and heavier. I don't want to ship it in a box anyway, because then I got to put it in another box. So it was fine, because they had tags on them and everything. But I could believe nobody was bidding on these, but that was one of those auctions that had so much stuff, and these were near the end, like on page 36 and I'm like, I bet people just aren't scrolling through to find

Unknown:

this. Sure. And was it just a big it was one large lot of shoes.

Suzanne Wells:

It was several listings of two papers each. Oh, wow. And they were all the same size, so it was like a Skechers and a a rica or a easy spirit and Clarks. And they were just, it was two pairs in each listing, so it wasn't a huge risk to bid on those. And this was one of those companies that had no buyer premium, and that's kind of rare. But so

Unknown:

those those kinds of shoes, how much do they go for?

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, so some of the Skechers can go for 25 to 30, if they're new, because comfort shoes, they're squishy, and they have one called Yoga foam, and I knows, because I have terrible feet, and they're comfortable, they're like walking on a cloud. And so they're not a super high end, but they're popular, and people know, like, what size they wear and what style and and they're not leather, they're fabric. So they're going to wear out,

Unknown:

sure, but they're just, they're good, you know, bread and butter items, yes, good, absolutely, store filler that will sell, reliable sellers. They're not flashy, like your$200 Nikes.

Suzanne Wells:

No, they're not like coach or Prada shoes. And, you know, in my experience, locally here, you can't find good pre owned shoes in the thrift stores. Either they pull them and sell them online, or they're just, there's always something wrong with them. The bottoms are worn out, and it's like, I don't want to sell this pair of crocs, that the bottom is so slick, somebody might fall and get hurt. You know they're coming apart. You do the twist test and they're dry rotted, and it it's hard to find good condition used shoes where I am, I just don't see them.

Unknown:

Yeah, and people, sometimes they search that out because they don't want to spin. And, you know, the higher price at the store,

Suzanne Wells:

right? Yeah, they go quickly. If they get put on the floor, they go quickly. Um, love to find one of those, the Hoka sneakers, yeah, have the really thick soul. Um, yeah, those are good sellers, but I

Unknown:

never see them. I think I found one pair. Yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

they're very popular. So anyway,

Unknown:

okay, so

Suzanne Wells:

would you want to share with us some of your highest sales?

Unknown:

Sure, yeah, I'll, I'll tell you the story about my highest item to date. If you want to know about that one,

Suzanne Wells:

I do, and so do the listeners. Yeah, they're all saying, What? What is it?

Unknown:

Okay, I had the opportunity. I have a couple picker friends that were we, we know each other, and we're close, and so we, we kind of share our leads, and, you know, help each other out and all that. So one of the one of one of the crew, got a lead on going to somebody's house. The gentleman wanted to move out of state and was getting rid of some stuff. Well, when we got over there, what he really wanted is somebody to pay him$10,000 to haul off all his trash. Okay, is what he really want. You know? I mean, you'll find that a lot people when they think someone's going to fall out of the sky and take everything out of their house and paying top dollar, and that's just not realistic. So we did search around for a while and get some stuff, and I ended up with I pretty much filled the bed on my pickup. I think I paid him $130 for odds and ends from the garage and his storage shed that he had. And there was one item I bought. It was a small toy outboard boat motor, like I had been made in the 60s. It was probably six inches, six, seven inches tall. I was it was looked almost exactly like a real outboard motor. It was a Johnson. And when I priced that, I figured just there maybe somewhere between 50 and $100 when I got home and started pricing it out, I found some solds on eBay for around 300 and then I went to searching on the Terapeak. So just I will say, you know, do take time to look at therapy, because when I went in Terapeak, I found them for over 1000 and I listed mine.

Suzanne Wells:

When you went back further, is what you mean,

Unknown:

yeah, exactly, yeah. I said therapy. Now it's called product research, but it goes back

Suzanne Wells:

over eBay research, yeah, but it goes back three years. So it's great rare collectibles. You can see exactly. It's the 90 days that you see on eBay,

Unknown:

solds, sure, yeah, and that paid off in this case. So I listed, listed it around. I think I listed it at 1299, and in my mind, I was thinking, if I get an offer first offer over 1000 I'll take it. Uh huh. And that day I had an offer for$1,100 I accepted, and it went off. Oh, gosh, that's great. Yeah, yeah, that's my house. I've been chasing that one ever since,

Suzanne Wells:

have you? Did you ever hear from the buyer? I

Unknown:

didn't know that. I think I want to say he was in North Carolina, I'm not sure, or maybe South Carolina somewhere on the East Coast. I It's I do seem like I get a lot of fishing related and boat related items that go that way. Okay, right. So, yeah. So I don't even know if I got a positive feedback either way, but I'm fine. I'm fine with no feedback.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, and where did you find this? Again,

Unknown:

that was just at this man's house. He had it in a storage bin in his shed. You know is in he had just stuff from his childhood, there was some pocket knives, like one pocket knife I got in there, I sold for $150 and marbles. I got some old marbles, and those haven't done anything at all. And

Suzanne Wells:

I see those all the time on, you know, the estate sales, or you can look at the pictures, and it's just like Jar of marbles. And that would be overwhelming to me, to pick through that figure out which ones are valuable and but, yeah, that must have been a thing that people just have these marbles. And there are a lot of

Unknown:

them. There are, there are some marbles that are worth a lot of money. There are some, you know, over $1,000 for a single marble.

Suzanne Wells:

Oh, I know it's just, yeah, I'm not knowledgeable about that at all.

Unknown:

I don't know, yeah, I don't know what makes one better than the other. And it is overwhelming to start searching through a bucket of marbles

Suzanne Wells:

Absolutely. And I was looking through one estate sale and saw what I thought were marbles. There was about four of these. They were very big, like the size of a bigger than a golf ball. And I'm like, what is that? And they were glass knobs for stick shift in, like these collectible cars where you could change the knob and have this fancy hand blown glass knob. And I was like, Oh, those went up to, like, two or $300 a piece.

Unknown:

Oh, sure.

Suzanne Wells:

And I never, you know, I'm not a a car person. I don't know all that stuff that, all those extras you could put on your car, other than the photo piece, you know. And I was like, I didn't even know this was a thing, um, but yeah, websites on those glass knobs for the stick

Unknown:

shift, sure, yeah, yeah. There's a couple interesting car items that are out there. I don't know if you've ever seen the little glass vases that would go I

Suzanne Wells:

saw that you posted that, yeah, be like in the limo. I watched the movie Arthur a few weeks ago, just because I always loved it. And sure enough, when he's riding around in the whatever it is Rolls Royce, he's got those glass flower bud vases in there. And I'm like, I just saw that in a movie.

Unknown:

Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got one of those. And so then it went for about$50 I'm sure there's some that are worth a lot, but that's, you know, where this one went for us. So

Suzanne Wells:

Did it have any markings on it, or it was just glass?

Unknown:

No, I didn't see. It was the glass itself. I think it had some etching on it, maybe kind of a abstract floral type of an etch, and it's in a little chrome holder. So they're beautiful little pieces. They're they're really pretty little pieces.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, they're beautiful. Now also, I see that, or I'm assuming that you're doing some AI backgrounds for some of your items. And there was, like, a snowman, and you made a an AI, winter, snowy background on that?

Unknown:

Yeah, there's what I think recently I sold, it was a Stein, Stein, Bach, Nutcracker. I think that's what I saw. Yes, yeah, yeah, the Steinbach, I don't if you're aware of the slime Steinbach Nutcracker, they're tall, about 18 inches, handmade wood from Germany. They go for a lot of money. That one, I think, moved for $250 I'm doing some consignment for a neighbor. A neighbor of mine owns a well, he owns a chocolate shop and coffee shop in town, but then away from our town a little bit, we have the entrance to one of the national parks, and there's a community there, and he's just bought it's like three or three different shops, ice cream shop, another candy shop, and then a gift shop that's kind of Christmas themed, okay? And some of these items that he's had in the that shop have just been sitting there for years, and they're not selling. There's so he brought he asked, he knows if I that I sell on eBay, so he asked about doing some consignment. So he I got, I think maybe four or five of these big nutcrackers, then another, another Nutcracker from another fame, well, Adler, I think it's a Kirk Adler Nutcracker, right? And then some of the buyers, they call buyers, the carolers. Have you seen those? Yes, some of those figures, and then a bunch of Fontanini nativity sets. Okay, so if, if you've ever seen the Fontanini, it's an Italian company, and

Suzanne Wells:

they, Oh yes, yes, I did a class for that in my school that has a rich history, and they're beautiful and very collectible.

Unknown:

Yeah. So he brought, I mean, there was enough of those items that, again, filled up the bed of my pickup, and I've been listing those and selling them off. And yes, I do the AI background. I like, I like to do the AI. That's just the eBay one. Okay, so every now and then it'll get a little they do it on the mobile. I don't think they do it on the desktop the AI. So I do kind of a hybrid listing. I usually start things off on my mobile and then finish it on the desktop, because there's a few shortcuts that make it easier and quicker to list on the desktop. Yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

I know all my listings on the desktop, and I don't see that, and when, obviously, like everything else, when that first came out, it was terrible. So, yeah, just have improved it. But you know, several years ago, it was all about. Out white background, no, nothing, only the item for sale. And preached that, and now it's, you know, eBay has this AI tool that can make your pictures look really fun, and items with that sell, and they come up on Google. And so I don't know what the right way is anymore, right have to play around with it and see what sells

Unknown:

they have some of the filters that will do a wipe and make it completely, uh, white in the background or sun. That'll make it different colors. A lot of my stuff, if it's a Christmas or a winter themed item, I will like to use that, that outdoor snow background,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, it's very eye catching and fun, and it sets the mood. Yeah,

Unknown:

yeah. And I think that's my thought. Anyways, so I've done that. If it's other items, I'll tend to use, they have one that's like a wood background, and I'll use that for a lot of my regular items.

Suzanne Wells:

And I think that's great, because we don't have to obsess over getting the picture perfect when we're taking it sure I've gone to I use a a different photo editing program because I do it for, like, my classes in my school, and my YouTube stuff, and so it, I use it a lot, so I pay for it. But, you know, if the lighting is not perfect, I don't care. I take out the background. I can adjust the lighting. I can adjust the color, because sometimes it puts too much yellow, so I gotta take some and, you know, do the slider on the color. And you can fix anything, pretty much, unless it's blurry on a photo editing program, which saves me so much time. Because used to be you'd sit down to list the item and, oh, this picture did not come out right? I gotta retake it. You know? It was terrible trying to get reds and purples the right color. Yeah, the buyer could see on their monitor the exact color. And I don't have to do that anymore. I just use a photo editing program and make it look right. I

Unknown:

think you can do some of that on the eBay. I haven't really got into that too much. I probably should tinker with it, because sometimes my lighting, I think will wash out some of this stuff and make it look not quite the true color.

Suzanne Wells:

And so like in the past, people would spend all this money on their lighting setup, you know, in the white background and the two lights to make it even, and or the ring light, or whatever it is. And now you can just edit it in your photos, and I on the the full site where I list from the computer, because I like to feel like I'm flying an airplane. I gotta have a big screen. But, you know, it does have background removal. You can adjust the brightness, you can crop, but there's not like any thing advanced for color balance, or, you know, that kind of thing. And maybe we don't get there at some point, but I just love how it's evolved, where we don't have to obsess over getting, you know, the picture right, and I gotta take it at this time of day where the sun is in the right place, coming through the window, or whatever it used to be. We don't have to do that anymore. We can, it's all technology.

Unknown:

Yeah, it's very, very nice to be able to do it like that.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, okay, well, I got a couple of questions, and then we're going to be out of time. How many items do you have listed

Unknown:

right now? I have about 1100 items in my store,

Suzanne Wells:

okay, and what is your average number sold per day or a week.

Unknown:

It's been bouncy. I've been trying a couple of different things, but I probably sell somewhere between two and six a day. Okay, that's a good pace. Okay, yeah, it really is. It really is. I in June, the end of June, I put a lot of stuff on clearance, and that kind of bumped things up. And then this week, uh, watching one of the a YouTuber, I decided to put everything in my store promoted at 3% okay. Did that help? And it we'll see. I mean, so far, there's been, you know, you can see which items are sold from a promoted listing, and it's about half and half. Okay, so

Suzanne Wells:

and so is that worth it to you to pay a little extra

Unknown:

well? You know, if I was thinking, if I'm putting something on clearance at 30 to 50% off, but then I use a promoted listing at 3% it's Yeah, I mean, the promoted, the promoted at three is much better than, you know, 50

Suzanne Wells:

off, right?

Unknown:

You know, the other way to look at it. And the thing that kind of guy is, you know, if you, you know, if you had something listed for $100 somebody gave you an offer for nine. 87 you would probably take it right, and that's kind of, you know, that's pretty much what you're doing with 3% promotion.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, there's a lot of speculation about how promoted listings works, and personally, you know, I do use it, but it depends on your competition in that category? Sure. If you've got stuff that is, is really one of a kind, you know, the historical ephemera, that kind of stuff, yeah, there's a lot of listings. You have a lot of competition, but not for that exact thing, sure, well, so if you're selling, you know, Nike shoes, you're gonna have a lot of competition, and you're gonna to really get seen. You're gonna need to do a higher percentage. But you know, if you've got an autographed photo album from some celebrity or something like that, that you probably won't need to print them both that at all. You know it's gonna get found.

Unknown:

Yeah, yeah. So when people I want to give it a shot for a few months and see what happens and go from there,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah. So it's more like iPhone cases or earbuds or stuff, where there's just 1000s of listings. I don't even want to sell that stuff because it's so competitive, but it's lost in voting. Like, okay, let's talk bras. Like, there's so many different brands, colors, sizes, combinations of sizes, like, but it's it. There's a lot in there. It's very competitive. So it is something that you just have to experiment with. And I'm glad that you're saying. I'm just going to see how it goes, because there's, there's a lot of speculation, but there's really no science or no proof of any of it.

Unknown:

Yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

because you don't know what your competitors are doing, you'll see them on the sponsored listings, but you don't know what percentage they're doing.

Unknown:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I know eBay is suggested. You have to be careful when you when you do it, because they will give you a suggested rate at, you know, 16% or then they have the other variations, where you can go per click or dynamic, and it varies each day. So I don't know that. I want to get into quite all of that. I'll just do a flat percentage on everything and see see how it goes.

Suzanne Wells:

And I'm very skeptical of eBay suggested anything, because know how that number is being formulated. So let's say you're listing a model train or something, and it says, suggested percentage 9% Well, where's that number come from? Is it of the ones that sold? Is it an average of what's listed? Is eBay saying, let's take the average and add 5% so we can make, you know what? How are they getting that number?

Unknown:

I don't know. That's a good point. I don't know. Yeah, no,

Suzanne Wells:

that's I'm just rhetorically putting that out there, because they're not going to tell us how this is done. They don't want us to know. But I feel like, from a corporate America standpoint, I'm not bashing eBay. You know, they want to make money like everybody else. I feel like they're taking some kind of average and adding a little to it to say, Oh, this is what we suggest,

Unknown:

right? Yeah, exactly. I'm sure they put it on in their favor a bit Exactly.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah. So why? Not a lot of people are adamant about, no, I'm not doing promoted listings. That's just a cash grab eBay making more money, but, and I get it, but you won't know until you try it and you make them out ahead. Like you said, if you had an$100 item and you would take a$97 offer, it's kind of the same thing.

Unknown:

Yeah. Well, this, this YouTuber that I watched is one of my favorites. And he said he gave it a he gave a try from another, you know, big, big seller who and he wanted to get his 90 day up. And he got his 90 day up from hovering around 12 to $15,000 up above 20, which was a goal that he had. And I, you know, I Okay, well, I'll give that a shot. I'll try that.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah. I mean, the worst thing that can happen is you'll is, you'll make a little less money on the sale, but you, you're never going to know if it would have sold without the promoted on there. You're sure. So that's right, it's just, you know, trial and error kind of thing. So anyway, well, we have been going about an hour here, and it was great to catch up with you again. So you're going into work later, or you have the whole day off.

Unknown:

No, no, I'm getting ready and going into work and seeing what. It waits me there when I get in.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, what weights you at home? How much do you have in your death pile?

Unknown:

Oh, I got a lot since you started. No no, by July, you must have a bunch of stuff. I do. I do have a lot. You know, I'm keeping up with what I'm buying really good right now. And I have a, I have a regular goal of about five items a day I'm trying to list. And I'm also in a one of the Facebook groups is doing a listing challenge. So it goes up weekly on how many so I, I pretty much am turning over what I buy. You know, within the weekend that I get it, for the most part, I might be falling behind on a couple, but the other thing is, I need to take some big bites out of everything in my death pile. And I think you did see, you know, a while back, I had a bunch of Star Wars figures, right? They were again, collectible, quote, unquote, collectible figures that on their own, they have very low sell through, and maybe 10 bucks a piece. Well, I just finally it was in my pile, and I lotted them all up and sold, I think, 10 of them, and went from $250 in one in one shot. Very good. Yeah, yeah, it was so, you know, I'm trying to get rid of some stuff like that,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah. And that's the way to do is lot it up. It's faster list, and you make a little bit more money, and and then it's gone. And it's somebody else's thing. Exactly, yep, okay, well, thanks for making time for me this morning, and as always, we'll keep watching you on the group for all your interesting and amazing sale. You are the amazing bill in

Unknown:

California. You name me that. So thank you. Okay, well, have a great day. Thanks. You as well talk to them, bye, bye.

Suzanne Wells:

And a follow up. We mentioned the post mortem photos. I looked up the one I was trying to remember, and the title is rare, antique post mortem Memorial cabinet card photo twin babies that sold on January 19, 2025 For $260 there was another similar one titled unique post mortem photo of twin babies and sister pointing towards heaven. That one sold on February 26 2025 for $256 so those are definitely something to remember when you are finding old or antique photos and cabinet cards are the post mortem ones do sell for a lot. Okay? Next week, my guest is Alicia, who has been selling since 2003 and used eBay as a way to support herself and her four daughters as a single mom for many years. So make sure you come back next week to meet her and thank you all for listening and supporting this podcast. Keep plugging along. Summer can be slow and frustrating, but we got this. I'll talk to you next week. Bye, everybody. You.