November Update.

November, November, November let me count the ways. UM NO. So looking back on this month from the end of the month point of view was there anything majorly significant this month? No, not in the grand scheme of things whatever that is. I did sell a DVD - Season 5 of the Television Show "Castle" on Ebay.  Unfortunately I lost out on shipping the package was over 1 pound. I charged $5.00 shipping and real shipping was $8.55. It was my 3rd sold item on Ebay for this year. Right now there are 68 items listed. "And there was Much Rejoicing"

Not sure if I'll add anything to this or not. Got some things on my plate.

Ebay And A Name Misspelling Repeat Of Sorts

 Hello and welcome to a typical "I don't know what I'm going to post about" post.

So on Ebay I did a minor little goof on ordering something. I ordered a DVD I wanted from a seller that is in Canada. I usually try to just order from USA but will order from Canada from time to time. It is not that I am Anti buying from Canada, I just prefer to order from the US because tracking is more accurate and if there is a problem with the item and I have to return it I don't have to go through the whole shipping to another country thing. Anyway I ordered a DVD and I could have sworn it was from a US seller, but now that I think about it, it was more a case of I wanted the item so bad I didn't really care where it came from. Also I had the item on my watch list for quite sometime, so I probably just assumed it was located in the US. OH Well no biggy.

Not a goof but another Ebay oddity for me was I ordered some vinyl 45s singles. One seller I bought 4 singles from and another seller I had purchased only one. In an odd bit of irony the lot of 4 singles was shipped in a polybag bubble mailer protected by cardboard, and the lonely single was shipped in a 9" x 9" x 6" box. Packed with bubble on top and the single at the bottom of the box. I had expected things to be the other way round.

Quick misspelling Name Game. A year or two ago I once got a receipt with the name "Cork" well now I can add a variant spelling with a "K" twice. Now there are two recent trips to Chick-Fil-A where my name was misspelled as "Kork". I was bad  for a while in February and early March by going there about once a week for 3 or 4 weeks on Friday evenings or on Saturdays around lunchtime.

End of Year Babbling

 

Alrighty then. It is the end of 2022. Hey on Christmas day I had an Ebay sale. A lot of 20 Topps 1978 Jaws 2 trading cards for $4.99 + $4.00 shipping. Headed to Florida. I think that makes 4 maybe 5 sales this year. The number of items in Ebay store is now at 71. So there is that to yack about, which I just did.

What the heck else?

Oh I have a CD on order from Discogs. It is my 4th purchase from the site in the last 2 years. Without disclosing the album I will say it is a somewhat hard to find title. I don't know why it doesn't seem like it would be that obscure of a title but apparently it is. I have had this CD on my wishlist over there for sometime now and every once in a while I would get a notice that a copy was available from a seller in Japan, but the shipping was outrageous (at least twice the cost of the CD often much more) and the sale price before shipping was also high. Granted often times they were brand new and sealed copies, but even used copies of Very Good or lesser condition were super expensive. Every time a copy would show up it was very expensive and only available from Japan. Also it was always the same 2 or 3 sellers, sometimes they would have 3 or 4 copies for sale. I kept refusing to give in, until near the end of November. I decided to bite the bullet and order it from a seller in Japan. I'm not thrilled about the idea since it is coming from the Orient which is the most problematic area for ordering stuff from, but that is mostly China that is awful. The overall price is good and cheaper than the previous copies and other copies that are sometimes twice the price I am paying, even cheaper than one of my previous purchases for a vinyl album that is even rarer and an Original Master Recording that was worth the price I paid for it and much cheaper than OMRs of that album usually go for. So this CD has been shipped and is on its way. It has been almost 5 weeks since I placed the order, and the expected ship time is 4 to 6 weeks. So I have another week before I expect the disc to show up. In the meantime another copy for the same price I paid total is available here in the US. UGH it figures when it is finally available in the US I am already waiting for a copy from Japan, Oh and the condition of this CD is marked as being VG+.

Magic Ebay Sale

For those who are not interested in hearing about my Ebay exploits you can skip this post all together.

Another month, or rather another 2 months and another Ebay sale. Two months later on the same day of the month I made a sale on Ebay Yay! This time it was a lot of two Magic: The Gathering collectible card game cards. A Summon Mesa Pegasus and A Summon Pearled Unicorn both cards Unplayed and in excellent condition that I had gotten from the card collection of a friend's son. The pair sold for 5 bucks ($4.99) and shipped for an additional 5 bucks ($4.95 actual shipping) minus Ebay fees I brought in $8.49 minus the shipping I made $3.54. Not bad. My Ebay store now has 72 items in it.

Update: Added To Ebay

 On the weekend of 06 Aug I did some listing for my Ebay. I added some comic book super heroes trading cards at fixed prices, and a bunch of Magic: The Gathering cards auctions, singles and 2 card lots (plus one 4 card lot) with 99¢ opening bids. My number of items before my listing spree were at 36 I added 13 over the weekend bringing my total listed items to 49. Then I scheduled auctions (which adds a 10¢ fee) 5 per day to start at Midnight Monday morning until Midnight Friday morning. My item total is now 75. The auctions I have recycled for a second run and then I will change them to fixed price listings at slightly higher prices. I don't have any exceptionally rare ones so my prices will be higher than what they are actually worth. Heck the 99¢ opening bids are more than what most of them are worth. Definitely long term suckers.

The number of items listed doesn't really matter but the ore that is listed the better your chances of actually selling something. Thinking about it doesn't move things.

I don't know if I've said it here or not, but at times I think listing stuff at Ebay is fun. What isn't fun is when you have to make some sort of complicated correction or addition that Ebay requires that doesn't even relate to what is being sold or is some unneeded minute detail.

I did do a new "Up On Ebay" video for my YouTube, but haven't uploaded it yet.I don't have many followers there because I rarely do videos so it won't get much traffic. UPDATE: I uploaded Episode 3 of Up On Ebay! after I had already scheduled this update post to be published. So I did a little editing on this post.

WoooWhooo! I sold one of the auctions on the second round. A1997 Topps Basketball Kevin Garnett Graded RC card #148 graded by FGS Gem Mint 10 at the opening 99¢ bid plus $5.00 shipping and some sales tax. My store now has 74 items.

I also sold a book Roger Zelazny "Trumps of Doom" for $8.99 plus $5.00 shipping actual shipping was $5.50 total income to bank account after Ebay fees and tax was $10 and some change. Now have 73 items in store.

Random Stuff Episode 1: DVD Update & Ebay

Random Stuff Episode 1:

Updates: DVD & Ebay

For quite a while now my regular DVD player attached to the TV in my living room I have not used because it gradually stopped recognizing DVDs. It accepts audio CDs but sadly the laser that reads DVD video information has been broken for something like 2 or 3 years. It has been even longer since I watched DVDs on a regular basis. When this problem started back whenever at first it was just an occasional DVD disc. Then it became every DVD disc I would put in a disc and it would give me a "no disc" error. I noticed I could put an audio CD in and it recognized that and played the audio from them, but didn't recognized DVDs. I had purchased a cleaning disc that is supposed to help, but it didn't. However  I have still been buying occasional DVDs via Ebay and elsewhere, but mostly from EBay.

I have a CD/DVD ROM player on my ancient Windows XP laptop but ages ago whenever I would view videos the computer would overheat and crash. I also have an external DVD ROM Drive but that is a pain to have to plug in all the time plus I had the overheating problem with that laptop so I got out of the practice of DVD viewing.

This lack of a DVD player problem was on the back burner for a long time. I finally got a really cheap DVD player from Best Buy ($37 and some change including sales tax). I was going to get one at Target for about twice as much, but my Target no longer carries DVD players or DVDs and I don't like buying electronics online or trust getting electronic equipment shipped. Ironically that is how I got my Chromebook. My biggest concern with that isn't with the risk of damage during shipping but rather the porch pirates when it gets delivered. Anyway now I have a basic DVD player again. I hooked it up and the first disc I watched was a Doctor Who episode on DVD. Felt good. 

Also related to the DVD issue and my past computer problems, which my Chromebook has helped recover from somethings. My lack of activity for my DVDProfiler cataloging. I need to get things updated and try to see if I can transfer the base program from my ancient XP to my Chromebook. I don't want to have to download the program and learn that I have to pay for it. I think I paid for the software ages ago to have an account tracking more than 50 DVDS. I have way way more than that in TV series alone. A few years back they added an Android app. Not sure if you can add stuff on it, but I can at least see my online collection on it. 

 

I sold another card on Ebay on 29 June for $6 ($2 plus $4 shipping I don't use the Ebay Standard Envelope or PWEs when selling) the last sale was on May 3rd for $7 total.

Some Stuff This That The Other Maybe

 As usual I'm not sure what this post will be about yet. Might just be a mishmash of stuff.

I did have an Ebay sale. A football relic card one of those "Rookie Letterman" cards of an autographed manufactured letter "A". I originally had it listed for much more but had lowered the price a few times. It was at $7 I got a couple of watchers on it and sent out an offer of I think 25% so around $5. The buyer counter offered with $3 and I accepted the counter-offer, so that is the price it sold at plus $4 shipping. It sold on Tue 3 May and was shipped out Wed 4 May (I had the day off for a doctor's appointment). An odd message exchange occurred long story short apparently the buyer had a problem with another seller that was being extremely rude, but they messaged and went off on me instead. They apologized for the mishap. After the card was marked as being delivered on Saturday 7 May I got a positive "Perfect" feedback from the buyer.

I've been on Ebay a long time and for the most part I like it but there are some decisions they have made over the years I don't agree with or don't like. I haven't liked any of their TV commercials much. For the most part because in their ads they give a false impression that everything is brand new and that all the sellers are professional. Anyway moving on.

I don't do music streaming. I will occasionally listen to music on YouTube and watch the accompanying video images if they have any, but I don't stream via sites like Spotify. Apparently I had signed up for Spotify via my Facebook account and was charged $10 for their premium service on one of my credit cards. Well I put a stop to that by asking for my forgotten password to create a new password and then close the account. So maybe I'll get charged again next month if any time passed from the billing date to my cancelling the account. I don't know if I fat fingered something on my Droid, or my tablet when it was functional. At any rate any signing up was not intentional.

That seems to be it for now at least for what I want to disclose at this time.

Ebay Reselling Update: September 2021

EBAY Reselling Update:
September 2021 Sales

My last Sales update April 2021 I had 1 sale and 39 listings in the store. 

So What Sold in Sep 2021?

1. The Heechee Saga: Heechee Rendezvous Bk. 3 by Frederik Pohl (1985, Paperback) $4.95 Plus $4 shipping

Total: $4.95

I sold just 1 item, been months since I've added new listings so no sales for a long time. I keep "thinking" of listing, wanting and plan to list but haven't done so. Anyway this book was bought by someone in Canada and with the prices of USPS first class shipping to Canada I lost a ton on this. In the faith of openness it cost me $21.25 to ship USPS First Class to Ontario Canada. I will no longer ship to Canada the only non US country I was shipping to. Now I will Only ship to US and US Territories that are part of the USPS system. 

After this shipping to Canada fiasco I went to edit an older listing I had and accidentally clicked "end listing". I immediately noticed and then had to go to my "ended" listings section and relist that older ancient listing. It's all good now.

I now have 38 store listings at a count of 48 units.

Some related links:

My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post
My YouTube channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02
Ecrater Store: CaptKirk42 (AKA: Kirk's Knook)

Ebay Reselling Update: April 2021

EBAY Reselling Update:
April 2021 Sales

My last Sales update Feb 2021 I had 2 sales and 41 listings in the store. I had no sales in March.

So What Sold in Apr 2021?

1. Number 10 Envelopes Red 25 count pack $4.99 Free Shipping

Total: $4.99

Item number 1 was the last package of colored envelopes.

In March I took down a listing for some basketball cards to make a trade I did over at the trading card data base (tcdb.com). The cards not in the trade I will need to relist sometime. For me unfortunately it looks like the 5 cards I was supposed to receive were either lost in the mail (if sent) or were stolen by porch pirates if it was a large package left at my door.

I now have 39 store listings at a count of 49 units.

Some related links:
My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post
My YouTube channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02
Ecrater Store: CaptKirk42 (AKA: Kirk's Knook)

Ebay Update: Added Listings

 

Ebay Update: New listings

This will probably be just a quick update on my Ebaying. As for sales I haven't had anything sell since June. That is mostly because of what class? I didn't do any listing. Right. So about 2 weeks ago I corrected that and added 5 more items to my Ebay store giving me a total of 24 items in the store. Most of the listings in my store are one item/unit only one shots. I only have 2 multi item/unit listings, before this recent added listings I just had one multi-unit listing. I haven't gotten any new sales, but the views of my items has gotten back to being a thing and not just one random view every few weeks. It still isn't anything to really write home about though.

So as I said I added 5 listings. 3 were sealed DVDs and 2 were sports related of those 2 one is team branded general merchandise you could stretch it some to say it is breweriana as it is a set of drink coasters, the other is a multi-unit listing of some trading card packs.  For these 5 items each has shipping on top.

Here is what was listed:

• New York Yankees branded drink coasters unopened 10 pack $7.95
• DVD: Castle The Complete 5th Season 5 discs SEALED set $14.95
• DVD: Road to Perdition SEALED $9.99
• DVD: The Shawshank Redemption SEALED $9.99
• SEALED pack of 2017 Leaf Draft Football trading cards $4.50  $4.00 (x6)

The DVDs will probably sit for a while since they are big name movies and there are a ton on Ebay, plus I'm somewhere in the high middle on pricing. The drink coasters I won't get much of a profit on if any and I might even lose some even on shipping. The key rookie card in the Draft packs is Patrick Mahomes II. I mentioned that in the description but not the title. I also mentioned he is the key rookie but there is no guarantee of pulling his card. I think he has at least 2 cards in that set maybe 3. I started them off at $4.50 but this past weekend (28 Aug) dropped the price down to $4.00. I had gotten them from some of those Fairfield repacked boxes of 20 (or was it 24?) packs of Football cards or maybe one of those boxes of 4 packs w/ 100 loose cards.

To try to get some things moving I am having a store wide 10% off sale for about 10 days Sept 01-11. Maybe some stuff will sell because of that sale. I hope so at least.

Ebay Reselling Update: June 2020 Sales

EBAY Reselling Update:
June 2020 Sales

Not much to report I continue to procrastinate in regard to adding new listings. I only sold 1 item in June and my Ebay store only has 19 items still. The item that sold was a pretty nice price. It was a book that I had gotten with a bunch of other books years ago. I forget when it was or how much the lot was or the exact total number of books. It was 20-30 science fiction books in the lot and I probably spent $1 - $2 per book. It wouldn't have been much more than that because that would mean spending over $40 for the lot and I would have been crazy to spend that much on the lot. Anyway when researching this book it surprised me when I saw that was apparently slightly rare. There were very few if any copies that had recently sold and they were either another copy or a copy with another book. I think there were only one or two copies that were even still listed. It seemed to comp for $20 - $30 maybe a little more if pristine condition. My copy sold for $25. Just when I was thinking of dropping the price down some to maybe $20 or a little less to try to force a sale, BAM it sold.

So What Sold in June 2020?

1. A Planet in Arms by Donald Barr (1981 Paperback) $25 plus shipping.

Some related links:
My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post
My YouTube channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02
Ecrater Store: CaptKirk42 (AKA: Kirk's Knook)

Ebay Reselling Update: May 2020 Sales

EBAY Reselling Update:
May 2020 Sales

This does seem to be a regular standard thing now I guess.

I am now down to 20 19 items in my Ebay store. I continue to procrastinate in regard to adding new listings. It has been about two months since I have listed anything new. I need to reset my goals. Then I really need to make an effort to complete any goals I make. A few months back I thought it would be easy to do some more listing and be close to 100 listings near the beginning of April. If I had kept to some sort of routine of listing "x" number of items per week I could have easily done it. However I soon slipped back into my unmotivated procrastinating ways. Very very big sigh.

So What Sold in May 2020?

1. Unopened 2016 Leaf Babe Ruth Collection 5 pack Baseball trading cards $1.50 Free Shipping
2. Unopened 2016 Leaf Babe Ruth Collection 5 pack Baseball trading cards $1.50 x3 ($4.50) Free Shipping

Update: It is now June and Hey I got another sale on the 5th that means I'll be making another one of these types of posts in about a month a few weeks. Number of items in my Ebay store is now down to 19.

I also have had an Ecrater Store for quite sometime. It has been stale for at least 10 years or so. They don't have all the fees Ebay does. You can list with no limits and no fees. You do have to do all the promoting of it yourself and they don't have all the traffic Ebay does. Amazingly it still seems to be a valid and viable site for some resellers. I did a little freshening up and updating to that store. Man some of those photos need to be updated or changed to scans.

Anyway I have definitely lost the motivation to list. This month I have been focused more on my music listening and trying to get back to reviewing at rateyourmusic. But that is an entirely different subject.

Some related links:
My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post
My YouTube channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02
Ecrater Store: CaptKirk42 (AKA: Kirk's Knook)

Ebay Reselling Update: April 2020 Sales

EBAY Reselling Update:
April 2020 Sales

Well the world maybe in a strange state but Ebay is still functioning. So long as the USPS and other shipping services are deemed essential, sellers will still be able to ship stuff out to buyers. I really really need to do more listing. Even though I didn't make any new listings I did have a few sales near the beginning of April. It has slowed down because I haven't been listing new stuff. I have done a little updating current listings making some adjustments. For all my books listed I now have a scan photo of the book's spine and a scan of the copyright page to indicate which edition it is. So each of my book listings have pics of both front and back covers, the spine, and the inside copyright page. If there are any markings inside I'll post those as well.

I am now down to 21 items in my Ebay store. I wanted to get those extra book spine pics up before adding new listings because some of the stuff I'm planning on listing are more books. For some reason I kept procrastinating on doing that scanning. I do too much scan procrastinating. I think part of it is the process is tedious.

So What Sold in April 2020?

1. Unopened 1990 Univ of Notre Dame Football Trading cards 8 card pack: $1.50 Free Shipping
2. Unopened 2016 Leaf Babe Ruth Collection 5 pack Baseball trading cards $1.50 Free Shipping
3. Unopened 2016 Leaf Babe Ruth Collection 5 pack Baseball trading cards $1.50 (x2) Free Shipping
4. Unopened 1990 Univ of Notre Dame Football Trading cards 8 card pack: $1.50 Free Shipping

I have 4 packs of the Babe Ruth Collection cards left in my store. I started with 9 packs of that.

Hopefully buy the time this post is published I will have more than just 21 items listed in my store.


Some related links:
My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post
My YouTube channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02

Ebay Reselling Update: March 2020 Sales and Stuff

EBAY Reselling Update:
March 2020 Sales

I am thinking of making this a regular or semi-regular series of posts. Might come up with a snappy pun-filled title. I don't want to make this an exclusive Ebay Blog though. It all actually depends on if I continue to make sales on that platform, which depend on a few obvious contributing factors like listing the items for sale and people actually buying the items. I also think in some ways I give too much info in these things sometimes. That is something else to ponder. Anyway another Month has gone by and with a smidgen of listing effort (I still need to pick my butt up and go to town on listing) I sold a few more things off of Ebay for March 2020.

Since I haven't been doing any listing of stuff my store is now down to only 22 items. I need to motivate myself to do more listing. I'll have more time to list in the next 2 weeks. There are a few delaying factors that I won't go into here online, or to anyone for that matter anywhere. Sometimes I don't inform others of some of my life's minutiae.

So What Sold in March 2020?

1. Unopened 2016 Leaf Draft 5 card pack Football Trading cards: $1 Free Shipping
2. Unopened 2016 Leaf Babe Ruth Collection 5 pack Baseball trading cards $1.50 Free Shipping
3. Unopened 2016 Leaf Babe Ruth Collection 5 pack Baseball trading cards $1.50 Free Shipping
4. 2000 ECW Wrestling: Champion Clashers Stickers set 5 stickers $15 plus shipping*
5. The Stardust Voyages by Steven Tall 1975 paperback $6.99 plus shipping
6. Word Bringer by Edward Llewellyn 1986 paperback $4.45 plus shipping
7. The Inverted World by Christopher Priest 1974 paperback $2.99 Free Shipping

*The ECW wrestling stickers were originally sold in packages of the ECW Champion Clashers Action Figures packages. I don't know how many different figures there were in the set of figures. It was apparently random as to which sticker went with which figure at times. I think there is only the 5 stickers. I also think the ones I had gotten as part of a free collection I received from a friend. Probably from the 2nd or 3rd wave of cards from that collection. Also my original listed price was a bit high at $25 for the stickers. I didn't see any trace of the stickers being sold separately and some of the figures still mint on card/in box I think went for up to $25 with shipping included. The stickers sat at that price for a while. Then I noticed they had a watcher, after a week or so I decided to send the watcher an offer of $18 they immediately counter-offered with $15 still with the shipping attached. I thought for a while and later that evening accepted the counter-offer to get the stickers sold.

About a day and a half to 2 days after selling the ECW stickers I got a surprise of another buyer making a purchase of 3 books. One of the books had 3 watchers so someone watching that book decided to make a 3 book purchase. They paid the shipping I had on two of the books and the watched book had free shipping. At first I was going to refund some of the shipping, but I had largely underestimated the cost of shipping 3 books in one box, that ended up going 2 day shipping. I thought it was going to go first class, oops. So I actually paid double in shipping vs what I had charged for shipping.

I recently got a digital postal scale that can handle up to 25 pounds. Anything heavier than that I'll probably have problems lifting myself anyway. I was actually wanting to get one for 50 pound limit but that one was too damn expensive at Office Depot. I spent more than I really wanted to on the scale I got but what the heck? Now I need to find a good flat surface to use it on.

Back to the shipping costs thing. I am going to try to avoid doing the Free Shipping, or at least make sure the item I'm using it for is listed for $5.00 or more (and never goes on a discount sale). If the $2.99 book (the one that was being watched) had sold just by itself I would have lost money due to the shipping. As it is I think I might have broken even on the deal. I'm not exactly sure of the cost of goods since it was so long ago that I had bought that lot of sci-fi books but I made up for it some on the sales price of the books. The Paypal and Ebay fees cut into any total profit for the sale. I'm going to call that one even. The packs of cards that have Free Shipping I usually lose a little since I don't do PWEs for Ebay stuff and the minimum cost of a first class package is close to $4 now days. I still need to find that healthy shipping cost balance. I like to keep things relatively low since I myself don't like paying a ton for shipping. That scale I bought will help in that matter, that and putting the real item weight for each item instead of having everything listed at about an ounce or whatever.

OH and since I have delayed some in finishing this post to publish it, I sold one item from a multi count item (a pack of trading cards) on Wednesday 01 Apr 2020 which will insure there is similar kind of post at the end of this month.

Some related links:
My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post
My YouTube channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02

Ebay: More Selling Stuff and Ideas

CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post

So here is another post about Ebay and selling there and just some related stuff I want to talk about.

In my earlier post about getting back into the swing of Ebay selling I probably should have made a brief mention that in my earlier height of Ebay selling at one time I had reached the milestone of having 100 items Up On Ebay in my store. Then a few days after that I think the highest I had was 110 or 115. I only kept track of the fact that I had broken the 100 item milestone and for the briefest of moments whatever my real max had been. I forget how long I was at that height before the sales knocked it back down below 100, but I haven't been there since and I want to make having 100 items in my store inventory my standard lowest inventory point. My goal for March is to have the total of 100 items listed in the store. From there I want to keep that the basement limit. Currently as of this posts publishing my store item count is 26 items. So  74 items more to list.

In general when selling on Ebay you have to list new items regularly to get your items noticed and viewed as the newer listings get priority in the searches. It takes somewhere between a dozen and 2 dozen items to start picking up views and making a sale or two. The more your list the more that your items get seen and more importantly the more sales you make. You don't have to list things that are huge ticket items, but if you only list a few things here and there that are only about a dollar you won't make much or will have to list a ton of items to start making good money.

To stress this point for many years my Ebay Store has been sitting with only 6 stale items in it. 1 item only is a multiple "copies" of that item. A collectible button, pinback or as the say in The UK a "badge" I think patches are also usually called badges so that is a little confusing just as using the term "button" here in the US is. Is that a shirt button, or one of those collectible things that has a funny saying on it? Every few months one of those buttons will sell. I mentioned in the previous post that I had gotten the particular design from a huge lot of buttons (100 count at least but less than 200) I had gotten from an Ebay auction, back in the days when Ebay was mostly auctions. I don't recall how much I paid for the batch or how many of each button there actually were. I do recall this specific button I had at least 50 of it maybe as many as 60. It is now down to a 10 count. Even though the other designs from that particular lot I sold long ago, I still have a boat load of buttons that I will eventually list and try to sell, including a bunch of buttons from my personal collection. I used to be pretty big in collecting buttons but not any more.  But I digress.

So long story shortish During the month of February I actively started listing more starting with listing 2 items one day, skipping the next day adding 2 more items and so on. I started with the 6 stale listings (I updated most of the photos/scans) dropped the price of the button from $1.50 to 99¢, then added those first 2 listings making the item count 8, then 10, then 16 items then jumped to 20, then 24 and then jumping up to 30 items total. When I was at about 14 or 15 items one of the earlier items I had listed sold. It was a listing of multiples and about half the multiples sold in one sale. It was a pack of football trading cards. So I continued to add listings. I got up to 30 listed items and for February made 5 sales. I can't stress enough how that simple act of regular listing of items increases both the views of your listed items but also increases the sales. Going many months without making any new listings I would sell maybe one or two items a year (mostly that same button). Making 24 new listings over about 3 weeks I made 5 sales. So far in March I have made one sale (one of the packs of football cards selling it out) but I haven't added any new listings  The number of items Up On Ebay is only 26 right now. I have some things set aside to list but I need to scan them. Yes right now I have been scanning the items mostly because I don't want to do the whole camera phone uploading thing. My other items are still being viewed but views have slowed down without any new listings.

So some might be wondering what Sold?
February 2020:

1. 5 card pack of 2016 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 (x5)
2. 5 card pack of 2018 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 (x5)
3. 1984 copy of Dune by Frank Herbert Berkley Books: $5.50
4. 5 card pack of 2018 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 (x6)
5. Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg 1971 paperback: $4.99 plus shipping

March 2020:

1. 5 card pack of 2016 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 

You can check out my series of "Up On Ebay" YouTube videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02 I know the quality of my cheap old webcam sucks. It also is a bit dark. Most everything I currently have listed has been mentioned and shown in those videos. I also mention what has sold. At the time I made the videos I think there were only a couple of sales. Video 2 might have been made before I got the second sale.

I think I mentioned that for many months I've been planning to get back into actively listing stuff on Ebay. Part of my motivation was from watching a bunch of YouTube Resellers such as Lonnie of Garage Flips/Shed Flips, Kevin the Commonwealth Picker/Flipper (with his wife Heather The Blue Ridge Mama), Matt "Part-Time Pickers", Jon Cincinnati Picker, and also Bobby TheCapGuy. There are a few others I've seen and followed but some of them are more recent discoveries and to be honest I found after my motivation was already in motion.

Eventually I would love to have the number of sales those people have. They tend to average 10 sales a day most days during the week. They also have a ton of stuff listed I think 500 items is the lowest number I've seen for some of these people, maybe one of them has between 300-500 but for the most part they have no less than 500 items and upwards of 2,000 items. Most seem to have over 1,000 items (and 2 or 3 Ebay Stores). My goal as I have said is to get to a minimum of 100 items and keep on building from there.

Some related links:
My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post
My YouTube channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02

Back To The Swing Of Ebay Selling

Lately I've been getting back into the swing of listing and selling on Ebay. I have been a member of Ebay for both buying and selling since their early days (my profile start date is marked as 30 April 1998) when they were just an online auction house. For the first 6 months or so I was just sort of idle. I had signed up and checked out what they were and then had temporarily forgotten about them. I forget what my first winning auction bid was for. I know some of the early bids I made were for of all things Beanie Babies. Some theatre acquaintances of mine were into buying Beanie Babies on Ebay that is how I discovered the site. I Never won any of those back then I didn't know you were supposed to bid your max bid and my max bid was usually under $20 when those things were selling for at least $25 every time. Eventually I would get into buying trading card stuff. Now I get all sorts of stuff from there. I try to avoid big or heavy items though due to the shipping expenses. I don't dare sell anything that is too huge to ship normally.

Probably about a year after I had first signed-up I started trying to sell. I started with some books some VHS video tapes, trading cards, and pinback buttons. I always would have to relist stuff. At the time as I said Ebay was just auction listings the basic time was 7 days there were 3 day listings and 10 day listings. I think the 3 day listings were more expensive to list, but could be profitable. The auctions would end and I'd have to "relist" them, of course Ebay charged a relisting fee (having an Ebay store got rid of the relisting fees) I think the first thing I sold has also been one of the biggest sales I have ever had. It was $20 or $25 for a lot 4 (I think it was 4 maybe it was 2 or 3) VHS tapes of the Animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cartoon TV show. The bidder was getting them for their grandkids. Eventually I sold some other stuff some trading cards here and there, some books, buttons (pinback collector type not shirt type) and an occasional odd and end. $25 is the most I have listed one individual item for. Once I sold a package of some lanyards I had gotten from Staples that I didn't recall actually buying. I think they had been left on the counter by someone else and my pile of stuff had mixed up with those things. It was a pack of 5 that I sold for $10 max.

I have been paying for an Ebay store for many years. I forget when I first started it, but it was at the time when selling stuff at a "Buy It Now" fixed price was fairly new at Ebay. Having a store saves on the individual "listing" fees for making a single listing. In order to have it actually pay off however you need to have a minimum of 15-20 items for your items to get seen fairly regularly. Of course you actually need to get your items to sell for it to really pay off. You really need to be regularly "listing" items to keep your items at the top of the search lists. Back in the early days of Ebay stores you had to have at least one active Auction listing for your "In Store" fixed price items to be seen. Since at the time Ebay had no way to search for the fixed price items. That was many years ago and now most Ebay sellers and resellers rarely list any auctions. They list fixed price with "Best Offer" options. The more you list the more you sell. It isn't just a saying it is a cold fact. When I rarely listed anything I would rarely have anything sell. Only the occasional button, the supply of which I had gotten from a big lot of buttons that were about  7 different designs with multiples of each design, some only 5 or 6 buttons but most being about 12 buttons with the Express Start buttons being about 50 I think. I have 10 left of those but sold the other designs individually years ago.

For many months and a couple of years I have been meaning to add more listings and get back into actively selling on Ebay but kept putting it off. Partly due to the whole Photobucket changing the conditions on their free memberships and how much memory your albums can take up. It used to be at Ebay you needed an outside website for photo hosting, now you don't need an outside storage site unless you want to have more than 12 photos and use html for your listings.

At the beginning of February 2020 my store was at it's stale 6 items that I have had there for a few years. I then started adding some newer listings and I started getting more views on my previous items for sale. I added 2 listings then a couple days later 2 more listings then 4 or 5 listings and then I get a sale or two. Over 2 weeks I had gone from 6 items listed w/ very few sales per month. To 30 listings and now 5 sales during the month. As of this posting I have had those 5 sales in Feb (2 books, 3 orders of single packs of trading cards 16 packs total) and now have 27 items listed in my store. The Express Start pinback buttons (10 count), Some trading cards: a oouple of individual card lots, some packs and a few individual card lisitngs.

On YouTube I have started a series of videos called "Up On Ebay" where I mention recently listed items and try to show them as well. I also mention recent sales. I need to make some more listings before I do a new video and I will have to mention the last 4 sales all of which have shipped out now.

Related Links:
"Weird Al" Yankovic - The Ebay Song (fan made video there is no "official" video)
A version with a Boy Band acting the song out.

My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42's Federation Trading Post
My YouTube Channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02

Update: Ebay Oops Sort Of

EBAY Oops Sort Of: An Update

Well I got a bit of a surprise on this almost mistake. A while back try late April last year (2017) I made a bid on Ebay for an autographed Wes Unseld Basketball trading card that was coming from China! I originally had missed that part. When I did notice it upon seeing the "item has been shipped" notice I started to get concerned. What with all the counterfeit cards that come out of Asia, and the various shipping problems people have had with stuff coming from overseas yadda, yadda, yadda I thought I would have to chalk this one off as a loss.

Just as sometime between late September to late December of 2016 when I had two packages that I suspect were snatched from my apartment's front door step. I thought that this would never arrive. Of the two missing packages from 2016 one I know for a fact was actually delivered because I was given a tracking number and after a few days I checked on a Thursday to check on the status of the package and it said the package had been delivered to the unit on that Monday. That one stinks because it was a full Score 1989 Baseball set. The other package was supposed to be 600 Nationals cards from a trade never got a tracking number but it sounded like it was shipped around the time I had shipped out my end of other teams for them. But I digress.

I started the tale of these cards back in April on this my regular blog because I needed to post something that month here for my minimal personal posting quota of one post per month. It so happened that this drama that ended up being non-drama and nothing to worry about was what was going on in my life at that particular moment.

Anyway since this is a card related story it is posted Here on: CaptKirk42's Trading Cards Blog. OK so the story was explained mostly here on my regular blog, but the bigger pictures of the card is on the card blog.

Ebay Oops Sort Of

The other day I bid on an auction at Ebay in a knee-jerk reaction. Hunting for a similar item that I had already won an auction on earlier in the day. The items I bid on were autograph cards of basketball player Wes Unseld from the Washington Bullets.

My homie basketball team that changed their name to the Washington Wizards in 1997.

They are cards that are sort of cheap because the autograph is on a clear sticker and then placed on the card. The athlete, celebrity or whoever never even sees the final product with these "on sticker" cards produced by the thousands by the trading card companies. The signer is handed (or sent) a roll, or sheet of the blank stickers that are the size of a small band-aid to sign usually in black or blue sharpie pen (magic marker type ink) I prefer the "on card" autograph cards but those are sometimes harder to find and depending on the product are often more expensive.

Well my mistake was not paying attention to WHERE the card was coming from. The auction plainly shows that the location of the item I was bidding on is in CHINA I think because the item location reads "China, UT, China" I just saw the UT part and thought "Oh its in Utah!" I got overexcited and was trigger happy.

Normally I pay very close attention to where something is located and ALWAYS try to avoid the problem countries in Asia, mostly because of the proliferation of counterfeit  products, especially collectibles coming out of those countries. Particularly China and Japan.

Fortunately the seller ships internationally and the card has now been marked as "shipped". Unfortunately the estimated delivery date ranges from 04 May to 09 June. Hopefully the card will arrive much sooner, but I tend to doubt it. I have had items come from Canada that took a month or more so getting a shipment literally from the slow boat from China in anything more than a month is wishful thinking.

Overall the cost isn't too much it was $1.99 (opening bid) for the card itself plus $4.99 shipping. The other card's opening bid was also $1.99 opening bid and I won it for $4.90 just under my max bid of $5 bucks. That first card is in the US fortunately and its shipping is only $3.25.

Oh well mistakes happen and this time it gave me a subject I could make a semi-quick blog post about. As an after thought it reminds me some of the times when I have ordered a book on Ebay and not noticed, that the copy is marked as previously being a public library copy. With that though sometimes the sellers are not forthcoming in their listings, they just say it is a used copy. However, there are several book sellers that seem to specialize in reselling library copies. I try to stay away from those because of all the markings and stickers left on the books.

DVD Udate: January 2013

JANUARY 2013

Just wanted to get this out of my post queue. I think I'll just leave it as is. Trying to keep up with this junk is just too much of an effort. I might on occasion mention some special interest DVDs I get not every bloody single one. Besides I have about a dozen or so I have gotten since this list and kept putting this update off. Ditto with my books updates. UGH.

It has been a very long time since I've done one of these, mostly because I was preoccupied with 19-19-1985,  actually I was preoccupied with other things like the Washington Nationals super 2012 Season and Playoffs Berth. I'm not sure when my last update was or which discs I had gotten that month. Anyway I'm going to try to improve on that this year (to reach my minimum yearly self appointed posting quota).

The first disc I got came from Columbia House and since I used my remaining Bonus Points I only had to pay for the shipping which was $2.99. I got it mostly for the star Milla Jovovich but also because I like the series. Resident Evil: Retribution. I really need to catch up with these films and have myself a marathon of them.

Resident Evil: Retribution

I went on a Batman Bonanza since I had gotten The Dark Knight Rises in December 2012. So I got the other two Batmovies in the most recent trilogy of films from Columbia House. They are calling these the Dark Knight Trilogy. Since I had gotten the last film of the series with Catwoman I figured I should get the other batmovies (I also need to get the earlier movies most of which I have on VHS but never got round to getting the DVDs)

The first BatMovie is Batman Begins. I don't know why I decided to get this "gift set" version of the movie actually I think it was because I wanted the special edition and I think this was the only non-Blu-Ray version they had. I must have been nuts. I got it for $39.95 that is close to my top price for movies on DVD.

Batman Begins

Next was the BatMovie that many think of as the best of the bunch due to Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker - The Dark Knight. I got it for FREE since I had bought the other BatMovie (Buy One Get One Free deal).

The Dark Knight

Next I started to catch up on something I should have done ages ago. The Stargate SG-1 series. I currently have Seasons One through Five in the original bulky versions (that I liked at the time) but they changed them to digipacks a few years back around the time Season Ten was released. I was expecting to get the digipack versions or maybe even the original versions that they were showing on the website, but Columbia House sent the newest versions which look nothing like the originals (even the digipack versions were different) so my collection will be mismatched for all eternity. I guess I'll have to hunt and pay a fortune for the ones I need off of Ebay. So I picked up the next two seasons I needed Season Six and Season Seven I got them for $29.95 each. I will show the version that I ended up getting and am a bit disappointed with.

Stargate: SG-1: Season 6

Stargate: SG-1: Season 7

Next I got another TV Series DVD this one came from Ebay for $19.44 with FREE Shipping. The animated series Dilbert: The Complete Series based on the comic strip by Scott Adams.

Dilbert: The Complete Series

DVDs Mentioned this post:
Resident Evil: Retribution
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
Stargate SG-1: Season 6
Stargate SG-1: Season 7
Adventures of Brisco County Jr.: The Complete Series
Dilbert: The Complete Series
.45
Ted
Total Recall (2012)
Looper
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Epic Series

Book Update: July and August 2012

July & August 2012

OK like my last "update" this one is coming many months too late, but only about 6 months late this time not 11. I got just a few books from the summer months, with the exception of one or two books from the MLB Insiders Club, this wraps up the books I had gotten in 2012. I will try to keep up with this stuff THIS Year to avoid having to do another post or two like this come 2014. I already have about 5 coming in from Ebay in the next few days to weeks.

ON to the books all of which I got from dealers at Ebay:

First up we have a book that I got for several reasons that should be pretty obvious because it is from a series I have a lot of books from. Doctor Who: Paradox Lost by George Mann. I first heard about this book from a Doctor Who group at GoodReads where I keep track of my book collection. It sounded fun since it was one of those Doctor Who adventures that went back and forth between a couple of time periods.

Doctor Who: Paradox Lost

By George Mann

Like most of the Doctor Who books it is a very fun read. This one gets its excitement from having to solve a modern/future paradox by traveling almost 1,000 years into the past. It keeps mentioning "one thousand years" but technically the span is only 879 years. It has a Sherlock Holmes Mystery feel to it with a bit of a goth horror mixed of course with the modern Doctor (number 11) with "The Ponds" flair.

Next up another Doctor Who book surprise surprise. This one called Doctor Who: Judgement of the Judoon by Colin Brake.

Doctor Who: Judgement of the Judoon

by Colin Brake

This Doctor Who book is a solo adventure of the Tenth Doctor. It has a sort of film noir feel to it with a little bit of comic flair added to the slight Doctor Who taste. He meets a character that would have made a wonderful companion had this been a regular episode or the book series publishers wanted an ongoing companion. I'm not sure how they decide that for the books. Judging (pardon the pun) by the title I thought if would be more of a courtroom drama sort of, but I'm glad it wasn't exactly the way I had invisioned it would be. It was a bit cooler and wasn't stuck with just the Judoon. The actual story is sad in some ways but I won't get into that here right now. I may save some of that for my official review of it. (Whenever that will happen since I'm behind right now with 32 books to review)

My third book from July was one for a sci-fi reading club at Goodreads. Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson.

Snow Crash

By Neil Stephenson

This book I was mixed on most of the story I really liked the concept of it but the author's use of foul language was a little much and in many places not needed. Originally published in the early 1990s it is one of those just a few years into the future type of books. The world is owned by corporations and instead of countries everything is companies and their franchises that act like countries, even public services like the police and the US Government are independently owned companies/countries. Cyberspace is huge business and other than these franchise zones it is the place to be. The anti-hero of the story is a mixed-raced 20something who has a hard time holding regular jobs but is an expert swordsman and is one of the "grandfather" hackers of the cyberspace world. He stumbles upon this drug called "Snow Crash" which is a drug in the real world made from tainted blood and in the Cyberworld a computer virus aimed to take out hackers. Part of the cyberspace experience is to be "jacked in" which like many other stories of this kind involves a computer chip and a type of USB port surgically installed in the neck. There is a subculture of these jacked in people who are more cyborg than human and they tend to be associated with the bad guys in this tale. If it were not for the language used by almost all the characters I would have enjoyed this book a bit more.

OK so then for the Month of AUGUST I got  a lone book. This is an older pre ISBN book from the 1960s and Random House. The Story of Baseball by John M. Rosenburg (of course the only amazon links I could find were for revised versions from the 70s but it will do for demonstration purposes and for this blog). It is a big hardcover storybook designed for "young readers" pre-teen to teenagers, but can be enjoyed by those who like or love the sport of baseball. I haven't read it yet but will sometime.

The Story of Baseball

by John M. Rosenburg

Well there we go that was the books I had gotten about six months ago. I will try to keep my book updates more up-to-date than this one and the last one.