Anyone have a booth at an Antique Mall?

I have 3 auctions up on ebay.
Monday I will put my craft books that did not sell on ebay on etsy.
If the cook books on ebay do not sell they will go into my amazon store.

__________________
2Ti 1:7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Luceo non uro

Went picking today for our FM booths, and here is some of what we bought:

5 gallon lard can in rusty but cool condition
A very old violin in a wood case; both in horrid condition, but should sell as a wall hanger
Cabella's brand camo coat
A very unusual art book of nudes; 2 copies are listed on ebay for $$$
A skateboard ramp
Vintage skateboard

I have to admit, I am like an alcoholic, but with books. I often get junk drunk and buy more books than I should, I finally sober up the next day and swear that I am going to quit books, once and for all.

That is all fine and dandy, until I run into a stack of war books, like I did today. Yes, I fell off the wagon again, got junk drunk...and bought an entire stack of books. I swear, I am like an addict when I saw Famous Fighter Planes of WWII and a partial set of Time-Life History of Aviation.

It is a vicious cycle.

I desperately need a self help group.

I hope you're not looking for a support group to quit books here! LOL

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Je ne suis pas Alice

http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

I'm not wanting to quit books for my personal use...but the buying of books for reselling...I swear, I get junk drunk all the time, and find myself picking books, even though I swore off 99% of books many months ago.

I have a dilemma. There is a monstrous estate auction tomorrow.

The positives:

50,000 license plates for sale
Numerous boxes of trains
Tons and tons and tons of guy stuff
Loads of rusty iron. (My wife recently asked me if I would ever consider buying anything that wasn't rusty. LOL)
The volume of stuff they have to sell is quite unbelievable, which often equates to cheap prices, especially for the 'not-high-end-stuff.' I am questioning if they can get all of the estate sold in one day.
The estate has lots of stuff that I like to deal in: rusty iron, man cave stuff, antiques, etc.

The cons:

It is an hour drive, one way. Easily $14 in gas, RT, in my old beater flea market truck.
I've been to 4 auctions in this town. Three of those, the stuff went STUPID high.
There is a ton of automobile related stuff, which could bring out the wallets.
There is so much that I could be doing around the house, instead of going to the auction.
I hate to miss any part of this auction. I think they will sell cheap stuff early, and then go to the good stuff around noon, and then finish off the cheap stuff in the afternoon. This means that my day will be fully committed, from 9:00 am til 5-6:00 pm.
This auction might pull a ginormous crowd. Big crowds mean big prices.

I tell ya, I am really on the fence about this auction. The guy collected license plates, automotive signage, like Goodyear and Valvoline, toy trains and toy cars. There is a fair amount of antique farm stuff too.

The hard part of this sale is that almost nothing is in stellar condition. The 1913 license plates would bring $250 each on ebay if they were perfect. In the condition they are in, it looks like $65 would be about right. The Goodyear signs would bring $800 to $1000 if nice; these are rough. I would think that a top end price would be $300 each, but signs like that might sell for $500 each to a non-collector who just wanted to hang them in his garage.

I am torn. Part of me wants to be there when the sale starts. Part of me wants to show up around noon, when most of the big spenders are petering out, and look for bargains. And finally, part of me wants to drop back and punt on the whole thing.

That auction sounds SO tempting! I have to admit, I would go just to look, even if I had no intentions of buying! But, that being said, we did not go picking this morning, and I am just certain we have missed the most phenomenal deals lol! We have a lot to sell right now, and are also just marking it to get it gone. And, in the store, DH is getting deals that we can't match at yard sales or flea markets.

Sales are weird for us lately, Amazon is up, Ebay is down, and local sales are almost nonexistant. We went to our local wholesale warehouse yesterday (part of the reason we really do not need to buy anything else for a bit!), and the owner is a wonderfully chatty fellow, he said everyone is reporting terrible sales and even his sales are down a lot. We compared local news and the reports of unemployment, reduced lunch usage, etc, which just reinforced that it is better to buy local and sell nationally. I am glad it is DH in the store buying things, there are some pitiful people coming in there to sell stuff who are so happy just to get $10 or $12 for their things.

My goal this week is to get thru some of the stacks and stacks of cookbooks and craft books I have, and sell some of them! I'm beginning to think books must be an addiction for all of us

I went to the auction, and my truck is FULL!

We got to the auction about an hour late, which is fine. They had sold some of the high end stuff, and I heard that it brought a fortune. Four brand new, never used Valvoline signs sold for $2600 in total. A Goodyear sign sold for $850, and another sign sold for $1200.

Even though there were 50,000 license plates, I didn't buy a single one. Seems that the guy was a leader in the Indiana license plate collector club, and they had an annual meeting in the building next door to the auction. The club helped set up the auction, and prices were strong.

I was hoping to score a box of common plates, lets say, 100 plates for $20 or less, and flip them for $1 or $2 each.

I am kicking myself now, after the auction. I should have stepped up to the plate and bought some stuff...I am sure there was money to be made...but prices were strong throughout the day, even on stuff that I thought was common.

I spent a pile of money today. I bought virtually all of the HO trains, except for a box or two. One went for STUPID money, and the other one was junk.

A few buys today, other than the trains: a few cool signs, some oil tins/cans, a Trico wiper blade display box, two cool license plate toppers, a few street signs, numerous boxes of rusty junk, a box of AC Delco plugs, a few wood crates, an early corn sheller in horrid condition, a set of hardware scales. The cab of the truck is full of trains...tons of them.

Clovis-

Have you heard about Steampunk? I know that it is a big trend in some areas and you may be able to sell little do dags as Steampunk crafting/project supplies.

This is what I mean here

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Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Yes, I am familiar with steampunk. We've sold numerous rusty iron parts lots on ebay. We aren't getting rich, but it is a nice way to make $20 on stuff that should go into the scrap pile.

Keep your chin up, friend. It has been a slow month for us too.

This past weekend's sales were mediocre. I am thankful for what we have sold, but they are mediocre, at best.

Our ebay sales have been really slow this month. On Labor Day weekend, our sales slowed significantly, and haven't picked up at all. Sundays seem to be our best day of the week for selling, and we've only sold $28 so far today. Kinda depressing!!!!

I am continuing to refocus our efforts on things that are selling. We did find 6 yards of fabric, a pair of boots, and a camo coat, all of which seem to sell well for us. It seems that people are quick to snatch up brand name items in good condition, especially if it is something they need. Nice quality coats are selling well for us. I think that people are looking for bargains on things like boots and coats...I had sticker shock when I looked at new Carhartt coats last year.

Well the Jersey closed yesterday. It brought in $20.50 not much but 4xs what we paid for it so it was good nuff for us!

__________________
2Ti 1:7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Luceo non uro

Tuesday Tip, if anyone cares:

Scrap metal.

If you are buying in bulk for your booths, you might start keeping your eye out for scrap. Copper and brass will bring you the most money. Steel is cheap, and doesn't pay much unless you have quite a bit of it.

I'm not advocating that you go into the scrap business, but you might as well cash in if you can. At some point, you are going to buy something (often broken or damaged items) that are worth more in scrap than they are in your booth. Think about the outdoor electrical cord missing one end that was in the bottom of the auction box, and the solid brass elephant that you bought, and learned that a leg and the trunk are broken off.

I keep a scrap bin or odds and ends that I get, and sell the scrap when the bin gets full. Over the weekend, I bought an auction box for $1 that contained 3 pounds of solid copper plumbing pipe, a 3 inch solid brass gate valve, and a heavy electrical cord that was cut in half. I suspect that it will bring about $13 at current prices.

If you don't have access to a scrap yard nearby, you might consider giving your scrap steel and iron to a scrapper, especially if you can develop a relationship with them. It is quite amazing what some of the scrappers find, and generally speaking, they will sell you stuff off their truck for almost nothing. I have gotten some of my best deals ever from scrappers, including a vintage lawn chair for $1, that I later flipped for $35.

You probably aren't going to get rich scrapping, but you would be amazed how well it can pay, especially for copper and brass. A little bit here, and a little there will add up quickly . Sometimes you get blessed too. Last year, at an auction, I was given a large tote full of copper fittings. I sold some on ebay, and scrapped the rest. The total was well over $135!!!

Update: One of the books I listed on Amazon sold the very next day!

Clovis, I always look forward to your tips! Always! I have never ever even thought of scrapping anything.

I have learned so so much from this thread and enjoy all of the experience and knowledge... Let alone cyber-companionship I've gotten from this thread!

We had a slower weekend, but sold a fair amount of the cast iron I had brought back to life! And I received my very first custom order from my Facebook page, we are only $70 away from meeting the goal we set for this month!

Ooooooh! What is your custom order???!!!! I can't wait to see! Is it a piece the customer had? Or a piece you had that they wanted finished in a certain way?

And I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but my homemade chalk paint didn't react well to my furniture wax I painted these super modern tables black that I made into chalk paint and it painted well, with minimal brush strokes and looked great. But when I went to wax, it just smeared around? It was weird. I've never had that happen before. Have you? What wax do you use?

And we have had so many custom orders, I haven't even been able to just finish something for our booth!

I just did this little nightstand/end table on Monday and before I could even post it for sale, my husband sent it to one of our customers that I'm doing a bed for, and she bought it. LOL Which is awesome! I love it!

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That's so awesome Danyell!!
I just use Minwax furniture wax, I apply with a clean rag in circular motions, and then depending on the piece when it dries I buff it out with another rag.
I am pretty excited about the custom piece too! It's a MCM secretary for a friends dining room to help with the kids school clutter! I had picked it up a few weeks ago at a flea market but it's going to work perfect for her space!

The custom piece I'm doing

Yea that's how I wax mine as well. Not sure what happened

And that is great! I can't wait to see it!

Danyl,

Is wax base the same base that is used in your paint? I'd carefully study the ingredients of both.

Do you all care to give me your thoughts on something?

I recently bought a Trico wiper display at the last auction.

This one is NOT mine, but it is easier to share a link than to post a pic:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-TRIC...item4d24d0ec21

Personally, I think this seller is off his rocker with a $400 asking price. My display is actually a little nicer than his.

I am not interested at all in shipping my display, so that is sorely going to limit my selling market if I list in on ebay.

I might be able to take it to one of our antique malls, but I honestly don't have the space. If I put it on consignment, they are going to take a giant chunk of the selling price. One mall is at 50%!!!

My initial plan was to take it to the flea market. I can find space there, but I sincerely doubt that I'll sell it at a decent price.

What do you think I should do with it?

How much would you put on the price tag????

Thanks!!!!

I'm not sure. But I'll def check into it! Thank you!