Friday, October 31, 2008

Philadelphia Phillies 2008 World Series Champs!

Well the Phillies finally did it again! They won the World Series and today is their victory parade. And I have to guess, from what I've seen on TV (cause I ain't going nowhere near a crowd that size0 that there are at least 1,000,000 people WALKING the 6 miles from City Hall to the stadium!

I wonder if this is Mayor Nutter's secret exercise project!

Meanwhile, Phillies gear is selling like hot cakes at the sporting goods shops. We (the whole family) all stood in line to get INTO the store and then in the check out line for about 20 min to get a turn at the register.

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38&_nkw=Phillies&_sacat=See-All-Categories

I found 15,605 ACTIVE items (how's that for Best Match?)

Monday, October 20, 2008

Today's favorite item - AKA I love blue

I have always loved the color blue. If there's a choice in clothing between this shirt in red or blue, I normally buy the blue. I have my kitchen painted blue, I bought blue cars. I once painted our entire house in what was supposed to be "slate blue". Turned out to be bright sapphire blue. I'm sure the neighbors spent several years nauseated to the extreme - that' s how bright blue it was. I used the color to give directions to folks coming to see us. " Turn left at the doctor's office on the corner and I'm the bright blue house". Tellingly, nobody got lost.



So you'll see easily why this piece appealed to me:



Boleslawiec Polish Pottery Figural Lady Cheese dish Nov-27 250192670775



Boleslawiec is an operating Polish pottery company. Their wares seem to be right up my alley. Everything I have seen of theirs on line and even at flea markets and garage sales is offered in a blue and white color combination!



I think this is a butterdish but it is large enough to also be a muffin warmer or a pancake plate. (Or I could hide the Halloween candy under her and my husband and son would NEVER find it.)



In my head, (all the best soap operas happen in our imaginations, ya know?) I imagine this is a Polish Princess turned into a pottery piece by a wicked stepmother who happened to be a witch in her spare time. It's so the wicked stepmother could continue to spend and waste the Princess's fortune on frivolous $3000 pairs of Jimmy Chou shoes.



Of course I could be wrong, she might just be a not so plain pancake plate cover. (say those 3 p words, 3 x fast! I dare ya!)

Friday, October 17, 2008

eBay stuff and a weird dream

So I haven't been listing as much stuff because a couple of family members have medical issues and it's absorbing a lot of my time and energy to assist/cook for/ and generally deal with that.

But my stores sales keep creeping along.
Now I've run out of "new" auction boxes to list so I'm "relisting" stuff out of my ebay store into auction again. Or in some few cases into fixed price listings. And I was working out the numbers on the fixed price listings to compare them to stores. Guess what? Stores are still the better bargain if you can run a few auctions or a few fixed price items to lead people into your store!

Here's my math (with the definite possiblity of flaws since I'm TERRIBLE at math!

Fixed price - random item (not media!) costs $.35 for 30 days. Ebay just announced NO relisting credits. So $.35 EVERY 30 days.

Store item. (assuming you have 1595 items which is MY goal)

$.01 for the store fee ($15.94 divided by 1595 items)
$.03 listing fee - assuming you list every item for $19.95 or under
$.04 per month (also assuming you have only 1 (one) picture per item or that you host the extra
pictures off ebay

So why the flood to Fixed Price? Because those show up in search obviously but does that negate the use of stores? Not for me. I can keep 8.5 items in the ebay store for a month for the cost of one fixed price item. So I'll take out 8 items from my store - put one in Fixed price, auction the other 7 (or donate 'em to the Sr. Citizens thriftshop in my township) and see what happens.

That's my plan for the next 3 months anyway.

Now about the weird dream. I had this last night. I don't even remember what the dream was except that is came in staticy. Remember TV sets with "snow" in the picture? That was my dream. (so what, Beth? Who cares??) well the reason I mention it at all is, it triggered the thought that there is a whole generation of deprived children and even young adults. My son thinks "snow" comes from bad tracking on a VHS tape and he only remembers VHS cause he was an early fan of Japanese Anime and Godzilla movies.

There are now 2 generations of people (most of those under 40) who have NO clue what a horizontal hold button is, or a vertical hold button is or how to get the "snow" out of a TV picture (aluminim foil wings on the TV antenna-rabbit ears)! They think, if the picture is bad it's a bad feed from the Cable company or the Satellite company. In my childhood, Satellites were something we used to spy on the Russians and vice versa. Now we just co-opt them with our TV shows. I didn't get to see Elvis swivel his pelvis on Ed Sullivan cause our TV couldn't be tuned at that point. It needed a "picture tube".
Ah the good old days...

Friday, October 10, 2008

How can an empty blog be "spam"

A couple of friends and I decided to do a soap opera blog - turn our lives, and all the minutae thereof into a soap opera. You know you've had days when every possible thing that can go wrong does? Well so have we...a lot lately...so we were gonna make a funny, over-the-top soap opera incorporating the funny, tragic things that have happened to us.

BUT Google, in it's best imitation of eBay's paranoid management locked it before we ever got around to posting one stinkin' syllable.

So guess what? YOU don't get to laugh and cry with us. And when we do find a new venue for it, you'll have to pay to read it. (cause we will still write it but it will be a soap opera!)

BTW - please come check out my ebay listings - cause I definitely will need cash to get that venture off the ground.


Beth Cherkowsky
eBay seller id: woadieland
ebay link - copy & paste
1. http://www.depressionglasswarehouse.com
2. http://www.squidoo.com/Depression-Glass-Warehouse
3. read and contribute to my blog - http://ebayforfunandprofit.blogspot.com/

Friday, October 3, 2008

MY ITEM OF THE DAY! Little Black Sambo - 1st Edition 2nd printing book

My items of the day - Little Black Sambo book
I always have so many items and some of them get NO attention on ebay so I decided to blog extensively about one each day. TODAY my choice is this one -

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=250301480153&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

This is a 1901 edition (first edition - 2nd printing) of The Story of Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman. The First Edition First printing had red boards. This one with the tan boards is universally declared (by booksellers all over the internet) to be a 2nd printing.
One of the first library sales I ever went to, was in a small small community library - like, with me and the librarian in the same room, there was no room to turn around. As I was checking out, she asked "did you look at the old books under the tarp?" (DUH NO! How would I have known they were under there? Who would have supposed? NOT ME!)
So, I respond no, and being in a foul mood from not being able to move or breathe in the tight confines, I say something stupid like, "that's ok, I spent enough today". HA, hubby goes over, lifts the tarp and starts pulling out books. And I found this is a bucket of unused paint brushes (no for like housepainter paint brushes, not cute artist brushes).
It's printed with text on the left side and one facing picture to a page. Then the next two pages are blank. It's sewn together and bound with some weird "buckram" spine back. But it's soo cute. And you can see a lot of the little "finger prints" of the little hands that looked at this. It's not library book. It's been in private hands. No markings, no typical librarian damage. But a lot of "unlove" in it's life. Some pages are loose. The first of the 26 illustrations, of the main character, is missing. Lots of finger print stains.
Now think about this. SOMEBODY (who probably is cringing now trying to explain it to granny) donated this to that library. Someon, who obviously didn't love books as a child. (my favorite part of this one is where the tigers chase each other round the try and turn into butter. LOL wonder if the zoo knows about that trick?)
Where are the childhood books you saved? What was your favorite one? Do your Children or heirs understand the value of the books in your collection? Better start righting them notes! (that's what I'm doing. "DEAR SON, don't throw this out, the great great grandfather you are named for brought it with him from Ireland" for example - on my great grandfather's level and plane)
Ok, well think about your book collection and how to protect it from ending up in a bucket of paint brushes in the libary of East Armpit, USA. And come back tomorrow for something else to look at!

Squidoo: My 2008 reading list