What was your best (most memorable) ebay sale?

[stitchesandseamsct]

I remember when Radio Shack was closing down a good portion of its stores, and I had gotten to buy these fitness trackers. I bought maybe 5 of them, and put them in a lot. The first day, this guy in Germany buys them full price, no offer, pays promptly, then sends me an email asking me if I could get more.

I sent his items, then got in my car and drove to every Radio Shack in between Massachusettes and New York. I ended up with 30 of these trackers, and then the guy in Germany bought every single one, at full price, around $70 a piece. Sounded like scam bait, but I covered my insurance bases and it turned out to be my biggest, and most successful ebay transaction ever.

[thenobletuckylife]

Evening,

I think it was the spring of 2011.

We were still building up our homesteading inventory and still were selling Non GMO non treated seeds. Hundreds of varieties.

I was busy packing and all of a sudden I started seeing some sales come in...then more.

I called out to Mrs C..."You need to see this Hun"

She came down to my ebay office/store and we sat there for the next 5 to 10 minutes as the sales just rolled in. It didn't stop until we had over $400.

When your selling seeds and homesteading supplies...well that's a good order.

Mr C

[rolenboy01]

a Human Skull, a Leica Camera and many accessories, World War 2 era Aviator Glasses are some of the top ones.

[mistwomandancing]

One of my most FUN ones was a book I bought for 17¢ and turned around and sold for $250, almost immediately. 

We always hear about the profit being in the acquisition.  That one certainly illustrated that point very nicely to me. 

[jonathankirkland]

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@rolenboy01 wrote:

a Human Skull, a Leica Camera and many accessories, World War 2 era Aviator Glasses are some of the top ones.

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What?!?!

[jonathankirkland]

I had a rather successful sale recently.

Without going into too many specifics, I bought a large gaming lot and pieced it over for nearly double what I paid for it, a few hundred bucks profit or so.

For me, that is extremely good.

[mistwomandancing]

Big profit is Goooooooooood!  Thumbs up! 

[woodsys]

I found a pair of Chanel pumps in a thrift store.  Bought them for $4. Sold them for a nice price! 

[castlemagicmemories]

From the early days of Ebay when I sold:

A young father who bought a Snow White figurine set for  his small daughter.  He was new to Ebay, his first purchase.  I included a small Snow White doll as something extra to thank him, and welcomed him to Ebay and told him how happy I was he chose to buy this from me, and that I hoped his daughter loved it.  He was a great Dad, and he was thrilled.

A girl who bought a bride and groom doll set, and said, thank you so much, my sister had one and I have wanted it forever!

A woman who was  undergoing treatment and wanted to buy a gingerbread fiber optic piece.  She needed to wait  to get paid.  I put  up a special listing just for her as the first one ended with no bids, and she was so thrilled.  She said it made her feel so good and happy just to see it and it meant so much to her to have it.

A son who bought a Phantom of the Opera ring for his Mother, who loved the show.  I told him of a great book written about it, and he thanked me and wrote how much his Mom loved the ring.

A girl who bought several Franklin Mint dolls and said she always knew she would get pristine dolls from me, I took care of them.  She wanted a particular doll from a particular store, I was going to get one for me, and she begged me to get one for her as she went to every store by that name in her area, and they were sold out!  I did so, and listed it for her, and she sent me a box of candy as a thank you!

A mother who was doing a Cinderella themed shower for her daughter.  I helped her and listed many Cinderella items for her; she was thrilled and said she did all her shower shopping with me!

A guy who bought a large white rooster and hen pair, ceramic, that used to live on top of my refrigerator.  He was very concerned and offered more money for shipping but I told him it was ok.  They arrived safely and he was SO happy, he set them up in his kitchen in a wire coop type setting, complete with straw, and they were adorable!  He took many pictures and sent them to me, just had to show me what he did and tell me how happy he was.  I think he was an interior designer and he just fell in love with that pair!

[rolenboy01]

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@jonathankirkland wrote:

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@rolenboy01 wrote:

a Human Skull, a Leica Camera and many accessories, World War 2 era Aviator Glasses are some of the top ones.

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What?!?!

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Yeah it as a human skull from the 1800's I am assuming used as a medical learning device, almost appeared on oddities san francisco because of it but decided not to because they were only gonna pay money for the item and no extra for appear on the tv show, anyway the person who bought it claimed they needed it for med school paid me nearly $1000 for it.

[joesoucie22012]

I sold a childrens book called Mr. Pink on the roof. It was rare but i did not care. I only asked $15.00 or something like that. It sold. Two older women bought it from me. They sent me a letter about how they used to read it when they were little girl's. They had been lookin for this book for years. They were so happy. Also a museum in Idaho sent me a letter thanking me for a rare newspaper from 1902 from there county that they now have on display. I have many more stories. Its not about the money. I have passion for what a sell. Books. 

[titanfiberglass]

Being a golf enthusiast, I have a large collection of books about the game.  One was a book called "The  Golfing Machine"  (went out of print in the 1950's) which I had purchase for $5  ten years ago.   Along came a young amatuer phenom named Bryson Dechambeau who was all the rage at Augusta National a few years ago.  The golf channel did a story on him and how he used this obscure book  to devolop his swing method. I snapped a pic of it and put it up for auction.  The golf channel ran that story multiple times a day during Masters week and every airing I would get new bids.  The book sold for $157.

[mr_lincoln]

@stitchesandseamsct  Great thread & great stories!  Here's mine to date:

Went to a local online auction preview and saw a heavy duty pulling chain I wanted for pulling tree trunks when cutting firewood, the lot also included a rusty old cast iron pot, but the chain was all I wanted.  I won the lot and with Buyer's premium paid $ 24.50 plus a bunch of other stuff for resale from the auction.

2 weeks later I had everything for resale up and running on eBay and I noticed that old rusty pot under my back deck ... so I cleaned it up and restored it, looked really good and researched ... hmmm, 1870-ish from a local foundry back in the day.  I found two just like that sold for about $ 280 and $ 325 ... hmmm I thought, time for a free chain!  SOOOooo, I put it up on a 5 day auction starting at $ 29.95 ...

-Day 1 it went up to about $ 250 AND I had two messages with offers of $ 450 & $ 500 ... hmmm, maybe a couple free chains don't you think?

-Day 3 it went up to about $ 375 and one more offer was messaged in

-Day 4 it went up to about $ 540 and stopped, had lots of people on the bid list 

-Day 5 ... nothing happening until the last 1/2 minute ... it burned through the $ 600s in no time then barreled through the $ 700s and when time ran out it rose to $ 810.00!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

FREE CHAINS FOR THE NEIGHBORS!!!!

(PS: I really like my chain and I am NOT pulling yours with this story!!!)

[tellmemama]

In general I would say any where the buyers contact me afterward to thank me for giving back a piece of their childhood.  I get a lot of those.  But to be specific it would still have to be the flea market story I've told a few times.

Dealer had a few vintage Barbie items scattered on his table for really low prices.  I snapped up what I could and when I went to pay him, he said he had a ton more in the van.  A few other toy dealers overheard us and badgered him to see the stuff.  Finally he slowed down enough to bring four of us to the back of the van.  He opened the doors and it was stacked with vintage doll cases.  He would pull them out one at a time and do a round robin with each of us taking turns picking out items.  The other dealers would cherry pick a few things and when he got to me, I would just take the rest.  When it was my turn to go first, I would take the whole case sight unseen.

The others started to get a little snarly with the dealer since they didn't think it was fair.  Even though they had the opportunity to do exactly what I was doing, they continued to pick out what they thought were the best pieces and leave the rest.  I would just smile and genuinely thank him for each purchase.  After a few rounds, one particularly bitter woman started complaining to the dealer that he was playing favorites with me.  He promptly shut both doors and told everyone he was done and to leave his booth.

As they walked away grumbling, he ran up to me and said since I was so polite to him he would show me the rest now that the others were gone.  He opened the van doors again and there were still a dozen or so cases full of stuff plus quite a few huge rubbermaid containers packed tight with more Barbie, Liddle Kiddles and other 60s era stuff.  I told him I would take it all and he was very happy to get rid of it without all the drama.  I paid about $500 or $600 for everything.  It took a quite a few months to sort and list but it all ended up selling for a little over $21,000.

That's the exact point I became a full fledged dealer.  A nice, polite dealer.

[stitchesandseamsct]

Another great sale I had was when this guy, brought me all of his girlfriend's purses to sell. They were all designer, and fake, i knew it. He didnt know that I knew it, however there was this one purse in the mix that WASN'T fake. It was big, and heavy, felt and smelt like real leather, Louis Vuitton. It was one of those fancy purses that rich people carry their dogs around in. Anyway, I bought all of the purses for 50.00, threw them all out exept the one real one, which sold for over $1200. Ah, the good ol' days...