everything vintage/what is it worth?

What happens when you have sold items at a flea market for over 40 years and now you are ready to retire? You sell your stock at a local auction! That is what happened to an old timer at the Leesport Farmer’s Market in Leesport, PA. He sold items at his stand for over 40 years and he was ready to retire. I guess you get tired of almost anything after 40 years! I went to the auction. 

There were boxes and boxes of little knick-knacks and toys and stuff that had been new about 20 years ago that now could be considered “vintage.” There were matchbox cars and models and wrapping paper and pencils and stuffed animals and dime store jewelry and…… thousands of cookie cutters. This person was especially known for his cookie cutters. Plastic, metal, tin–all shapes and sizes. Most of his original prices were 1.00-3.00 a piece.

So… I bought about 1000 of them myself. My daughter was with me and she bought a few hundred and there was plenty left for others to bid on too. Most of the bidding went for 1.00 – 5.00 a box lot and a box lot contained about 10-30 pieces. This was June 2009 or sometime around there. So I loaded up my van with my treasures, figuring I could sell them by the bag at my local flea market and also bag up the older ones for my antique sales and my antique booth at Zionsville Antiques. 

I took 6 bags to the Kutztown Extravaganza in the fall and sold all of them for 5.00 a bag—a nice bargain! I’ve sold about 20 bags at the flea market and antique mall. Then I was in my glory organizing them for eBay. I had groups of animals, Christmas, dinosaurs, big Texas size ones, and little miniature ones. I am down to one bin full that I have left in my garage. They are still selling on eBay and make a great find for your Christmas cookies in all shapes and sizes!

CLICK ON ANY OF THE PHOTOS to go to my eBay store and find them there or on live auction—if I have any left!!

Lilacs, lily of the valley, PA Dutch girls, farmers, snow scenes, Christmas holly and poinsettias, these are some of the designs you can find on the great old cotton printed tablecloths from the 1950s. I love finding these at the local auctions! My favorites are the bold flowers—the bolder the better!

If I look through the linen boxes before the auction starts, I might find some tablecloths buried on the bottom and I can’t wait to bid and hope no one else has discovered them! Usually they have and I’ll have some people bidding against me. Other times I get lucky and I can get a tablecloth for 1.00 or an entire box of linens for 1.00 that has some tablecloths in it—yeah! It’s gold to me.

Then there’s the condition to think about. It is rare to find a tablecloth that doesn’t have any wears, tears, or stains. The stains can be worked on, especially if they are in a white area. Even the worn and torn ones can be valuable to someone who wants them to make aprons or curtains or purses out of them.

When I list a tablecloth on eBay that has some damage, I put the word “cutter” in the title. Those who are looking for craft projects can find them this way.

I don't have many printed ones left in my store!

Here are some stats as to what they are worth: 123 “vintage printed tablecloths” are listed on eBay at the time I am writing this. I think it is important to use the word “printed” in the title. In the last 30 days, 149 out of 247 listed have been sold. This is a sell through rate of 60%. The highest price was 83.76 for a Wilendur Christmas tablecloth (Wilendur and Vera, and Startex are all good brand names). The average price was 14.91. This info comes from HAMMERTAP (see sidebar for info).

I have a few tablecloths in my laundry room right now that need to be washed and the stains worked on. They can be soaked in oxyclean for a few hours or a few days to see how much of a stain will come out. Then I use a bleach stick for small areas. If I have to, I will bleach the entire tablecloth but I won’t soak it too long or the fibers could weaken. Not too worry too much though because the cotton these are made out of is pretty tough! Hanging them in the sun to dry also helps the stain.

CLICK ON ANY OF THE PHOTOS or visit me at everythingvintagesteph.com THANKS!

click to view ended auction

Do you  have an ugly Christmas sweater that you don’t wear any more? Yeah, like those ones from the 80’s with the padded shoulders and big designs and sparkles. What, you still have it? Apparently, there are office parties out there with contests for the ugliest Christmas sweater. The best place to find one is on eBay! I just sold one from Eddie Bauer that wasn’t really that ugly but I got 15.50 for it. (above).

cute snowman sweater

This sweater is kind of cute too but I listed it as an “ugly” Christmas sweater. I also have one more listed on eBay right now and they both will be over on Nov. 19. Are these from my closet? No! They came from the same place that my jeans come from that I sell a lot of—the 75 cent bins at the Morgantown, PA Goodwill store. I love that place! I was just there on Thursday and bought 23 items that are worth selling on eBay. Check out the sweaters and some of the jeans at everythingvintagesteph.com.

At 5 weeks old she is already smiling! (Not for sale on eBay!)

I think I am going to make it 3 favorite finds this time so I can write more detailed stories about them. 5 is too many at one time but I might do 5 again later so the category stays for now!

1.Bennett Brothers vintage catalog from 1966. This catalog is a little bit like a vintage Sears catalog. These are good sellers on eBay! I got this catalog from my mother-in-law’s attic and it sold for 22.50. Click on the photo to view the auction! My mother-in-law moved to Oklahoma recently and my husband and I cleaned out her house. The house was sold as is so we were only allowed to remove personal property. We spent 2 weekends filling up the van twice with all sorts of vintage stuff. She kept everything—I loved it! Some other items we found: vintage hats and gloves, old books, sports items, lots of Lionel trains and lots of old silver coins stashed away in a file cabinet! Lots of happy hunting!

  

Hummel Figurine

2. Hummel figurine “Home from Market.” Sold for 42.17. I picked up 2 of these at a local estate sale. They were exactly the same except one had a broken foot! I didn’t see this before I bid and I’m not sure if the auctioneer knew it either because he didn’t mention it. He was selling them for one price each but you had to take the 2 of them. The bid was only 10.00 so I bid and that meant that I was paying 10.00 for one and 10.00 for the other and I had to take both. I was prepared to bid higher but luckily, I had no competition (maybe others knew it was broken—I don’t know!) and got both for 20.00. (The broken one sold for 5.50). Still a good deal!

 

vintage paint by number

 

3. Vintage paint-by-number snow scene 1960s. Sold for 14.25. I used to turn my nose up at these “amateur” pieces of art until I learned that there is a very good market for them! This one was a very nice snow scene but the more popular ones are tropical scenes and animals. I got over 40$ a few years ago for a tropical one! I paid 1.00 for this one at a local auction—everyone else was turning their nose up at it! Now I like them!

pansy quilt on auciton until nov. 14

Click on photo to view above pansy quilt on auction until Nov. 14. Very pretty!

Ok, I only got 7.00 for the vintage nun doll. That was the opening (and closing) bid. It is only a 1.00 or 2.00 more than what I paid for her! Here’s what we wonder now… Did I start the doll at the correct price? If I started her lower, would she have gone for more? If I had started her at 15.00 would she have sold for that? These are ALWAYS the questions that eBay sellers ask themselves and the answer is… you never know! It is good to do research before you price an item but unique items like this are very hard to research. But again, that’s the fun of eBay—you never know what is going to happen!

So… on to the next item!

You can watch this doll auction at everythingvintagesteph.com

The antique NUN doll (featured below) finally has a bid at 7.00. She has 6 watchers and is over on the evening of Nov. 3. I will report on her progress! You can see my auction listings at everythingvintagesteph.com.

I also just listed a large group of something NON vintage! Crocs socks! Yes, these are specially made socks to wear with your crocs in the winter—since those Crocs are so comfy. Now you can wear them all year long. Click on the photo to go right to my eBay store and search for “crocs”. Or click HERE. I have a couple of different listings for different styles (and I am adding smaller sizes later). I will report in a later post how I got the croc socks and how they are selling and how I did the research to decide on selling them. So come on back!

I don’t have the time to write now because the next game of the World Series (go Phillies!) is about to start!