organizing eBay

This is where it starts! This is just part of the “wall of eBay” items I have ready to list. Most of these are auction items. I have a separate area where I organize my clothing items because I have an assistant who does all the photos and measurements for me. (my daughter- in law!)

When the items are listed, they move to my basement. I have a large basement! This is the room where I store my smaller store items . This is about one third of the picture.

I also do all my shipping from this same room. Boxes are stored in a closet nearby. TV helps pass the time since I spend at least an hour a day on shipping! I go from shipping to listing almost ever day until noon or so. Then it’s off to shopping or organizing or other tasks and errands. I also sell at flea markets, an antique mall, and am part owner of  Douglas Diamonds jewelry store.

I use a larger part of my basement to store all the clothing I sell on eBay. This is a small portion of the space.

All the jeans and skirts and  shorts are alphabetized by brand. I label all the sizes.

So far, I don’t have to alphabetize the shirts and dresses; just hang them up until I sell them!

My store is on “vacation” until Feb. 5 so visit me at everythingvintagesteph.com after that! Thanks!

vintage cookbook

I love cookbooks! And so do a lot of other people. Just browse through the listings on eBay that have the words “vintage cookbook” in the title and you will find a TON of them!

So how do I know which ones are the most valuable?  I like anything from Betty Crocker. The older the better. The better the condition, the better. The closer to a first edition, the best! Do a completed search on eBay and sort them from highest to lowest, you will see what I mean!

Here’s one that sold for 155.00!  CLICK HERE

Regional cookbooks can be a good seller too. This also includes fundraiser cookbooks from churches and schools, etc. Be sure to list the city and state of the origin of the cookbook.

Sometimes I just list a “LOT” of cookbooks, both old and newer. Those grocery check out ones are popular and can be expensive so I put together a “lot” of 6-10 of them for a decent price.

So how do I find them? While I do shop at local estate auctions, I find a lot of cookbooks at yard sales. however, I find MOST of them at Goodwill and other thrift stores. Not everyone has the patience to look through all of the books at the thrift stores but take some time and look!

You might find a great bargain!

You can check  out my listings at everythingvintagesteph.com. Thanks for stopping by!

Christian Dior vintage robe

I love this beautiful vintage robe from Christian Dior. I just listed it on eBay at a low starting bid of 6.00. I hope it goes UP UP UP!

This is also a really cute set from MISTEE. It has a robe and gown in the exact same style. I almost listed them separately until I realized they were a set! This is probably from the 1950s or 60s. Baby doll styles are very popular and this is close to that style.

This pretty quilted robe is from “Sears At Home Wear.” I listed this on a fixed price for 19.00. I was busy today!

So where do I find all this great stuff? The above corset was found at a local estate auction. I remember the auctioneer was embarassed to hold it up and was making fun of it so the old men there were afraid to bid on it. I wasn’t! Most of the other items I find at the thrift shops — Goodwill and Salvation Army and other local ones.

To see more photos and watch how these go on auction visit my eBay store at everythingvintagesteph.com. thanks!

vintage jewelry

Here is some of the vintage costume jewelry I was selling at merchants square mall (a flea market) last weekend. This particular box was selling for only 50 cents a piece!

These are some of the pieces I sold for 1.00 a piece. I only take the “cheaper” stuff to the flea market. I sometimes take a few pieces that I keep separate and sell for 2-10$ but mainly my customers are looking for the 1.00 or less pieces. I can sell over 50$ (in just jewelry) in a weekend even at those prices!

Where do I get it? At estate sales and local auctions. Usually I find the costume jewelry displayed at the auction in boxes with 10-30 pieces per box. I know that some of it might not be in great shape but I wait until the bidding goes to no more than 5.00 per box and then I take all the box lots that are left. That way, I am able to sell it for the prices that I do. I feel like a discount store!

I always find a few great pieces that I can sell at my booth at the Zionsville antique mall, or that I can offer on eBay. There is so much vintage jewelry on eBay, how do I decide what to list there? I have a few criteria:

1. It needs to have a brand name or artist signature

2. It needs to be in perfect  condition

3. It’s nice if it has a real stone or gem but that is not always necessary

4. It’s nice if it is actual gold or silver but it needs to be marked as such and correctly photographed and described

5. If a few of the above criteria are met, I often list it in vintage lots such as 14 pair of clip earrings, all rhinestone items, 5 pair of screw back earrings, etc. Then it is more likely to sell.

Sometimes I sit at the flea market and sort through the boxes I got at auction. That makes my customers crazy because they want to see what I am doing and they feel like they got something special if I sell it to them right from the box! It’s a good strategy and it saves me time too!

I’ll be listing this piece on eBay later tonight (Dec. 27). It will be on auction for a week. It was one of the nicer pieces I found in my box lots! Visit my eBay store at everythingvintagesteph.com. Thanks!

vintage Christmas apron

Saving all your good Christmas stuff for the Christmas season? I do too but I also sell it all year round. If you are buying or selling, there will be less competition at other times of the year. Right now on eBay, the highest price for a sold Christmas apron was 55.00 for one! It has Santa on it, so look for those!

 Ugly Christmas sweaters are great sellers too. This is one of the few I have left — and it’s not that ugly. The more bling on it, the better! I used to put all mine on auction and see where they went but this year I decided to put some on fixed price at 25.00. I sold a few almost right away! I usually pick them up at the Goodwill clearance store for 1.00 or less.

I did save my Spode pieces to sell at Christmas but I am sure they would sell all year round as well. I only found 2 pieces this year! I have a vase and a cup and saucer listed. I discovered Spode about 5 years ago when I bought an entire set of it at an auction for about 3.00. I noticed the tag on the box was for over 300$ so I figured I got a good deal. I even got another complete set a few weeks later for about 10.00. I kept part of the set for myself that I now use every Christmas and sold the others by the piece. Nice find!

My favorites are the Christmas linens. I always have the tablecloths and I also look for napkins, tea towels, even handkerchiefs. I love them! Check out my finds at:

EVERYTHINGVINTAGESTEPH.COM

Somewhere in the hills of Nevada, off, off, off, off road! My daughter Leanne is at the bottom of a mine shaft. This is one of the 7 that we purchased through our jewelry store. This was quite an adventurous trip!

 This is a nice big nodule of turquoise found inside this particular mine. There was plenty of turquoise just lying outside the mine too. I plan on selling some of it on eBay soon!

MY JOURNAL:

Day 1: Fly from Philly to Phoenix, get ride to hotel, stay overnight in nice hotel

Day 2: Get ride to storage unit to pick up 2 vehicles and all the supplies we have stored, drive to Sunflower mine, ride in on extremely rocky roads (scary!), hike mountain for hours, find 4 new adits, drive out, get stopped by AZ police who thought we were growing marijuana (NOT!), drive to my brother’s house and pick him up, drive through the AZ mountains for 30 miles in a blinding snowstorm, stop at Kingman AZ for the night–finally!

Day 3: Nice hotel breakfast, drive past Las Vegas, drive 4+ more hours to Tonopah, Nevada, only passing about 3 towns on the way. Get supplies, talk to local people (very nice!), buy groceries, stay overnight in warm hotel.

Day 4: Wake up to a snow storm, drive south for a few miles and no snow–sun is out! Drive off road for an hour, off off off road for another 30 minutes or so to reach a high and very remote mountain where we set up camp. Drive across to another mountain, blow a tire, fix it, reach the turqouise mine, go inside, come back in the dark, make steaks on the fire, go to bed. The wind started picking up and was so bad I could not sleep the entire night. Sleet and snow were hitting the tent. So glad for a tent heater!

Day 5: Wake up to 30 mile per hour winds, 30 degrees, snow showers, and no sun. Made breakfast anyway and froze the entire day. Scott made an attempt to go down a 150 foot shaft. At least it was warm down there! Explored a short adit a few feet down the mountain. Went to bed at 6PM and the wind finally died down! Slept much better.

Day 6: Wake up to beautiful sunrise and no wind! It is barely 20 degrees but we hardly feel it with all of our layers on. Make french toast and bacon over the fire and start packing up all the tents and equipment. Drive across to the turqouise mine again, stay there 2 hours, get lots of rocks, drive off the mountain, stop for about an hour at another old gold mine to explore but the claims are all taken. Drive about an hour to get to the main highway. Tire is losing air and our “slime” is frozen. We warm it up in front of the truck heater and the tire makes it another 60 miles to the nearest town. We drive 4 more hours in the dark, losing our bucket toilet in the process (it flew off the back of the truck and we didn’t care!) Pass Las Vegas and end up at Kingman, AZ again, about 10 PM.

Day 7: Nice hotel room but when we wake up, the tire is flat. The last spare is also flat but civilization is nearby and we get a used tire to complete the journey. Now we don’t have time to drop off my brother at his home so his wife has to meet us enroute. A few hours later, we end up near Phoenix, return the vehicles and supplies to the storage unit and get picked up to get to the airport — in plenty of time! Just 4 1/2 hours on a plane and I’m finally home!

hiking in AZ —  Scott and I

I’ve never been so happy for a warm house! I kind of wanted to go outside to use the bathroom though — not!

                                                                                                                                   Brief dust storm after our first hike.

 I think this is the one where a few bats were on the ceiling.

Visit my eBay store at everythingvintagesteph.com! I find lots of local treasures to put in there!

mining in the nevada mountains

I don’t have many pictures yet and just got back last night but we are home! Yes, we found treasure and we had lots of adventures. This photo is my daughter standing by the tents where we were camping at 7000 feet in Nevada, a little below the town of  Tonopah. The turqouise from this mine was lying on the ground everywhere!

Some of our adventures in brief were:

1. driving through blinding snow for 30 miles

2. using one lane “roads” carved out of the side of a cliff by a bulldozer years ago (but not in the snow!)

3. driving on a tire with very little air for 60 miles because there is NOTHING around but mountains

4. 2 flat tires at various times

5. waking up to sleet and 20 degree weather in 30 mile per hour winds (just one night)

6. bats are cute close up when they are not moving

7. there IS gold, silver, and turqouise in them thar hills!

I’ll write with more detail in my next post. Still recuperating and getting back to my eBay sales!

]]> http://www.everythingvintagesteff.com/2011/11/back-from-my-mining-trip-for-gold-silver-and-turqouise-hunting-for-treasure/feed/ 0 http://www.everythingvintagesteff.com/2011/11/getting-ready-for-my-gold-rush-trip-working-in-a-silver-and-turquoise-mine-in-nevada/ http://www.everythingvintagesteff.com/2011/11/getting-ready-for-my-gold-rush-trip-working-in-a-silver-and-turquoise-mine-in-nevada/#comments Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:36:28 +0000 steff http://www.everythingvintagesteff.com/?p=1219

hiking boots NOT

Leaving soon for my trip to the Nevada desert. We are working a silver and turquoise mine — gold too. (read my last post!) So I needed some hiking boots. We might be hiking a few miles and there will be lots of rocks and climbing for sure. So I went to my usual place to find stuff–the Goodwill store. I found these boots for 1.50. Bargain! Maybe not. My son in law told me NO GOOD. “You gotta have lots of ankle support, leather in case there’s a rattlesnake or something else that might bite you, warmth for the cold.” It’s going to be in the 40′s by day and 20′s by night.

So, we went to Cabelo’s and I bought this pair of hiking boots for 99.00. They better be worth it! They threw my bargain bone out of whack. Ouch!

Cabelo’s also had some nice thermal “base layers” (can you say long underwear?) for 55.00 a piece. Not a pair, a PIECE. I shopped at Kohl’s instead and got both top and bottom for 22.00 after my discounts. (they would have been 25.00 each at regular price). I HOPE I’m not cold. I HATE the cold. We do have heaters in our tents at night though. I should be OK with the Kohl’s stuff if I wear lots of layers.

I’ve got plenty of other stuff to keep warm. Also bought a folding knife for the “wilderness” and we already have tents, blankets, sleeping mats, picks, and everything needed to cook in the middle of nowhere for 3 days. Bathroom is a tent with a hold in the ground. We’ll be using it a lot because we have to drink bottles of water everyday (and night) due to the high dry altitude. Hope I don’t get altitude sickness either.

I also bought a pair of SMART wool socks. 14.00. I’m trying them out today. They better be REALLY smart. Follow me on twitter and facebook as I will try to update those through my phone if I can’t update this blog.

just search for everything vintage steph or everythingvintagesteph.com or click on the links on this page. Thanks for reading!

vintage trifari pin

I don’t think I mentioned in my blog before that I am part owner of a jewelry store. Well, I am but I don’t do much there. My son in law does all the work and his mom also works full time at the store now. I just go in once a week to keep up with the finances and other minor details. Speaking of minor, that is MINER…. I am going to become a MINER next week.

We at the jewelry store, decided to buy a few mines out west and see if we can find any of our own gold and silver instead of just scrapping other people’s gold and silver. This is very interesting. I don’t understand it all yet but I am going to try to blog about it.

sexy lady Halloween costume

Right now I have 53 Halloween costume items listed on eBay. I must have done about half of those this weekend since I just went to an auction on Thursday and found piles more! I sold the Fred Flintstone and doctor lab coat within hours after listing them!

I don’t even know what this is! Does anyone know? It is a dress, with a hood, with bloody ribs. Beats me why a girl would want to wear this or why a boy would want to wear a dress. I’ll let you know if I sell it!

Then I got pieces of costumes like this orange furry vest. What is that??