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Auctionbytes-Update, Number 213 - April 20, 2008 - ISSN 1528-6703     Previous Story | Contents | Next Story


First Item Sold Online: A Pot, Monopoly Game and Pencil Sharpener
By Ina Steiner
AuctionBytes.com

April 20, 2008
Reading AuctionBytes: First Item Sold Online: A Pot, Monopoly Game and Pencil Sharpener

Do you remember the first item you ever sold online? Let us know by sending an email to ina@auctionbytes.com and we may publish your story. Today's stories highlight the lesson that, whether it's lying around the house or lying in a junk-box at a yard sale, an unwanted item just might have value to someone else!

Ina,
My new husband and I were trying to clear out some of my "stuff" to make room for his "stuff" in my 1100 sf house. I had a ceramic pot of nickels from separating my change for a couple of decades, and we dumped the coins in the bank's change counter. Then he, an experienced once-in-a-while eBayer, looked at the pot. He showed me what to do, and I got $37.50 for a pot that to me was "useful for storing change."

Then I tackled the thousands of books I'd read and kept, and those books (and others I've been collecting cheap or free since then) have been paying our utility bills for a couple of years now.
JM

********

Ina,
I was living in Australia at the time. At the last garage sale of the day I spotted a box that looked to be full of junk stuff. Lots of miscellaneous paper items and folders, but down at the bottom of the box was a Monopoly set. Not just any Monopoly set but the one the seller played with as a child. I knew it was different because it had a numbered card with an arrow instead of the normal dice, which is how the Monopoly sets were made during WW11. I happily paid her the $5 dollars she wanted even though she pointed out that it was missing one of the properties. Besides the Monopoly set there were many other surprises in that box: WW11 travel documents, early century birth certificates, receipts for cremations, very old photographs, etc. I tried to return some of the items thinking that they had sentimental value but she wont have any of it. I had paid for it and I had to take it away. One less box she had to move.

Well the Monopoly set netted $60 dollars from a collector in Canada and was my very first item sold on ebay. That was way back when ebay was still privately owned and was still warm and friendly.
Tim

********

Hi Ina,
My wife and I have been buying and selling on eBay since February 1998. I don't really remember my first sale, but I do remember the first sale that got a lot more than we expected. We like to scour garage sales for unusual items that we think might sell. My wife was digging around in a "dime" box (everything in the box was selling for ten cents each) and she found a pencil sharpener. It was made by the "Swing-A-Way" company in the USA and had a special mounting bracket shaped kind of like a "V." I thought we might get three or four dollars for it, so I said yes when she asked me if I thought we could sell it. Well, our surprise came about a week later when the auction ended with the high bid of $86.00! After that I was hooked. Thank you for the opportunity to share our story.
Sincerely,
Jim and Sharon (justin-tyme)

About the author:

Ina Steiner is Editor of AuctionBytes.com and author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). She has a background in marketing and research in the high-tech and publishing fields. If you have story ideas, comments or questions, send them to ina@auctionbytes.com.


You may quote up to 200 words of any article on the condition that you attribute the article to AuctionBytes.com and either link to the original article or to www.AuctionBytes.com.
All other use is prohibited.

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