Sell Small Collectable Items with Massive Buyer Appeal

I’m a great lover of small products, mainly antiques and collectibles, the kind that are tiny enough to allow dozens to be packed into the average pocket at boot sales and flea markets.  And they are unlikely to cost more than a pound each to post, so offering free delivery is rarely a major problem and can help your listings rank higher in eBay search returns. 

Not forgetting, when you’re out product sourcing at flea markets and car boot sales, with really big pockets you may never have to carry bags and risk mislaying them or having them stolen as you make your way round sometimes thousands of stalls.

I’m talking today about hugely popular and sometimes very high price items like thimbles and guitar plectrums, cufflinks, tiny animal shaped pin cushions, wax seals, and hundreds more items besides.

Once you get your acquisitions back home, they can be pushed to the back of your work station and never tie up space in the attic or garage. 

And because they are small you’ll find two very important things - important for you, that is - happening at boot sales and other selling locations:

(i)  Small items often get overshadowed by larger items on a seller’s stall, so even if you arrive late to the event you’ll still find some valuable items earlier visitors have missed.

(ii)  Small usually means inexpensive, even to some experienced sellers and you could pick up items for pennies and sell them for several pounds apiece on eBay.

At least, that is my experience and has been for more than forty years, actually closer to fifty.

Now let us look at some of the small items we’re talking about and their recent finishing prices on eBay.

Thimbles

If you’ve ever tried sewing a button onto a shirt without using a thimble you’ll know the finger used to support the button can be stabbed ten or twenty times in the couple of minutes it takes to make the garment whole again.  And that’s why thimbles are commonly used to protect the supporting finger, usually the forefinger on the hand not holding the needle. 

But thimbles are also very popular collectable and decorative items and can fetch ten or twenty or even hundreds of pounds on eBay.   They have been made and used and collected for hundreds of years, although very few exist today from the pre-18^th century.  The older and more ornate they are, generally the more collectable and higher priced they tend to be.

Recent sales on eBay include:

Vintage Exquisite Ornate Edwardian Thimble by James Fenton in Retailers Box - £362.00

Rare 1976 Peter Swingler Sterling Silver Washington Crossing the Delaware JS & S - £206.03

Here’s a site telling you most of what there is to know about collecting thimbles and, by implication, selling them too.

http://www.worldcollectorsnet.com/features/thimbles-thimble-collecting/

Guitar Plectrums

Plectrums are used by musicians to pick out notes on the guitar in a way that could otherwise be done using the fingernails, only less painfully and without suffering broken nails and bleeding fingers.

Examples once belonging to or promoting specific named guitarists are the most popular of all. 

Recent examples sold on eBay:

GARY MOORE Guitar Pick.  Extremely Rare and Collectable Promotional Plectrum - £50.00

1998 ERIC CLAPTON Guitar Pick Plectrum Pic Picks PILGRIM - £47.18

Learn more at:

https://www.everythingcollectible.com/cat-11-CommemorativeGuitarPickCollection.php

Cufflinks

Cufflinks are used instead of buttons to close cuffs on shirts worn by men and sometimes on women’s blouses.  They’re often found selling at flea markets and collectors’ fairs or as part of a deceased person’s estate in most auction salerooms.  Generally the most valuable items are created from precious metals and made by well known and popular designers. 

Recent examples:

Cartier 18k White Gold Blue Tiger Eye Cuff Links - £2990.00

ST DUPONT 18k WG Cufflinks - £1,615.93

TOM FORD Striped T Cufflinks - £969.56

Learn more at:

http://www.cufflinkking.com/collecting.htm

Animal Shaped Pin Cushions

Pin cushions have been used to hold pins for hundreds of years but ornate designs have only been made from the 19^th century.  The Victorians favoured silver pin cushions in various different designs of which animals are among the most popular and highest priced today, especially dogs and cats, birds and horses.

Recent eBay finishing prices include:

Rare Sterling Silver Novelty Pin Cushion Parrot Bird Adie & Lovekin 1915 - £1,227.00

Very Rare Silver Novelty Lizard Pin Cushion - £537.00

Very Scarce Antique French Silver Ostrich Pin Cushion c1910 - £460.20

Learn more at:

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/sewing/pin-cushions

Seals

Seals were usually metal devices with an embossed or engraved pattern or coat of arms at one end and a handle at the other.  The design part would be dipped in wax and used to close documents and letters before and for some decades after envelopes came into common usage.  The coat of arms or other pattern would be unique to a specific person or household.  The seal was designed to close a letter or other document to make it easy to transport, as well as identifying the sender and proving authenticity, while also ensuring letters and other communications arrived at their destination intact.  If the document was tampered with in transit the wax seal would be broken and give the game away. 

Here are some recent eBay finishing prices:

Antique Victorian 18ct Gold Banded Agate Jewish Cross Triple Swivel Fob Seal - £343.00

1880s Griffin 14k Gold Victorian Seal Fob w/Knights Helmet & Shield 22.8gm - £336.11

Learn more at:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3425500417.html

Vinaigrettes

Vinaigrettes are tiny boxes containing a sponge or wadding which was soaked in aromatic oil or vinegar.  Owners would open the box and sniff the contents to counteract the unpleasant aroma of refuse and raw sewage common in the streets in Victorian and earlier times.

Examples:

Nathaniel Mills Mourning Viniagrette - £1,200.00

Notice the product was misspelled in that listing but still managed to get found and top the price listings for vinaigrettes recently on eBay.

Note: Maker Nathaniel Mills appeared on several of the top ten highest prices paid for vinaigrettes recently on eBay.

Rare 1889 Victorian Jewish Sterling Silver Articulated Fish Spice Box Vinaigrette - £413.03

C1920 Art Deco Sterling Silver & Guilloche Enamel Vinaigrette Pendant Necklace - £336.11

Learn more at:

http://www.ascasonline.org/VINAIGRETTE.html

Recommended Reading

An Encyclopedia of Small Antiques by James A. MacKay and published by Harper Collins.

ISBN-10: 0060127953

ISBN-13: 978-0060127954

Currently available on Amazon priced 1p upwards.

Keyword Masterclass - Proven Ways to Generate Massive Traffic to Your eBay Listings

Your chance of achieving multiple bids and unexpected high finishing prices depends on one main thing - the title you create for your listing.

eBay says 70 per cent of members use the site's search boxes to find items they might want to buy.  But that only returns listings containing actual search keywords in the title and sub-title and ignores keywords in descriptions. The exception is where searchers tick the ‘include description’ box, which very few do.

Few sellers realise this and waste time taking great photographs and writing detailed descriptions and spending little time on keywords. Then titles that don't contain relevant keywords will be missed by 70 per cent of potential buyers.

Your title must include keywords potential buyers use to find products like yours!

This is how to do it:

* Take a pen and paper and brainstorm words potential buyers might use to describe your product.  Make a list of keywords - and phrases - to use in your titles.

* Study completed auctions for similar products, sort 'highest price first', look for common keywords in the top ranking returns.  Add those words to your list.

* Think like a buyer and imagine yourself describing the product to a friend. Add words used to your list.

* Look for sites featuring high in outside eBay search returns for companies selling products similar to yours.  Find them at Google.com where you key in words to describe your product, then click to search.  

Next click to open the first few listings.  Go to 'View' top of your screen and choose 'Source'.  A mass of gobbledegook will appear.  That is html code and somewhere you'll see keywords responsible for those sites appearing high in the rankings.  Add those words to your list.

By now you should have a long list of possible keywords.  Keep it safe because you will be using it often.

Tips

* Where you have several similar products or ongoing same product supplies, you should create different titles for each item, using different keywords each time to attract interest from eBay's search engine.

Study subsequent bidding and sales levels for your various titles to see which work best; cut poorer performing titles and replace with better performing alternatives.

* Use every millimetre of space.  Longer titles attract more interest than short ones.  Fill surplus space with power words like 'Limited Edition', 'Rare', 'Unique', 'One Day Sale', 'Stunning', 'New', 'FREE', 'New', 'Proven', 'Guarantee'. Avoid concocted words like 'Wowee' and 'Yikes' which no one searches for anyway and can make you look unprofessional.

* Spell check your title and throw in a few misspellings of vital words if space allows.  Google says that 33% of all but the most common search keywords are misspelled.  Check possible misspellings of each prime keyword at http://www.fatfingers.com.  Fatfinger listings are mistakes made by sellers but you'll find the similar misspellings used by potential buyers.  Make a separate list of misspelled words to add to your title.

* Use acceptable, commonly used, well-recognised abbreviations, like 'PC' and 'P/C' for postcards, 'nr' and 'n/r' for 'no reserve', 'hb' and 'h/b' for 'hardback’.

So now you know how to get your listings in front of potentially thousands of buyers and you’ve made sure your listings are opened and attract bids that will make you the envy of your competitors.

Well done.