SecondMoonshot

Not too often we see a Thursday estate sale and had some time to kill so took the 40 minute truck from Wake Forest to Apex, NC. It was a liquidation sale and pretty much a bust. Got a few items which will probably brake even on but maybe will get lucky with. Everything was priced above any price a reseller would purchase at and threw in significant lots of consignment (most low quality items) for giggles. Not much more to say about this. I have been to previous sales from this crew and none were memorable (other than the prices) although people were personable. John

Following up on my post on Finding Signed Books , I thought I would share the outcome of a 3rd visit to a local thrift shop in Raleigh, NC….North Raleigh Ministries Thrift Store. Went to a dud of an estate sale so on the way home, wanted to see if maybe I could salvage the day and hit the store. I have been there a few times before and previously have come away with 12-18 books and probably 2 dozen on the first trip. They have about 10-12 bookshelves with 5 rows of books each (6’ shelves or so). Overall, the hunt took me probably about 25 minutes, skipping some of the religious areas and kids books. I was very selective on what I pulled off shelves and only passed on one book, Flame-Out by James Blackburn as I already have 2 copies and they are generally low value; I don’t need another but picked it up to see if it was signed…it was. This store is in a pretty nice area of town with homes ranging from the $500k - $1m, and not far from downtown, so no surprise this get some good donation...

13 years ago, I was going through a divorce. Any divorce is messy, especially for the kids and this one was no exception. Through the years we had jointly built up a significant amount of credit card debt and 95% of that ended up my responsibility as part of the settlement, meaning on top of a generous alimony, child support for the 2 children (normally a state calculation), along with the debt payments…lets just say, I was living well below the poverty line.  As I was moving into a new apartment, I needed to see if I could dig up a very cheap washer and dryer. I ended up finding one for $50 but it was in Charlotte, NC….that’s about 2 hours away. I had an aging Jeep Grand Cherokee at the time and fortunately had a trailer, so off I went to take possession. During the trip, somewhere around Winston-Salem, my car basically died. I ended up having to get it towed to a local dealership to receive the news that I would need a new engine (which I could hardly afford). I called Zabrina to...

 Full moon pics by Zabrina. 

 Zabrina’s back behind the lens with some great shots.

Friday is usually the day I will go to some estate sales alone as the spouse is working, they are usually pretty well attended.  Steve Minor Estate Sale, Eclectic Goods I started off the morning going to a Steve Minor estate sale in Raleigh area. Decided to get there nice an early for a number, arriving at 5:50a for an 8a start…I was still #15. It was a good sale, probably classified as average or slightly better. The other buyers were well behaved although normal scurrying around commenced as normal, prices were reasonable. They had tons of fabric selling by the trash bag load @ $5…I did not buy any. I ended up with a reasonably good lot of listings. The wooden cat was very cute and the 2 pigs sleeping under up getting taken by our daughter. A nice boxed Japanese stacking warmer set which should do nicely. Couple other smaller impulse item.  Everything but Grannies Panties, Vintage/Antique Books, Posters This one was to start at 5pm. Kim will do these Friday evening sales and...

Last weekend I bid on a large number of lots at a large estate sale mega auction held by a local auction company, Hoy Auction out of Wake Forest, NC. I generally shy away from online auctions unless I can see the items first which Hoy allows.  I ended up with winning bids on three pairs of high end new in box cowboy boots which were just stunning, one pair of Lucchese Black Cherry Ostrich, one pair of Stallion Zorro Blue Python and one pair of Stallion Red Stingray with matching Belt. These were probably the single largest single item purchases I have made to date.  Two of the Stallions are now listed and were flawless, just wonderful boots, although the Lucchese had a tear in the leather inner handle so won’t be listing those until I get them repaired (and depending on the quality of the repair).  If you haven’t figured it out by now, you can see that I am a sucker for anything with an original box…and new high end unique cowboy boots with box, what choice did I have. I ...

This is the first time I am using the eBay Time Away option and so far so good. Took my father down to Myrtle Beach Marriott Vacation Club for a few days, we have a few weeks of time share, although only doing a long weekend. Setup was about as easy as you could think of. Just put in a start and end date, and an optional away message. They did have an option to allow buyers to purchase while your away and then you can ship them when you return, which is the option I chose. Pretty sure it will not have a negative impact on your 1 Business Day shipping record.  I didn’t do the start date 1 day in advance, and I really should have…it just had me scrambling the night before and having to coordinate with family to get the packages to the post office the next day. Just do the extra day before. I didn’t change the end date past the actual vacation, and figured it wont be too big of a challenge to ship everything the day after I return. The only item worth improving is that you can only se...

So lets talk a little about what I am looking for when I go to an Estate Sale and look for items to list. Everyone is different and should be, because that is what makes each seller unique. There are a couple things which might be more applicable across sellers and will try to hit on those. Final Sale Price Should be No Less than Double of Item Cost This is a good general rule to follow, but adjust the % up as needed depending on what you are selling. Certainly some will get significantly more than that, so this is your floor. With eBay, after shipping fees, promoted listing fees, possibly international shipping fees, and shipping, you will be lucky to keep the overall costs below 50% total. Normally my starting price will be a minimum of double of what I paid and an additional 20% on top of that, then I will do a Buy-it-Now and allow lower offers at roughly 20% lower (sometimes less if I know it will be a hot item). As I study the costs and track them, I will continue to adjust this. ...

Last weekend on Labor Day weekend, we went to the only estate sale going on in Raleigh, NC which was by JMS Estate Sales. Being the only one, you can imagine the crowd and 3 hours prior to opening there were already 10 on the list and was rumored that someone brought a sleeping back and got there real early (unconfirmed). We have been to a number of JMS sales and they do a lot of the “picking” type sales, but equally handle more mid-level larger sales well too. John and Keith are easy to work with and fair in their pricing (if not more than fair) and we always enjoy their sales and find some interesting items. This was one of the nicer sales and we ended up getting 15 and 16 on the list, but the house was pretty large, so it was filled up with the full attendance in no time at all. Probably the headline find was a vintage X-Acto Hobby Chest which was about 10” x 14” x 4” and had 40+ items in it. When I listed it, it went within an hour. There were probably more than 50 Wallace Nutting ...

Update 01/10/2022: Update 10/25/2021: The final logo. Got a T-Shirt made through Zazzle and it came out awesome. My daughter, Carrianne, helped clean it up with some professional graphic tools and some drawing skills (she works for Adobe). My first stab at coming up with a non-photo logo. I want a hand drawn look, but maybe better than mine as I have zero artistic skills. The idea was the 2 vertices rectangles loosely are Roman numeral II and the inverted moon, best I got and it’s simple. Open to better ideas, this is about all me, my finger, and my iPad could muster.  This is Zabrina’s version of the logo: Latest version: The latest branded shirts. Got one for the entire family. Thats a model in the pics as my belly wouldn’t fit in the frame. John