| From the start, eBay has been a collectors’ paradise. Among the first items put up for sale on eBay in the fall of 1995 were a Hubley toy dump truck and a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow motor car. In the ensuing decade, amateurs, antiques dealers, and entrepreneurs have all seized upon eBay as a way to make money and find buyers for their wares. These days, eBay is very much part of mainstream society. Buyers are learning to turn to eBay for household goods, clothing, and everyday items of all sorts. But it’s still the ideal place for collectors to buy, sell, and appraise their wares.
If you haven’t started buying on eBay yet, this book will give you a user-friendly introduction to the world’s most popular marketplace. Even if you’ve already done a few searches on eBay for long-lost toys from your childhood, you’ll learn how to round out your collection and locate scarce, rare items that are in most cases no longer manufactured. You’ll also learn how to get a competitive price for such rarities and not get cheated by sellers who aren’t trustworthy. And, whether you need to clear out your shelves and get rid of part of your collection or want a new source of regular income, this book will provide the know-how so you can sell successfully on eBay.
You don’t have to take just my word for any of it, either. Along with my own sage advice, drawn from my 30-plus years as an obsessed collector, The Collector’s Guide to eBay also includes tips and advice from folks who have successfully used eBay—both as buyers and sellers. Together, my fellow collectors and I will show you how to access eBay’s database of completed auctions to determine how much your own possessions are worth in the real world. You’ll also learn how to use other web sites to learn about what you collect. For example, the Elgin Watches web site compares different methods of valuing its collectible watches at http://elginwatches.org/help/ watch_values_accurate.html. It also suggests that eBay may provide the most accurate method of determining worth: “It’s worth what someone will pay for it,” as the saying goes. |
