my Ebay obesssion

I might have mentioned a few weeks ago that I was selling stuff on Ebay.

We cleaned out a bunch of stuff in the garage and kitchen overflow. We sold a pasta roller set. A French language set from a famous software seller who hates reselling so will remain nameless. A bunch of books. Jewelry.

It's a fascinating look into human nature, and might be a wee bit obsessed.

You never know what will sell for way more than you think. What you think will sell for lots of money never does. People who buy big stuff pay right away. People who win shit for .99 never want to pay and you have to open unpaid complaints with Ebay. People still snipe each other.

I've also bought some jewelry to resell lately, and I have some advice.

Read descriptions and look at pics. Set a top bid and stay there. Don't get suckered into bidding more than it's worth through excitement and innate competitiveness. IOW don't get all hyped up and hope for more than you're really going to get ;) Easiest way to get burned.

I love old stuff. I love to but it and sell it. Bit soon I might have to put down the Ebay app and back away slowly ;)

XXOO

Julia

Vintage Jewelry Love

So I recently rediscovered a love of mine from my antique dealer days.

Vintage jewelry. I adore weird rhinestone stuff, crazy old pins and earrings, weird pop beads and bizarre cocktail rings. The weirder the better. Since I have very little room for collectibles, I'm selling most of what I buy at yard sales on Ebay. Yesterday I got to research a Miriam Haskell shell shaped stickpin. 1950s. Neat thing. People lover Miriam Haskell. She was like Tim McGraw. She didn't design her own stuff, but she sure knew how to pick a designer.

Today it was a lovely sterling silver and turquoise pendant. So neat.

I love hauling out my loupe and looking at marks, though man, my eyesight is way worse than it was it my 20s. o.O

Here's the stickpin

Such fun!

XXOO

Julia

my favorite things about yesterday

I learned all about Finnish silver hallmarks. Not for a book, but for selling a pair of earrings on ebay. Thanks to the detailed markings I know it's .916 grade silver, it was made in Helsinki for export, the designer's name, and the company. Also they were made in 1957. So yeah, if you have a burning passion for Kalevala Koru, hit me up. I have a pair if 1957 screwback earrings in an in an unusual pattern.

My wife and I sat and talked at dinner about how we came to fandom and what fandoms were our faves. Sure, we know all this already, but I love our rambling dinner conversations. I can sit and listen to BA talk for hours about how she and Darth Velma used to go to cons in Santa Barbara together. Then I regale her with my fannish horror story about getting to Baltimore to meet an online friend only to have her flake at the last minute and screw me out of a place to stay and a hot meal on a really shitty rainy night in Maryland. Suffice to say we did not remain friends.

edits on Desert Dragons 2. Hoo. I have a new editor, and she's not read the El Ops or DD1. Ack. This series just can't stand alone at this point, and I'm struggling to add the backstory she wants me to without making the story sound weird and pedantic and repetitive. Such are the problems of tight 3rd person specific. If a character isn't thinking it, I can't put it on the page, so huge chunks of exposition don't happen.

I needed to knit something. I started a new scarf. I don't get that urge as often as BA, or as author friends like Amy Lane or Ariel Tachna, but I love a chunky yarn and a seed stitch.

Weekend, ho!

Julia