Thursday 14 January 2016

Going, going, gone....

The auction season started again yesterday. I could have made a New Years resolution not to buy so much rubbish this year, as 2015 was definitely the year of the dross. I have been lucky with some items i have purchased, and made a reasonable profit, but quite a bit of it remains downstairs ready to be utilised at the car boot sales when they start in March.

I would like to think my luck has been hard earned as I do have an eye for what will sell, I just occasionally pay too much for it!!

Yesterday I purchased a golf flight travel bag for £5 which retails for about £60 so I  will keep that for my own use, as it purports to carry two sets of clubs, so saving air freight charges with EasyJet et al.

I missed out on two rather nice piano stools which went for £45 each which I think was all the money. I did get a pile of pictures though, in which I thought there were a couple of hidden gems. They are on e-bay at the moment so we will see how they fair. It's commission which does the damage though. You pay it on what you buy in the auction, plus occasionally VAT. You then pay commission on e-bay and a handling fee if your payment option is paypal.
Apparently it costs £20 to submit an item into the auction to sell and there is sellers commission as well as that of the buyer. I know they have to make their margin somewhere but it all needs to be considered when trying to make a few bob on whatever you buy.

I have fishing bits ( but not your type of stuff,  Dick) Pepper Pig xylophones, modelling tool kits, a few artifacts and a good range of pictures so far in the car boot box, I might have a clearance sale just to get rid as its all spent money so anything I make will be straight into the beer kitty.

1 comment:

Richard Donkin said...

You should link through to the stuff on EBAY - you never know. I bought our lounge carpet at auction, left a maximum bid of £1500 and it went for £1200 but commission etc took it back to £1500. Was it a good buy? Dunno but the auction estimate was £2000 to £3000. The main thing is that we're happy with it.