selling your stuff on Amazon...part 2

mike55_2

purplepatch wrote:

Bought a good book on Saturday - £4 from charity shop. It's a hardback about the Elgin family history, is absolutely immaculate. And it's signed by the current Earl of Elgin, dated April '03.

It's a deleted title published in the 80s and there are only a couple of acceptable ones listed, ex library books I think, both at £25ish.

I'm utterly clueless with this one as I have a feeling that the fact it's signed could make quite a hefty difference to the value.

Does anyone know any way of getting some expert advice? I'm tempted to list at some silly price, but even with that, I'm not sure quite how silly to go!! Even looking at alibris and abebooks hasn't come up with any other signed versions - in fact there only seem to be about half a dozen for sale world wide.

In a bit of a quandary really!

i'd hang on and keep looking purplepatch. the fact it's immaculate enhances its value, not to mention the fact its not an ex-library book. as it's signed, it has to be worth a lot more than 25 quid. especially if it might interest ppl like the americans?

do you know anybody that has a book on ancestral trails? i saw it on play.com but wasn't sure if it was meant for the gentry or ppl like me but it might be worth a look at, or even a look in the library. its just that signature isn't it?

even if you listed it at 100 quid, it might be worth more

a question while i'm here, to larmy16 and someone else who listed and sold a haynes manual.

i tried to list one, and it started at 1p, so even if someone's a pro-merchant, are they making any profit on the postage?

edited to ask purplepatch if the signature could be authenticated if anyone enquired?

purplepatch

mike55 wrote:

edited to ask purplepatch if the signature could be authenticated if anyone enquired?

Well, no, not really, other than taking a photo of it that I could email to prospective buyers. Simply says 'With best wishes, Elgin, April '03', in old man writing!

How would one go about authenticating? I don't know where to start.

Nads, I have a specialist book shop near me, so think I might take a trip down there to see what they think.

mike55_2

purplepatch wrote:

Well, no, not really, other than taking a photo of it that I could email to prospective buyers. Simply says 'With best wishes, Elgin, April '03', in old man writing!

How would one go about authenticating? I don't know where to start.

in that case purplepatch, i'd scan or photograph it as you suggested. serious buyers would probably know a fake.

i've got a couple of cheap ish ones, about a fiver each :rolleyes: lol, and i had the same quandry. so i've put them in the 'pending' box - with the haynes books

larmy16

Mike I guess it all depends on which manual. Mine was the cheapest listed at £7.00 for a Fiesta xr21/83-90 models. I saw one in charity shop priced £2.25 another fiesta one and it was only worth 0.86 on Amazon. I have yet to sell mine though! You could never profit on ones costing 0.01 - they are pretty heavy aren,t they?

Years ago, I used to work in a charity shop. They used to chuck the Haynes manuals straight in the bins, reckoned they would never sell! This was pre - Amazon

mike55_2

larmy16 wrote:

Mike I guess it all depends on which manual. Mine was the cheapest listed at £7.00 for a Fiesta xr21/83-90 models. I saw one in charity shop priced £2.25 another fiesta one and it was only worth 0.86 on Amazon. I have yet to sell mine though! You could never profit on ones costing 0.01 - they are pretty heavy aren,t they?

Years ago, I used to work in a charity shop. They used to chuck the Haynes manuals straight in the bins, reckoned they would never sell! This was pre - Amazon

cheers larmy :beer: i thought at 1p they 'had' to be making a loss, and the thought of posting them makes me think 'hernia'

some more for the loft then :rolleyes: rofl.

talking of charity shops, i met someone through work who works in a charity shop and he mentioned that a hell of a lot of books are skipped, so i'm going to make sure the charity shops actually 'want' what we take in from now on.

i'm not sure if i mentioned it earlier but talking of cheap books - i sold one on greenmet earlier. i only listed it because it was in good nick, but it was selling for 1p on amazon. so it might be an idea to keep and list all what we think of as cheap on there? its not the 1st time that's happened either.

if i get time, i'm going to check out the classifieds again. i've made a profit on what i've bought and sold, and still have some to list. you should all check the classifieds out

larmy16

Mike

Tragic as it is, charity shops bin a hell of a lot of stuff - they just don't have the room to keep it all. Some of it does a round robin of all the shops. We used to dread this stuff, it never sells. We also used to dread people leaving the stuff they could not sell at car boots. Again, only the odd item would sell. It seems that some stuff really is junk to everyone. Kind of ironic when you see in some parts of the world people only have the clothes they stand up in and a cup between them!

They used to loathe those books, you know the ones of classics faux leather bound - no-one wants them, such a waste. Us Amazonians would probably shed real tears if we could see the books being slung out. Trouble is if you were to suggest taking them off their hands they would get that greedy glint in their eye. That is another thing charity shops seem to hate - people trying to give them less than they want for things. They would rather bin it! I know that first hand. You have to be brave to try and bargain with the charity shops!:)

I think in the old amazon thread someone said they used to go through the bins and retrieve all the books, but I am not sure if this is technically stealing???? anyway I don't think I will try. The thought of a policeman shining a torch into my face as I make off with my book "swag" just does not appeal. I reckon jumble sales, school fetes (particularly) and church sales are the way to go! We are all going to be busy this year I mean next year.

mike55_2

larmy16 wrote:

Mike

Tragic as it is, charity shops bin a hell of a lot of stuff - they just don't have the room to keep it all. Some of it does a round robin of all the shops. We used to dread this stuff, it never sells. We also used to dread people leaving the stuff they could not sell at car boots. Again, only the odd item would sell. It seems that some stuff really is junk to everyone. Kind of ironic when you see in some parts of the world people only have the clothes they stand up in and a cup between them!

They used to loathe those books, you know the ones of classics faux leather bound - no-one wants them, such a waste. Us Amazonians would probably shed real tears if we could see the books being slung out. Trouble is if you were to suggest taking them off their hands they would get that greedy glint in their eye. That is another thing charity shops seem to hate - people trying to give them less than they want for things. They would rather bin it! I know that first hand. You have to be brave to try and bargain with the charity shops!:)

I think in the old amazon thread someone said they used to go through the bins and retrieve all the books, but I am not sure if this is technically stealing???? anyway I don't think I will try. The thought of a policeman shining a torch into my face as I make off with my book "swag" just does not appeal. I reckon jumble sales, school fetes (particularly) and church sales are the way to go! We are all going to be busy this year I mean next year.

i'd take them off their hands, if it was just to sell on at a jumble sale or whatever for charity. i'd reckon any book is worth at least 25p, but i can see how they might get overloaded with 1p books. i know someone that tips ex-library books too. and that seems like 'our' money being binned to me.

if the missus goes in to buy books, and she knows she's getting a bargain, she has a stash of handbags, new clothing, and stuff she knows charity shops can sell - cause she asked a while back now the daughters and her friends save all their handbags. lord knows why theres a shortage of handbags though.

as for the 'swag bag' comment? i remember watching some reality programme about brighton where brand new books were skipped and they 'wanted' people to help themselves. so i wouldn't worry too much about policeman and torches. most of us can find a torch when we need one.

as for the policeman, the less said the better

makes you wonder how many classics have been binned though?

mike55_2

i'm not sure if this sites any good, but i stumbled across it earlier.

it might help to price the occasional book.

https://www.BookBrain.co.uk

purplepatch

Anyone who took advantage of the 3 month special offer pro merchant thingy like I did? Have you had the email at the end of the first month that includes the paragraph:

Please note that your subscription will continue to be automatically
renewed. Should you wish to discontinue your subscription for the next
billing period, visit Your Account under the Auctions or zShops and
click on View or update your Amazon.co.uk Subscriptions. If you cancel
your subscription and resubscribe later, you will be charged a new £12.50
(plus applicable VAT) monthly subscription fee.

Am I understanding it correctly - does that mean that if I cancel at the end of the 3 cheaper months and I resubscribe (especially if they do the half price deal again) at some time in the future, I'm going to get charged £12.50 plus vat in addition to the normal pro merchant monthly rate?

This first month of pro merchant has gone well (sold around 50 items this month), but not sure I'll be able to keep it up for ever as have been selling a lot of my unwanted cds - that will probably see me through the 3 months to make the deal worthwhile. After that only time will tell really.

voodoozoe

Well to me it reads as though you'll just be charged the £12.50 plus vat...not ON TOP of the other fee!!!

If so, that is good isn't it!!!! :j