The Consignment Assignment (Another Man's Treasure?)

Our first (of many? annual? and last? ) Consignment Assignment has come to an end. If you haven't read part one of our saga: Consignment Assignment (One Man's Trash), I am legally obligated to suggest you do so. If you've already met you quota for blogs read for the day, allow me to summarize:

My girlfriend and I each took five bucks and went shopping at Thiftko, a second (at least; possibly third) hand store. The goal was to use that money to find items that would sell for the highest amount on eBay. I listed them last week and seven days later, we have a winner.

Before we begin the coronation, I wanted to take a look a where the auctions stood as of Monday night; approximately one day prior to the auctions' close.

Keep in mind that my items included the Peter Pan doll and the Dragon puppet. My girlfriend's game pieces were the Native American Bear and the Electronic Keep Safe Diary.

With just under twenty-four hours left to bid, not many people had exercised that right. Only the Dragon puppet (my item) had any bids at all. Now, obviously these numbers are not what we were hoping for. We all wanted bidding wars; buyers fighting tooth and nail; taking out second mortgages on their homes to afford the Keep Safe Diary with most of Dannielle's name written on the front. But entering the final day of bidding, it looked like we would be lucky if the items sold, let alone funded a Hawaiian vacation.

All hope wasn't lost, however. Commonly the majority of bidding on eBay will take place in the last few hours (if not seconds) of an auction. Bidding ahead of time doesn't do the potential buyer any favors. Early bidding gives other perspective buyers the time to scrape together more money to trump your current bid. Because it benefits buyers so much to bid at the last possible moment, developers have created programs that allow eBay users to bid at the absolute last opportunity. This practice is known as sniping and sellers hate it. Buyers who lose out to snipers also hate it. The only way to beat an eBay sniper is to place a maximum bid higher than any sniper is willing to pay. Sellers like that.

Views represent how many times your auction has been accessed. It doesn't necessarily indicate unique hits, however, so the same person could have refreshed the Keep Safe Diary page 14 times. He sounds very indecisive. Watchers is a somewhat better indication of potential bidding. In order to watch an auction, you have to be logged into your eBay account and add the auction to your watch list. The intention is that a watcher wants to keep track of the auction to eventually bid on it, but many times people will watch an auction for an item they intend to sell themselves. I do that a lot. Sellers hate that. There really should be separate watch (with intention to bid) and watch (just looking) options.

That's enough stalling. Let's see who took home the gold.

The Consignment Assignment (One Man's Trash)

The Consignment Assignment (patent pending) is a fun game you can play at home with your friends and family. All you need is a couple bucks, a second-hand (or consignment) shop and a discerning eye for worth.

The rules are simple. First, set a predetermined allowance for your game. In my case, Thiftko was having a 50% off everything Labor Day sale, so I set our spending limit at $5, which would net us $10 worth of merchandise to play with.

Next, take your cash and spend it! You can buy as many or as few items as your budget will allow. The goal is to find items that you think are worth more than their thrift store price tags indicate.

Once you have your items, it's time to turn that trash into cash. List your items on eBay, starting each auction at the same amount. List low. You might think your haul is worth a lot, but it's up to the bidders to decide who's winning this round.

The winner is the individual whose combined auctions net the most profit.

The first item my girlfriend chose was an electronic "Keep Safe Diary". Unless you know the code, you can't access the diary's secret-laden innards. Fortunately for us, the code resets to A-B-C-D when you replace the batteries. Unfortunately once we got the diary open, we found a whole lot of nothing. There is an indentation where a pad of paper might have once been, but nothing more. Obviously I had hopes of finding a repeat of the little girl's journal I reviewed several weeks back, but since this is my girlfriend's game piece, maybe it's for the best that there are no added incentives.

We had been inside Thiftko for a good twenty minutes and the increasingly poor air quality was starting to have a negative effect on our well-being. I had two items, but my girlfriend only had the journal, so she decided to take a blind leap of faith and grabbed the closest item. She wound up with this tiny Native American Bear. A strong, if not desperate choice. People love bears and they respect Native Americans. With Thanksgiving just a scant few weeks away, I could see this cub being a big hit on the auction block.

As a side note, my girlfriend had been carrying around a painting for most of our time inside Thiftko. It looked like something the art teacher at your high school would hang on the walls by the auditorium before a school concert. It was more a gag item than a serious contender for the prize. I think once my girlfriend saw how furiously I was checking every shelf that she realized she better take this competition at least semi-seriously as well.

I'm admittedly nervous about my picks. I chose this three-headed dragon puppet based mostly on the fact that it still retained its original tag. Not only did it have its original tag, but there was an orange sticker on said tag that boasted a price of $19.99. I don't know who originally priced this puppet at twenty bucks, but if I could achieve a bid of anywhere near that price, I would have this contest all locked up.

In general, stuffed animals are not good choices for re-sale on eBay. However, puppets do marginally better than toys without holes you can stick your hands in.

Captain Hook and Peter Pan here are actually one item. When you see Hook, he's sitting on Peter. When you see Pan, he's sitting on the good Captain. The opposite figure is ingeniously hidden within that inconspicuous burlap sack on their butts.

If I lose this game, I will have no one to blame but myself. I chose two stuffed toys when I know that stuffed toys don't perform well on eBay. At least with the dragon, I can hold onto the hope that someone will want him because he looks new, but Captain Peter here looks like he was made for a school's craft fair. Their faces look like the puppets they taught us how to make in school by scrunching up cotton inside pantyhose. Other people were taught that, too, right?

No one is going to want this abomination. I don't even want it. I think the Thriftko fumes had started affecting me by this point. I was like an infant mesmerized by a game of peekaboo. Oh no, it's Captain Hook! Where's Peter Pan to save us? There is he! Now where's Hook? There he is!

I'm not feeling confident about this one.

Also, Peter looks more like Link from Zelda. Maybe I'll list this one under 'video games'.



I will probably list the auctions on Sunday. I heard somewhere once that auctions that end on Sundays perform better. I guess people have more time to surf the internet on lazy Sunday afternoons. I'll update this post at least once more with the results, but I'll probably post again once the auctions are live.

Place your bets in the comment section on who you think will win. Remember, my items are the 3-headed dragon and the Peter Pan/Captain Hook atrocity. My girlfriend's items are the electronic diary and the Native American bear.