Where to sell some things?

[susiestar]

I have a few things I wouldn't mind selling but do not know how to find the right market for.

First is a quilt top. Back when we lived with my mother a friend of hers insisted I go to her quilt store (woman is obsessive about making quilts) because they were selling the samples they had made to show off techniques and fabrics. I got a twin size (I think - have to measure it again) quilt top made all out of Mary Engelbreit fabrics. It is machine pieced, but beautifully done. Their sample makers win contests regularly.

Since that time I have come to the conclusion that I am NOT cut out to assemble quilts. I have tried on others and tehy just never look even 1/10th of the way decent. So I would rather NOT jump in with this one and muck it up. Instead, i would at least like to get the $55 I spent for it.

It doesn't seem like a very high price, as quilts go, but I know that ebay is NOT the right place to sell it.

I also have quite a collection of the old recipe books that used to be published by various appliance makers, foods (think Hershey's, Peanut coalition, etc....) LONG before microwaves were sold. Some are vintage and some are antique. Again, not something to sell on ebay. I got them at estate sales and garage sales. If I could get some $$ for them it would be handy. Some won't have value but some do.

My mother wanted to pay me $65 for one of them - she has a Chamber's oven - very old gas oven built like a tank and amazing. The cookbook that came with them is very hard to find, esp in one piece. The stove came with the house and we bought a xerox of the book from the one place in the country that refurbishes tehn that we knew of. Years later (decades, really) I got the cookbook for $2 with several others. I gave it to her as a gift but it regularly sells for the $65 or even more now. It was a decade ago when i got it and gave it to her.

They are books like that. Does ANYONE know where I can find a good estimate of value on these? They are called Kitchen Ephemera for some reason.

Thanks a lot. I am trying to weed out stuff we dont' need, and the money could be very useful right now.

 

[KTMom91]

Just tossing out ideas here.

With the quilt top, do you have a quilter's store nearby? Someone there might be interested in buying it. Or maybe put up a notice at a fabric store.

For the other stuff, check with antique stores. Some will sell on consignment, others will buy it outright.

 

[klmno]

I sold on craig**ist - when I wasn't sure what something might be worth, I googled the item name with eba*'s name and usually could find something similar to get a rough idea for an asking price. As others here advised me, photos work the best when posting an ad on craig**ist. Good luck! Some things that I thought would never sell went quick- other things that were valuable to me but I couldn't keep had to practically be given away. Also- consider craig**ist for trading if there's something you want.

 

[Star*]

http://www.ehow.com/how_5555051_sell-sewing-patterns-etsycom.html

For handcrafted items - ETSY.com

For the books? Unfortunately you are probably NOT going to get very much out of them - unless you sell them on Amazon and just wait. Cookbooks are VERY indemand, but they take a long time to move. I don't sell on either, but have friends that do and for both this is where they go.

You can also try local antique malls on consignment.

 

[muttmeister]

I sell lots of stuff on Ebay. You can always go there and search for similar items to see what they are bringing for a price.

 

[DammitJanet]

I do think you can sell used books on Amazon if they are still in print. There is a quilt ad on this page...lol. Other than that either craigslist or Ebay but you would have to have a reserve price listed and I think you can only do that if you have sold so many things. You would have to check that out. Im not too sure about that. Ask LDM, she does a lot of Ebay selling.

 

[susiestar]

Ebay is not always the place to get good prices for handmade or antique items. It is great if you have a large quantity or items that are very in demand, but these are more of collectors items - the cookbooks. The quilt prices I have seen on ebay are horribly low - esp for quilts made with top quality fabrics. I will look at etsy for the quilt because it is a market more geared to hand crafted items.

I will talk to some people at the antique places here, but our town isn't very current on prices for this kind of thing, at least the last I talked to them.

I am also going to ask on a needlework site I am familiar with.