The other day I purchased an old fishing creel with the mark: “Made in British Hong Kong”

I thought the creel was from the 1960′s but I wondered if the mark meant it was which made me wonder was that pre or post WWII.

Off to find the answer – I found a great reference website:

http://www.coxsackie.com/reference/cooaadt.htm

Here’s a quick ‘cheat sheet’ on dates:

Nippon     1891 to 1921
Japan     after 1921
Occupied Jap.     1945 – 1952
Czecho-Slovakia     1920′s
U.S. Zone Germany     1945 – 50
Western Germany     1950 – 54
China     1891-1949 or after 1978
People’s Rep. of China     mid 1970s
Republic of China     probably 1949 – 1980
Taiwan     1980s – 90s
Korea     1970s – 90s
British Hong Kong     1950s – 60s
Hong Kong     1970s – 90s
Malaysia     1980s – 90s
Indonesia     1980s – 90s

For more information on dating your item via the manufacture dates check out the Coxsackie Antique Center page. They’ve compiled a great deal of information on dating items.

It’s no joke!

We just purchased a lot of Bucilla Cross Stitch patterns for Christmas Stockings. These vintage “New Old Stock” kits are no longer available in the Bucilla catalog. Our patterns are still factory sealed, the kit contains everything you need to complete the stocking.

Get started now so you’ll have them finished by the holiday.

http://stores.ebay.com/CloverCity-Sells/_i.html?_nkw=bucilla&submit=Search&_sid=8459595

Now there is an ONLINE Yard Sale group which is EVEN BETTER! It is open 24/7 and you can always find a little treasure you just must have!!

Pacific Northwest FaceTrader is a new online Yard Sale group created for the Pacific Northwest Area. Help them  grow the group by sharing with all your friends. You can buy, sell or trade or even give away for FREE in the group.

Join us and post your items today.

Happy Shopping!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/PacificNorthwestFaceTrader/

What are you looking for?

That one item to complete your collection – or anything of a certain type, age or?

Send us an email or leave a comment. We’ll make sure to contact you FIRST if we find them.

http://www.bonanza.com/booths/CloverCity

Can’t see the video? Go directly to the page: live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/flea-markets-bob-richter/512ea792fe34445f46000212

We came across a large stash of Chevron Cars still in their boxes. If you are looking to fill in your collection – or want to start a new one – we have cars for you!

What are the Chevron Cars?

They started in TV. They were part of an Ad campaign featuring talking cars using clay animation. The cars were used to promote Chevron with Techron.

The cars were so popular that Chevron gas stations began selling the toy cars featured in the commercials. Chevron underestimated demand for the first run and Chevron produced new models.

Although originally designed for kids, Chevron executives were surprised that adults started collecting the toy plastic cars too. Older adults are among the most enthusiastic collectors of the Chevron Cars.

It was on a sad note that in 2011, Chevron announced that due to decreasing consumer demand, the production of the Chevron Cars would be terminated. This brought to an end a period of fifteen years in which they were produced and sold.

If you are looking for a particular model – we may have it for sale this week.
Check it out here: http://stores.ebay.com/CloverCity-Sells

About that clumping listings together in catalog. EBay will be more like Amazon, where individuals sellers are stripped of their unique selling propositions and the sale becomes only about price… Does it work for the small sellers? Check out how many items are a penny on Amazon. Can we afford to sell our goods for total bottom dollar (plus free shipping)? No, unless you have the buying power of Buy.com or ToysRus.

Which brings me to my point, eBay please stop playing catch up and start innovating!

Asking what I think might help? Here’s a few things that would help my business on eBay:

• How about giving sellers more ability to communicate with OUR customers? eBay seems to be going in the opposite direction – blocking us for direct communication. This is great for big sellers who don’t want to pay for the additional customer service but terrible for the micro seller who can benefit from direct one-on-one communications with customers.

Examples:

•  Provide us with coupons to our store listings.
•  Allow us sellers to set up shipping parameters that will give buyers free shipping after a certain purchase amount – determined by the individual seller.

Right now if I offer buyers FREE shipping when buyers purchase $25 or more I have to refund the shipping amount through paypal if the buyer doesn’t wait for a manual invoice – very clunky and a bookkeeping nightmare! And, with the new shopping cart – undetermined whether we can continue to send manual invoices for purchases.

• Improve the store newsletter feature – stop blocking us from selling and promoting OUR business.

 EBay grew on the power of the individual seller, give us back some of that freedom. I need to be able to use HTML to code photos and links back to eBay and provide my buyers with a professional looking newsletter/flyer/ sales tool. Right now it seems like eBay distrusts sellers so much that all but the very basic functions are blocked in the newsletter.
Lastly: – Based on tradtion eBay sellers have come to expect fee and site changes to be rolled out the first of the year. EBay added to our unease by simply not announcing until three months into the year…. sounds like they knew when they would announce these rollouts months in advance… why not share the date with sellers? We’re depending on a stable platform to sell on – not knowing what the schedule is doesn’t help. Especially nervewracking after the fairly major duplicate listing surprise during our busy season last year.