Have you ever seen a Chinese silk iron? Or a Native American wedding vase? A wheeled brass dragon-fowl?
Laugh, weep and be amazed, as Irene Black’s photographs, descriptions and hilarious comments guide you through a hundred of her weird and wonderful eBay auction sales, some lucrative, some beautiful, others educational, most simply fun.
Sit back and enjoy – but don’t expect to make your fortune by reading this book.
Though you never know…
Please note: the book will be published in September 2007. Orders taken in advance and books will b sent out in September.
Have you ever seen a Chinese silk iron? Or a Native American wedding vase? An aeroplane kaleidoscope? A wheeled, brass dragon-fowl from…I have yet to find out. These are merely a sample of the weird and wonderful items that have come into my life since I started selling via the Internet. There are plenty of online auction-houses. I trade on the biggest of them all, eBay. The challenge is to make the items irresistible to punters through my descriptions and photos while being scrupulously honest.
It would be easy to pick out my 100 most lucrative sales, but who wants to know about another boring old vase that someone paid the earth for? This book is about interesting objects. Some made a healthy profit. Others made nothing.
Hey, whom am I kidding? There's nothing like the thrill of watching the bidding go up and up. Of course you want the financial nitty-gritty. And you’ll find it under each photo. But please look beyond the cash element: look at the thrills to be had, the obscure facts you can unearth. Half the fun is acquiring the items in the first place: my favourite haunts are boot fairs, charity shops and auction houses. You'd be amazed what you can turn up.
Each photo is accompanied by part of the listing description and some additional trivia. The items were in mint condition unless I have said otherwise.
So, sit back and enjoy - but don't expect to make your fortune by reading this book! (Though you never know…)
Excerpt
Is it a Spitz? Is it a Pom? NO! It’s superdog! My first eBay Wow! experience. Bought at a charity shop in Canterbury. I had no idea it would fly at auction, but fly it did! In every sense – it went to America. I started getting excited when the bidding reached £16.00. By the end I was out of my head!
A naïve councilman and a down-on-her-luck single mom try to save their county’s last stand of forest from greedy developers and a dysfunctional government.
