OverlookedTreasure.com

I have a new treasure for you today

Ready?

Lets go…

A few months ago I was at a friend’s parents
house. Her parents had recently redone the
garage and turned their attic into some
extra living space (Their attic lookes huge now)

Anyway, the mom was showing me around when
she told me she had something for me to sell
on ebay

I thought to my self…

What could this item be…

So she took me up the attic, went around the
divider and came back with a basket that
contained some “stuff”

I chuckled.

I was thinking… Lets see what kind of
girly stuff are in there…

She lays the basket on the table and starts
pulling out things and places them on the
table.

I was like, oh my gosh, I dont want to sell these
things. I want to keep them for myself

See…

When she started showing me these old SLR
cameras (one of them was a Canon, the other
was an older Olympus), and all the accessories
that came with them, I felt like a little
kid in the playground.

I love photography. I would buy vintage
photography equipment at a good deal ANY DAY.

After thanking her forever, I took the
basket home and “played” with its contents
the whole evening.

Then next day hit me…

I wonder how much these would sell for on
ebay. so I looked into it and what I found
can be very lucrative to the right person:

Nikon F2 SLR Sold for: $219.51

Pentax LX SLR Sold for $200

Here are the data from my eBay Research Tool

63% List to Sale Ratio for the term “Film SLR”
with an average price of $77.03

With the rise of Digital cameras, people that
arent really into Photography, just decide to
get rid of their old cameras for pennies.

I ve bought vintage cameras from flea markets,
yard sales and thrift stores before. Now I dont
sell them because I am the kind of guy that
likes to buy them (I am the customer

Dont forget that lenses, and other accessories
also do well on ebay. Some times vintage lenses
do better than cameras themselves.

Post your comments below
and let me know what you think about today’s
treasure

-Socrates

Today something really screwed up happened
to me and I wanted to share with you for a couple
of reasons.

1. I wanna get it out of my chest
2. You might wanna make sure this doesn’t happen to you

Let me tell you what happened.

I have a dedicated server with this company called “ThePlanet”
that I host some of my websites on. (I have other dedicated
servers with other companies as well)

At 9am today, sales stopped!

I checked my sales stats around 11am I thought
it was just getting slow today, then I left for some

meetings.

I got back around 6pm PST to find out that there
were no sales since 9. That was odd and out of
normal since tons of subscribers have been ordering
my latest Greek Easter special all day long since Sunday

I checked to find out that NONE of my payment
links worked all day because the planet unplugged the
server that hosts my payment system (and some websites).

UNPLUGGED MY SERVER!

You know what that means?
That I have to lose thousands of dollars in sales

and frustrate my subscribers and website visitors,
because some idiot did not update my email address
in their systems.

Let me explain what happened:

on Feb 4th I opened a ticket and asked for my
email address to be updated. I got confirmation
that it was done. (see pic below)

At some point the credit card I had in file
with them expired. they claim to have sent
an email to me letting me know they would
be taking my server offline if I did not pay them…

The sent the email at the OLD email address.
so I NEVER GOT IT
No courtesy phone call, no nothing.
so they UNPLUGGED the server

So they apologized and “waived” the $50
reconnection fee. They said they will
“investigate” why my email was not updated
when I was told it was.

I am still waiting for a manager to call me
back.

At least I got my server back online at 7pm and
probably be looking to move to a company
that gives me the courtesy of a phone call
before unplugging my business at will.

I thought you wanted to know that someone
like THEPLANET can unplug your business at
any time if you fail to get their email.

If you tried to take advantage of my latest
crazy GREEK EASTER SPECIAL but you were
unable to do so today, go below to grab
your copy before it’s gone:

Check out the Greek Easter Special Here

Thank you for bearing with my frustration
Best regards
-Socrates

P.S. I will be soon posting a new treasure
on the blog. Stay tuned

I got a brand new treasure for you today.

Are you excited?

Great!

First let me tell you how I stumbled upon this one
(Tip: this is a lesson on its own)

Not sure if you know this, but I am a
fanatical student of marketing and
self improvement.

I buy most of the stuff I can get my hands
on ESPECIALLY older classics and hard to
find material.

I find a lot of this older material on
audio cassettes. (I find them on ebay,
local thrift stores, yard/garage sales etc)

To me, finding a good ol’ marketing course
or a classic book on tape, for a few bucks,
IS in itself a big treasure. (not only
because it is a bargain, but because most
times, I cant even buy those things new
even if I wanted to)

I usually listen to this stuff when I
am driving, when I exercise and and whenever
I can. There are a log of hidden gems
that I discovered on older marketing courses
that I was able to apply to my business
TODAY and make a lot of money as a result.

anyways…

Big problem with these tapes is that I
couldn’treally play them on my ipod.

but I really wanted to…

So I had to find a solution to convert
all these tapes to mp3s EASILY.

and I figured that if I got a tape deck
(cassete deck) player, like the ones that
used to be popular 15 years ago, I could
connect it to my computer and have all
my tapes digitized.

Well, to keep a long story short, I bought
a used tape deck, EVERY SINGLE TIME I saw one.

in total I bought 11 tape players in my
search for a perfect one.

Eventually I found this tape deck that
was actually a 5 TAPE CHANGER (like the
CD changers we have today, but for cassetes)

It allows me to load up 5 tapes, press
play, and a few hours later, all 5 tapes
are turned into MP3 files. (total work done
from my part - a few minutes and a few buttons
to press)

So, since I had all these tape players
laying around, I decided to look them up
on ebay and see if I could sell them.

What I found was literally SHOCKING…

(By the way, the max I paid for ANY of
those players was $15 at thrift stores)

I could sell the crappiest on of all, for
at least $30 - hence doubling my money.

I saw a real opportunity here.
so I looked at it further.

It seems that older cassete decks are
a little hidden treasure on ebay.

Lets take a look at a few items:

This “Sony TC-W97ES” sold for $51.99
(that’s just like the one I got for $12.99 from
the thrift store)

or you may find something like this
“AKAI GX-F91” and sell it for $400

This following one Sold for $76.00:
“ONKYO TA-2026”
this is awesome folks

Lets see what “hammertap” (my analysis tool) has
to say about this opportunity:

Percentage of Listings resulting in a sale: 80.09%
Average price sold: $88.32

Take a look at the screenshot (range $10-$1000)
(click to enlarge in a new window)

Best of all, these are all stuff you can find for under $15
(I know that from experience)

Here is a little tip I learned the hard way.
When you buy one of these guys, make sure
to TEST IT if it works before you get it.

that’s it for today…

Before you run off to do some treasure hunting,
PLEASE POST YOUR COMMENTS BELOW. I d love to
know what you think of my posts and any ideas
and comments you have are welcome here.

Partner to YOUR Success,
-Socrates Socratous
P.S. Go on, Post your comments below…

Hello everyone,

Socrates here with a brand new overlooked treasure idea.

Before I get into this exciting item I discovered, let me
say a BIG THANK YOU to Scott Foster for the honor to
let me take over this Great blog with such an exciting
audience.

Scott has done a tremendous job on the blog and I
want to congratulate him for that.

I know he will be watching closely so I have to stand
up to the expectation

So, back to the new item I want to talk about today…

I actually discovered this thing by accident the other
day at a yard sale.

Let me tell you how it happened…

The other day, I needed to drill a couple of holes
on my wall in order to hang something heavy, so
I went to my local home depot and I bought a
drill bit set for $19.95 and I did what I had to do.

Now, next day was a saturday and I was driving
around town, when I saw this very small yard sale
and I stopped.

The guy had only a few things for sale, including
a couple of boxes full of tools (note, I ve seen tools
in almost every yard sale I ve ever been to, but did
not pay any attention)

So, I looked through the tools and there I saw the
SAME drill bit set I bought the day before for $19.95.

I asked the guy how much he wanted for both
toolboxes (these were actual metal toolboxes
filled with a ton of tools). the guy says $20.

I almost jumped…

Then I say, how about $15?

We settled at $17 for both boxes knowing
that JUST the drill bit set was worth more.

So, I got home and got this idea to look those
tools up on eBay.

Here is ONE of the things I have in my toolbox
that could bring up to even $100

its called: The Craftsman Ratchet.

It seems that old tools of the CRAFTSMAN
brand are very desirable and sell very well
on ebay.

Who would have thought?

I actually analyzed this opportunity with
my ebay analysis tool (you can see screenshot
below) and I found out some interesting facts:

These Craftsman ratchets sell 73.23% of the time
at an average of $23.23 (this includes sellers
that dont know what they are doing. You should
be getting more than that.)

Here are some examples:

Vintage Craftsman 3/8″ Speed Speeder Ratchet sold: $116

Vintage Craftsman Speeder Ratchet : Sold: $90

VINTAGE CRAFTSMAN BE RATCHET 1/2 : Sold: $85

Here is the screenshot of my Analysis Tool:
(click image to open full size in new wndow)

You can find these items at:

- YARD SALES: you can get them for a few
dollars each or in complete toolboxes like I did
(God knows how many times I passed these
items up at yard sales)

- Pawn Shops

- Get them on eBay, then optimize the listing and resell

Please Post your comments and ideas below

Partner to YOUR Success,
-Socrates Socratous
P.S. Stay Tuned! More overlooked treasures on the way

Sorry for my little sabbatical there,
as you may likely know, I run an active article
service over at www.need-an-article.com
and right around the ezdee’s event, I ended
up getting horribly distracted. In addition,around
the same time,I had a family member steal my identity and actually
purchase a car in my name - can you believe that! It was mess

Anyway, it has been a rough go this last month - no doubt and
I apologize for my absence.

The main reason I am writing to you though is to let you
know that I have asked my friend Socrates (whom you may know of)
to step in and help me keep the ball rolling with
overlookedtreasure.com/blog

Socrates has been helping people earn more income on eBay
since 2001 and is the creator of numerous systems that have
helped people to automate their ebay business.

He has already started working on a new overlooked treasure that he
will be sharing with you with in the next day or so stay tuned

Socrates lives and breaths eBay practically, so I am excited
to see what he has up his sleeve!

Meanwhile you can read more about Socrates Socratous at:
http://SocratesBlog.com

Talk to you soon,

Scott
P.S. Stay tuned, Socrates will send you an email soon,
showing you a Brand new overlooked treasure he recently discovered on
ebay by accident.

I just stumbled onto this today and thought what a great overlooked treasure:

 Old Phone Directories

The ones that seem to sell well are from the 1960’s and before and are listed in the Genealogy category. I guess people looking into their family tree find them handy for looking up their relatives.

Now, I bet if you go to yard sales and ask, “do you have any old phone directories from the 60’s or before that you want to get rid of” you may come across some.   That’s not something that most people would think would be worth anything but I’m sure there are people who save every one from year to year.   You won’t run across them veru often but if you happen to find a “pack rat” you may just stumble up a treasure trove in their attic.

Happy treasure hunting!

Scott

I mentioned in my email yesterday that I was going to put up a post by Terry Gibbs about the recent eBay changes.   Terry’s report ran a lot longer then I could put into a blog post so I’ve linked to the pdf report on Terry’s website.  You can download it here:

http://www.auction-revolution.com/ebaychanges.shtml

Do youself a favor and listen to what Terry has to say.  He’s been selling on eBay for 11 or 12 years and his insight in invaluable.  He has an amazing ability to cut through the BS and get straight to the facts.

No need to enter your name and email address just go here and download:

http://www.auction-revolution.com/ebaychanges.shtml

Scott

Today I want to show you something that i think is really cool.  Take a look at what this eBay seller is selling:

http://snipurl.com/1zygd
(note: you’ll need to be logged into ebay to see these completed items)

He’s selling historical archival film footage on DVD.  And they seem to be selling pretty well. 

What’s really interesting is the films he’s selling are all in the Public Domain!  That means anyone can reproduce and sell them without paying any royalities.

But, where is he getting his films from?  It looks like he’s found a source that has the raw footage and then he edits it and converts it to DVD format. 

I haven’t located his exact source but I do know a place where you can find all kind of downloadable public domain prints, movies, recordings, maps, books, etc. 

You can find all these at the Library of Congress American Memory site at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

Now, while most of the items listed are public domain (meaning that you can freely copy and distribute them) SOME of the items are owned by third parties and have a copyright.  For example in the section devoted to Coca-Cola there is this warning:

Unlike most of the materials presented on the Internet as part of American Memory, materials in Fifty Years of Coca-Cola Television Advertisements: Highlights from the Motion Picture Archives at the Library of Congress are subject to copyright and other legal concerns such as publicity rights. These materials are presented here with the permission of The Coca-Cola Company for private educational, scholarly, and research uses. Researchers should contact The Coca-Cola Company directly regarding uses that exceed fair use or for other permission-related information…

You can read the full notice here:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ccmphtml/colares.html

If you plan to use any of this to resell just make sure that check for any copyright notice. 

Scott
 

Hi folks, EzD here.

Scott asked to to talk about the eBay fee changes. Some are calling this a fee increase. Ebay says it’s a fee decrease. The way I see it, it’s all a matter of your particular situation.

Here’s an image of an excel spreadsheet I put together showing a representative sampling of the products I sell:

Here’s the same items after applying the fee changes:

So, my profit will go down a total of $1.40 cents. That’s less then 1%. But the important thing to look at is my item cost vs the final price: I average 350% profit margin! Personally, I don’t worry about fee increases because my profit margins are high enough to absorb any incremental increases.

But, now let’s look at something else. Ebay is also implementing a 15% Final Value Fee discount for Power Sellers who maintain a high Detailed Seller Rating. Here’s the effect applying this POSSIBLE discount has on my profit:

That’s a $4.70 increase in profits over the old fees IF I can maintain a high enough Detailed Seller Rating (which is yet to be seen).

Now, I’ve never been one to push the power seller program. Up until this point there was very little benefit for being a power seller. But, now there may be some incentive to be a power seller in order to qualify for the discount.

But, regardless I think the solution to the fee change is simple: Sell stuff that gives you a good great profit margin. Take care of your customers.

And always remember: You make your money when you buy an item, not when you sell it.

EzD signing off.

P.S. My math skill aren’t the greatest. If you find any mistakes in my numbers please let me know.

A friend of my told me that he got a free sample of this product delivered by the mailman the other day….

What’s really funny is he isn’t even married (or expecting).  But he got a free ”kit” with 2 cans of this baby food and several coupons good for dollars off the next purchase.

Why did he get the samples?  Because he signs up for every offer under the sun and gets samples just about every day as well as the really good, multi-dollar off coupons.  And he sells this stuff on eBay (yes, even the coupons sell)

Check out some of these auctions for the baby food, enfamil…

You can go to this website and sign up for all kinds of free samples…

http://www.all-free-samples.com/

Or, the best way is to respond to free offers in magazines targeted to parents, expectant parents, pet owners, gardening, etc.  That way you’ll be sure to get on all the mailing lists and since companies rent these lists you’ll get tons of samples and coupons. 

Of course, the negative side of this is you also get a lot of junk mail but if you can deal with that this could be a nice little extra income stream.

Scott