ISSUE 32: August 2007
Yard Salers: Issue 32! World's Longest Sale Yard Sale: Wish You Were There - August 07
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Hello, all!
Well, everyone, after all my yimmering and yammering about how I was going to attend the World's Longest Yard Sale, some family duties intervened, coupled with my husband's pointing out how hard it was going to be to drive eight hours each way to Ohio and back and then turn around and pack and go for a week with the family to the beach ("I mean, it's crazy.").
But does that mean that Yard Salers readers aren't going to get intelligent commentary and fun original photos from the World's Longest Yard Sale? No, I think not.
Because I went straight out and found myself a stringer. I think you'll agree I got incredibly lucky in finding one who not only understands the passion of collecting (he collects albums and will hopefully be writing good stuff on same for us in the future) but is a good writer who can really capture the "I was there" essence of a story to boot.
So the main article in today's issue will be the World's Longest Yard Sale coverage. This is also so I can get this issue out before August is over. Which brings me to...in September, I plan to do a mid-month issue that is the September issue, rather than waiting to the end of the month. And then in the end of September, we will do an October issue, so we can be in keeping with the rest of the media world which publishes issues for the coming month in the previous month. (In some cases, they publish issues two months' ahead, but we won't aim that high).
Another reason I need to get this issue out the door already is that I will be traveling to Oakland, California with my daughter, Lindsay, to see my mom for a few days. Some of you who have elderly parents can perhaps relate to this: Mom now has difficulty with short-term memory such that she doesn't usually remember things from a few minutes before. This all happened in the last year or so, so although I am looking forward to seeing her, it may be difficult to see her memory so impaired. My understanding is she has some form of dementia. But, in any case, her spirits seem to be good, and I plan to bring a lot of current family photos out to her.
It may be I got my love of yard sales from my mom. She had a lot of cool jewelry, clothing and other trinkets from all over the world, because her father, my grandfather Drew, had been an ambassador to many countries during the 1940s and 50s. In fact, I wrote one story in a Yard Salers newsletter about running into a man running a yard sale who had once worked for my Pop-pop Drew when he was stationed in Haiti. I was just making conversation with the guy about his house and how long he owned it, and it came out he moved around a lot and had been in the foreign service, and from there it would up that we had something big in common. It shows that you never know who you'll meet at yard and estate sales.
Or it may simply be that my mom was always thrifty. "We can use a safety pin" is something I remember her saying a lot. There was nothing a bobby pin, safety pin, or camisole couldn't solve.
But back to this issue. Aside from the World's Longest sale coverage, I will give info on how to order a couple great resources I've come across. One is by one of Yard Salers' own readers, Patrick Bateman, titled "How to Make 'Big Bucks' with Garage and Yard Sales."
Another will show you how to make money by cutting up and selling parts of old books and magazines. Sometimes the individual parts really are worth more than the whole.
So without further ado, let's get to it!
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In This Issue:
1) World's Longest Yard Sale: Wish You Were There: Day One
2) World's Longest Yard Sale: Day Two
3) Make Big Bucks with Yard Sales, and How to Make Money Cutting Up Magazines
4) Reader Mail
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1) World's Longest Yard Sale: Wish You Were There: Day One
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by yardsalers.net and bidbits stringer Jeff Wilson
[For more photos of the sale, please see Julia's bidbits blog at http://juliawww.typepad.com/bidbits/.]
How far does the world’s longest yard sale extend? Some people say the northern tip is Covington, Kentucky; others vote Defiance, Ohio; and others claim the sale stretches all the way through Michigan.
One website (www.127saleohio.com/) led me to believe that the sale was beginning to thrive in Ohio. That convinced me to try heading north instead of south on Friday.
127 begins about a mile from my apartment. Hamilton Avenue (a neighborhood in Cincinnati) is also part of Highway 127. Friday’s lack of sales in Northside could be attributed to one very simple factor: on Saturday an annual neighborhood sale will be taking place with 50 vendors listed on the website (http://www.northside.net/~sale/) and who knows how many unlisted vendors. Anyone who attends the 127 sale anywhere close to Northside should make that a destination.
College Hill and Mt. Healthy were Cincinnati neighborhoods that took advantage of the 127 buzz with sales directly on or close to the main drag. At Rink’s, a flea market in Mt. Healthy, I met Stan Ferguson, who was kind enough to pose for a photograph along with Sheri Bowling. Although Sheri is not his girlfriend, he assured me had several. Along with filling me in about his love life, Stan played me an excerpt from a country music cd he recorded in Nashville.
In the next neighborhood, Fairfield, yard sales either close to or on 127 were scattered about, but the density of sales was relatively light. The same was true all the way through Hamilton and Seven Mile. More disappointing than the scarcity of sales was the fact that most consisted primarily of new and uninteresting wares (like baby clothes and videos) or objects that looked as if they had been purchased in auctions or other yard sales and marked up for increasingly hungry shoppers.
I turned around after Eaton, and went back to West Hamilton, and just wandered—and found much more interesting sales. Although it was mid-afternoon, the front yard of one sale was still packed with tools and other wares. So was the driveway and the back yard. Early that morning there was a line down the block to attend the sale, and people were still flocking to the sale and buying and buying. Again I was reminded that sometimes you have to go off the beaten path to find what you’re looking for.
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2) World's Longest Yard Sale: Day Two
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by yardsalers.net and bidbits stringer Jeff Wilson
I attend yard sales as much to meet people as to buy things, and today was a banner day in that regard—and also for finding things which, while I don’t need them, I sure as heck wanted. At eight o’clock in the morning I was holding a conga up in front of a woman and asking her what she wanted for it. When she said ten dollars I grabbed my wallet. A few blocks later I saw four matching Electro-voice speakers marked two bucks each. It’s odd enough to see two such speakers for sale, but four? I had to ask, as I handed the woman eight dollars, if there was a quadraphonic receiver somewhere that I’d overlooked, but she assured me there wasn’t.
This was in Northside, with 127 running right through the heart of it. Northside is a seller’s paradise — people flock to the sales, and their interests are so broad that a lot of money changes hands. It also works out well for shoppers. Northside has a great mix of people—young hipster married couples buying their first houses, working class blacks and whites who in many cases grew up there, gays, lesbians, etc. Surprises abound—and good vibes. At one sale Priscilla played classic old R&B records on her stereo while I was digging through 45s, and she was nice enough to pose for a photo.
Next I headed south. After some sales in the Main Strasse neighborhood in Covington, Kentucky, the world’s longest yard sale picks up again about ten miles later, near Florence, Kentucky. Although it was the third day of the sale, traffic was still bumper to bumper in many areas. Parking was not only difficult, it was potentially dangerous, especially when traveling to and from your car.
[ See photo at http://juliawww.typepad.com/bidbits/2007/08/worlds-longes-1.html/ ]
But it was worth it. On the third day of the sale I saw more interesting things on the lawns of the homes I visited than at the early end of most sales when I headed north. In some boxes of records that quite possibly hundreds of people had picked through I found a sealed copy of a record by a poet and peace activist from the late sixties named Daniel Berrigan.
So often record buyers are looking for the Beatles, Kiss and Elvis that they ignore a record that’s extremely rare (I didn’t even know it existed) and collectible, which means the world’s longest sale is still worth visiting on the third day. (It’s also worth noting that because of their jobs many people don’t set up until Saturday). Asking who had owned the record, I ended up meeting a man who had attended the civil rights marches in Mississippi in 1964. Even if I had found nothing, that would have made it worth the trip.
Sales were clustered so close together on 127 that I rarely drove more than a quarter of a mile before I saw another sale. The sales off the main drag were also worth visiting. At one sale where I asked for records an older man led me into a barn where I blew the dust off some jazz and country 78s on the Gannett and Okeh labels and some 45s from Cincinnati, which are of great interest to me.
So, my advice to fellow yard salers: hit the main drag, it’s worth it; but also go off the beaten path.
If you’re headed south from Cincinnati on the World’s Longest Yard Sale, one of the nice things is that getting home is easy. At mid-afternoon I decided I’d had it. Asking directions, I was told that if I turn left on one cemetery and left at the other cemetery, that would take me to I-75 North.
It worked, but I wasn’t done. Late in the afternoon on the third day of the sale, the Main Strasse district in Covington was still hopping, with shoppers everywhere. As you may have guessed, I shop mostly for records, and classic rock was selling hotcakes that afternoon and had been since Thursday. One dealer told me he sold boxes and boxes of Beatles records for five to twenty dollars per record.
I think the World’s Longest Yard Sale could be as worthwhile in Kentucky or anywhere else. It just needs more exposure. Even the sellers in Kentucky felt that there was less press than in previous years. More communication on the net from places like craiglist.com could turn that around.
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3) Make Big Bucks with Yard Sales, and How to Make Money Cutting Up Magazines
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Make Big Bucks with Yard Sales
Usually here at Yard Salers we write about going to yard salers, buying things, and making money reselling them. Not necessarily in that order. But today I want to write about a cool new resource from our own Patrick L. Bateman, a 125-page guide titled "How to make 'BIG BUCKS' with GARAGE & YARD SALES."
I'm not going to tell you about any products that I haven't used or read myself, and found valuable. This one is packed with tips and practical advice from someone who has clearly run many, many sales. He has advice for not only rooting out your own inventory but ferreting out inventory from people around you. Well, I'll quote from him: "My goal was to make $400 a month. However, after I uncovered some "secrets" of successful Garage/Yard Selling, and put them to use, my sales skyrocketed. Within weeks I went from an average $50.00 sale day to well over $200."
It also includes bonus info on eBay, dropshippers, and wholesalers.
Patrick's book is available from AuthorHouse for $39.95 on the Web at:
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~35911.aspx
I'm not making anything from this endorsement of Patrick's book. $39.95 may seem like a lot, but I believe you will find the ROI on this one well worth it.
How to Make Money Cutting Up Magazines
I got ahold of Avril Harper's ebook, "How to Make Money Tearing Up Old Books and Magazines and Selling Them on eBay," and read it most of the way through the other night (I felt guilty keeping the light on so long!). It really got me thinking about some of the pages of books and magazines I have lying around here which I can try these techniques on.
Again, I wouldn't recommend this to you unless I thought it was worth every penny, and in this case, I don't think you will be disappointed. But let's let Avril explain it:
You don't have to learn for yourself how to get started making big money from tearing up easy-to-find books, newspapers and magazines, because my unique blueprint is packed with illustrations, showing you, step-by-step, which are the best publications to look for and how to turn your finds into easy cash.
You will discover, in precise detail, exactly how to operate one or a string of eBay businesses, all selling individual items removed from old books, newspapers and magazines, and how to turn every single page of those publications into a profitable earnings source for you.
These are the things you’ll discover:
- How to reach thousands of people looking to buy your items on eBay.
How to describe your products in a way that sends people rushing to 'Bid Now' or better still bid way above your best expectations and even rush to get their money into your bank account within minutes.
- Why the best item to buy to resell is something nobody wants and would never contemplate buying. But wait, there is an incredibly good reason for you to buy that item and with just a few minutes’ effort I’ll show you how to turn it into something people will fall over themselves to buy! This is the stuff bidding wars and eBay record breaking prices are made of!
- What to offer your customers that costs you less than one penny a time to provide, yet turns even the most ordinary item into a must-have product that by far the most skeptical of eBayers just can’t wait to bid for and own.
- Discover a very simple, easy thing to do, that few others are doing already, which can quadruple your profits, and even if many more people are selling similar products to yours (very unlikely) yours will still be the ones people rush to bid for and buy.
- How to start a bidding war for your eBay listings! You’ll see how, for a little extra ‘work’ you can increase your prices significantly and still have people fighting between themselves to buy whatever you are selling. This is so easy, yet most people on eBay just don’t know this secret I reveal in my report, even though it costs nothing and takes just a few minutes to do.
- How to make really silly money. I’ll show you books that contain thousands of items that can be sold separately, each of which can bring bids of $4, $10, $40 or more a time. I’ve done it, many times, and I include irrefutable proof in my book. I’ll even show you which books and magazines to look for and how to get them at the lowest possible price, even free of charge! You’ll quickly discover that the choice of publications you can choose from is so immense that what you sell is nothing at all like what I am selling and could in fact be worth much more than my items. The upshot is that won’t ever encroach on my market and I won’t ever be a threat to you!
- What every cat lover in the world wants from you...and every dog lover, too. And the more you have of these everyday items, the more those people are happy to pay.
- How to turn a handful of ads. for goods you can no longer buy into a powerful profit-generating machine. You'll see how just a handful of magazines will generate the bulk of your profits when you learn secrets that normally take years to learn. You can profit from this knowledge in days.
- The freebie that's worth a fortune to you. You'll learn where to find hundreds of these items every week and have eager regular bidders for every one.
You can start this business any time you like, it won't date, it won't go out of fashion. The business, and my eBook, work equally well in the USA as in the UK, or in Japan, or Ireland, Italy or Canada, in fact anywhere at all!
Go to the below page to order:
Click here to order.
Or cut and paste this url into your browser: http://juliawilk.threedogs.hop.clickbank.net
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The New York Public Library just named The eBay Price Guide: What Sells for What (in Every Category!) among its "Best of Reference" for 2007.
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4) Reader Mail: More Experiences from Ye World's Longest Yard Sale Trail
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Hi Julia,
I wanted to share a world’s longest yard sale story from a couple of a few years ago.
A friend and I went to the sale as a celebration of her 40th Birthday. We live in central Ohio so we actually started at the northern origination point in Cincinnati, OH/Covington KY. A few years back the sale spanned 9-10 days with the heavy selling being done the 1st weekend. We were out the final weekend. It was sparse to start with just south of Cinncy and we were leery that we had missed all of the good stuff, but the deeper into Kentucky, the more sales we saw. We met a lot of great people along the way and got tons of great buys on books…what I was after. We stayed in Frankfort on Friday night and ventured out from there Saturday morning for day 2. We managed all of about 10 miles south of downtown Frankfort because the sales were thick off of every side street that was accessible from the freeway. We were exhausted and hot by lunch time so we headed back into town eat and relax.
After lunch we visited a few antique and consignment shops right there near the capitol buildings. We ventured into an old book shop too. When we came out of that shop we found a plastic “dust bin” filled with 1960s era mechanical engineering college textbooks that had been tossed away. I guess the store had turned the “seller” away from making some cash from their used book sales area with these books. We collected 20 books out of the trash and hauled them to my SUV. I sold all but 4 of those books over the following year for between $7 and $45 with the majority going for around $20.
Our best paid for find was a band saw my friend got for $50. She has made a ton of wood items using that which she has sold at craft shows. The saw has paid for itself many times over.
There were a lot of big open areas where a lot of antique dealers and “flea market” dealers set up. We got to a point where we pretty much avoided those. We were not out to buy antiques but things we could either use or re-sell. We can go to any number of flea markets in our area on any given day and get the other stuff. We learned pretty quickly to stick to the houses for the most part. We did though have good luck at one of those “Store-It” type places. There were dealers to be sure but a lot of regular folks threw open their units too and were selling off the contents.
That’s our story!
Michelle
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That's it for this issue. Until next time! - Julia
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Questions about My eBooks Ordering
You can certainly purchase from me directly, as can anyone. All you have to do is email me and let me know which ebook(s) you want, if you are a subscriber and thus eligible for the discount, and then PayPal me to my PayPal id at juliawilk@aol.com. I'll be tweaking and updating the ebooks page on my web site soon.
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YOUR FEEDBACK WANTED: What Else Do You Want to See in Yardsalers?
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I am always open to reader articles, so if you want to write about something relating to yard sale-ing and eBaying, just flag me down! I will of course give you credit, using your eBay ID, web site, or any other contact
info.
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eBooks by Julia L. Wilkinson:
[All my ebooks are offered at 1/2 price from their regular prices to the subscribers of this newsletter. If interested in any of them, please email me at juliawilk@aol.com.]
- Making Big Bucks off Catalogs on eBay:
http://www.aolmemorabilia.com/clkslcat.html
- Selling Kids Clothes on eBay: email me!
http://www.yardsalers.net/bookstore.asp and scroll to the ebook to purchase.
- How to Spot Fakes: email me!
Julia Classic:
What Sells on eBay for What: $8.95, 1/2 price from the $17.95 retail price.
http://www.aolmemorabilia.com/whatsells
My Life at AOL (available at amazon.com, booklocker.com, and 1stbooks.com)
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Blogs, Blogs, and More Blogs
Check out My amazon.com Author Blog
Those of you who just can't get enough of my writing (are there any of you?) will be happy to know I now have a new blog on amazon.com. Amazon.com has created an "author blog" tool for authors to...well, blog. You'll see it if you bring up either of my books on the amazon site, but for good measure, it's at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593270550. (Scroll down to "amazonConnect").
My TypePad Blog, "Bidbits"
You can also check out my typepad blog, "bidbits": bidbits
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Do you have your copy of Julia's book, eBay Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks?
It's available on amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. If you do want to order the book, I'd appreciate if you'd support Yard Salers and
eBayers by using my affiliate link below.
ebay top
100
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Copyright 2007 Julia L. Wilkinson
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Thank you for subscribing to Yard Salers. Yard Salers email newsletter may be freely distributed in its entirety, so please pass it on. You may reprint any of the articles in this newsletter for any purpose as long as no portion of the article is modified without permission, and this tagline is included:
Yard Salers, www.yardsalers.net
Publisher, Julia Wilkinson, author of the award-winning "eBay Price Guide." and "What Sells on eBay for What"
No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Yard Salers makes diligent efforts to obtain accurate and timely information. However, Yard Salers disclaims any liability to any party for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions in Yard Salers, whether or not such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident or any other cause.
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