I get asked this a lot. Originally I bought on Ebay. Ebay is tough now as many sellers go with a fixed price which is often unrealistic.
I try to follow the market closely and it can change a lot. I once bought a toy for $1000 and sold it within twelve months for $450! Valuable lesson learned.
Then online auctions started to evolve…first with AuctionZip and now mostly Hibid, Proxibid and Invaluable. There are others as well but you get the picture. The challenge for me is buy at a price that won’t lose me money after shipping and commission. This can vary dramatically depending on the auction house which will ultimately affect my selling price as I try not to make a loss while keeping my prices fair. Alas…coming out ahead is not always the case. But overall, I have managed to weather the ups and downs over the past 10 years.
I also buy privately. This often entails travelling some distance…so it has to be worth the effort. The last thing I want to do is take advantage of anyone faced with selling their or other collections but anyone actively buying knows how volatile the market can be.
This has always been a hobby for me and now that I am retired, I have more time to give. But…funny thing about retirement…there never seems to be as much time as you expected!
