• 08Dec

    This piece of Americana sold for a huge $2,312.87 at Auction Bay!

    Here we have a piece of American history!  We knew this fine specimen of antique Americana would bring a good sale, but we were surprised to see how high the bids went!  This is definitely an Auction Bay favorite.

    This vintage piece of patriotic decor was impressive in size, measuring 41″ wide by 18″ tall.  It depicted a majestic bald eagle, the United States’ national symbol, with wings spread wide.  Cut from a single piece of wood, it had impressive detail, from the lines in the feathers to the folds of the furling flags below.  It attracted quite a few watchers, and 13 bids from 5 different bidders, all vying for the chance to add this bird to their collection.  Its final sale reached a whopping $2,312.87!!

    If you know of any artworks like this one, or other specimens of America’s patriotism in art, they could be very valuable.  We’d love to help you sell them, and our listing methods will make sure they get viewed by all the right people to sell for as much as the market will bear!

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  • 09Nov

    Of all things, a Keyboard brought a huge sale on eBay. $285.00!

    Talk about big surprises.   This auction made all of us old-school computer geeks cringe, remembering all the old parts we threw away or recycled back when we were certain they would no longer be useful, and could never possibly be worth anything.  Well, that’s some tasty crow we’re eating.

    Here we have one of the most common computer accessories: the Keyboard.  This is an IBM Personal Computer Keyboard, dating back to the mid-1980s.  There were hundreds of thousands of these made, and every household and company with an IBM PC had one or a comparable model.  But the key to this auction is what we call rate of attrition.

    Every company and family who owned IBM computers naturally had to use their keyboard, and very few had an extra one on hand.  After a number of years passed, computers no longer used this type of keyboard, and they were thrown away en masse, resulting in an increase in rarity.  Finally, condition played a major role in the high sale of this auction, as this keyboard was never removed from its box and plugged in.  In such pristine condition, even common items can see strong sales.  Put it all together, and you get a $285.00 sale for a mere Keyboard.

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  • 13Oct

    This Samovar urn brought lots of bids and a sale of $717.00!

    Ever heard of a Samovar?

    This Samovar urn is quite a curious contraption, designed to heat and maintain hot water, tea, coffee, or your beverage of choice.  It contains a central column for hot coals, which heat the liquid in the surrounding reservoir.  This vintage piece is Russian in origin, of brass construction, and still holds water.  The design is elegant and features embellishments at the valve and the handles, and the maker’s mark is written in Cyrillic characters, so we’re not certain the name.  Nonetheless, it sure did bring some exciting action!  This samovar brought 31 bids, for a final sale of $717.00!

    Items like this are great examples of why we all love working at Auction Bay.  We may never have come across this piece or any like it outside of work, but learning about the rare items and their history, and the cultures and traditions behind them make for a really fun day’s work!  And we can still be pleasantly surprised at the end of an auction!

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  • 06Jun
    The Otto Link Tone Master brought huge bids!

    This rare saxophone mouthpiece sold for over $1,300 at Auction Bay!

    We have a story to share that illustrates what makes selling through Auction Bay worth your while.  This particular item would have been missed, or lost in the shuffle, but for the diligence of our staff.

    Our consignor brought in an old Saxophone to sell, suspecting it might be a valuable model.  It was not easy to identify, as the usual identifying marks on the bell were hard to read, having been re-finished at some point in the instrument’s long lifespan.    Our staff is up for a good challenge, and with some painstaking research and scrutiny, we identified the saxophone… and sure enough it was a hot model: an old CONN Tenor from 1928 .  But the $710.00 sale of that old Sax isn’t the story!  The mouthpiece was the real surprise.

    Three mouthpieces were held in a compartment in that saxophone’s case, and our lister pursued a hunch and gave them all some research.  The first two were nothing special, but the final one was positively identified as the rare Super TONE MASTER Saxophone Mouthpiece, made by Otto Link.  The resource we used to identify it described this “Double-Ring” model as “The Holy Grail of large chamber mouthpieces”, and further aided in determining its approximate age range and gave Florida as its point of origin (made after the Otto Link company moved from New York).  Needless to say, we separated the mouthpiece for an individual sale, gave it a full set of high-quality photographs, and then listed it and watched with baited breath.  It accumulated over 80 watchers during its week run, and we were delighted to watch the bidding skyrocket, well past our expected sale price, and all the way up to $1,325.00!

    Our consignor was thrilled, and thanked us for finding the hidden treasure in his item.  It’s sales like this that show you the real value of an Auction Bay professional eBay listing over a private listing.  We have research tools at our disposal that others don’t, and we have a dedicated and passionate staff who relish the hunt for items like this.  We care about your items, and we take the extra time to make sure they sell for the highest prices the market will bear.  We only make money if you make money, so we make sure each item has the chance to make your fortune.  Want to know more?  Stop into our store, or give us a call at (219) 926-6416, and we’ll help you sell your items on eBay’s worldwide marketplace!

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  • 05May
    A Gold Coin made into a ring brought a big sale!

    This Gold Coin Ring brought $322.05 at auction, over 2 times what the Jewelry Store offered!

    Here’s another Auction Bay success story, with a very satisfied consignor!

    Our consignor brought in this ring to see if we could manage a better sale price than she was offered by a jeweler.  When she took it to a jewelry store for an estimate, she was offered a mere $150 for her item, and we were confident we could best that.

    The Ring was a curious piece, made of a 2 ½ Dollar Gold Coin built into a custom round setting.  The coin itself was in good condition, showing plenty of detail, and the ring did a great job of framing the coin, so it had the benefits of three kinds of value: numismatic (a collectible coin), intrinsic (a handsome piece of jewelry), and actual gold value.  We listed it to show off all three of those, and our methods led to a sale of $322.05!  That’s over two times what the jewelry store offered our consignor!

    We encounter this pattern often.  A jeweler will offer you an amount for your gold which still allows them room to make a profit when they re-sell an item.  This is understandable, as they have expenses to cover, but it still leaves you wanting for the rest of your gold value!  In the case of scrap gold, they have to take that gold, melt it, fashion it into new jewelry, and then turn a profit on top of that.  But when we at Auction Bay sell gold for you on eBay, your item will always sell for its gram weight value or higher!  We take specific measures to ensure that your gold gets sold for the greatest possible value that the market will bear, because the only way that we make money is if you make money.  If you want to learn more about our process, check out our Coins & Gold page for more information.

    Auction Bay offers you the best and safest method to convert your gold into cash.

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  • 19Mar

    This old INTEL chip kit from the 1970s brought BIG bucks!

    We’ve had the pleasure of handling an estate of a computer collector, and we’ve sold everything from old software to old computers and even computer magazines, the majority of which date to the early 1980s.  This was one particular gem of that collection, and it was definitely a big surprise!

    This was a Microcomputer Kit containing a series of 20 chips and its original documentation, dating to 1976.  This set was made by none other than intel, maker of today’s most advanced computer CPUs.   Originally dispatched to Universities as project kits, this item now makes a great collectible!  It received numerous bids, including several last-second hits from numerous countries, including France, Germany, Norway, Taiwan, and more!  This hot old chip kit finally sold for $449.00, much to our excitement.

    We don’t know what the next huge sale will be from this collection, as many of the items in it have little available history on eBay due to their rarity or obscurity, but we’ll be selling everything from old Macintosh logic boards to the original issues of MACworld magazine! 

    Whether you’re a computer collector yourself, or if you happen to have an aging computer locked up in storage somewhere, Auction Bay is the place to buy and sell! 

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  • 09Nov
    This Silver Flatware set by TOWLE brought $1,800 at auction!

    This Silver Flatware set by TOWLE brought $1,800 at auction!

    At Auction Bay, we love to see Sterling Silver items.  Silver brings bids from collectors, jewlers, scrappers, as well as those who desire an item for its intrinsic value.  Often, Sterling Flatware in both old and new styles can bring some impressive sales.  But when you combine the precious metal value with a sought-after pattern from a reputable maker, you get a huge final price!

    That was the case recently when we were pleasantly surprised to see a 98-Piece Sterling Silver Flatware set sell better than we expected!  The set was made by Towle, a respected manufacturer (with its own category on eBay, incidentally), in the much-desired Old Master pattern.  This set, in excellent condition and in its presentation box sold for an amazing $1,800.50!

    When we accept a Sterling service set, we treat it with the same attention as a piece of jewelry, taking detailed photographs inside our light box.  towlespoon1 This showcases the pattern and the condition of the silverware, and gives the potential bidders a great mental picture of how the set would look in their hands and on their dining room table.  We also include photos that show the weight of the set (atop a digital scale).  This gives additional confidence in the value of the lot, and  by pitting the bidders who desire silver for scrap value or collection versus the bidders who want the flatware set for a gift or to match their own set, we can manage top dollar for auctions like this!

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  • 22Jun
    This old Owl Clock brought a $160 sale on eBay!

    This old Owl Clock brought a $160 sale on eBay!

    At Auction Bay, we research items before we sell them, to let us know which keywords to use and get a general idea of how well an item sells.  We seek a consistent sale history on eBay, and employ several tools in this search, but sometimes even our tenacious efforts yield little information.  In these cases, we go by our experiences, and give it our best.  This is one case where it worked beautifully!

    We’ve had good successes with antique clocks, and typically the more unique they are, the better.  In this case, when we saw this antique owl clock, we could find no identifying maker’s marks, no particularly searchable characteristics, and we learned that when searching for ‘owl clock’, one finds a plethora of cuckoos, mantel clocks, and all manner of similar items, just not this one.  But we listed it with confidence, and our faith was rewarded with a sale of $160.27!

    This clock dated to roughly 100 years old, and was made of brass, but yielded no clue as to its value from a detailed inspection.  Still, we made sure to use title key words which would be as general as necessary to be found, but still specific enough to get attention!  As with most cases, the collectors out there were able to find it, bid fervently, and made our consignor quite happy.

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  • 15Jun
    This Schwinn Sting-Ray Bike sold for twice what we expected!

    This Schwinn Sting-Ray Bike sold for twice what we expected!

    Schwinn bikes sell really well on ebay.  Even parts to Schwinn bikes can bring in big bucks.  There are many collectors and restoration enthusiasts out there, and each are looking for that next big project or the bike they can ride to and from work, or the bike they remember from their childhood.  Certain models sell better than others, but a bike can be a real winner if it is of a rare color…

    Just check out this Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycle we recently had up for auction!  It was in excellent shape, having been well-kept by the consignor, even as a child.  We researched the Sting-Ray type from similar years, and found a history of sales which gave us confidence that this bike would sell up to $600 in such great condition.  Well, we were surprised and very happy to see this bike bid up over twice that amount! It sold for $1,390.00!

    As it turns out, the frame boasted a rare original paint job.  Lime Green is a sought-after color, prompting this sale to reach far higher than we expected.  We hadn’t seen any green Sting-Ray bikes in our search, only yellow and blue and such, but in any case, the rarity of the color is what made the sale huge.  So, if your bike has a desirable name and is of a good model, its sale will be impressive.  But if it’s also got a rare coloration to the frame, or a rare accent (like a bulb housing for a light or a reflector mount), then its price may astound you!

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  • 22Mar

    Jason here, with an item to share.  First, I must offer a confession.  I’m a geek.  Yes, I am an absolute geek… a fan of sci-fi and kung fu movies, with my own small collection of little plastic spaceships.

    These toy Eagle-1 spaceships sold on ebay for $350!!

    These toy Eagle-1 spaceships sold on ebay for $325!!

    So it was no surprise to me when this item began to get bids, but each of us at Auction Bay were floored to see how well it sold!

    This auction was for a pair of toys, one played-with and one new-in-box.  These toys, made by Mattel, replicate the Eagle One Spaceship from the science fiction epic SPACE: 1999.  The toys date to the 1970s, and are fairly sought after by people like me.  So sought after, in fact, that these two toys sold on eBay for a whopping $325.00!

    Yessir, we geeks love models and toys that remind us of our childhood, or which simply look cool!  We’re willing to dump loads of cash on items like this, so if you happen to have some old toy space ships or laser pistols or action figures or other toys from any old sci-fi or fantasy movies or series, don’t be quick to toss them or donate them!  Instead, bring them into Auction Bay and we’ll check to see their potential value.  You never know when that old toy could be just what we want to buy!

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