This fine example of carved Americana brought a great sale!

Vintage Americana is one category with potential for huge sales.  Just take for example this classic Carousel Rounding Board, elaborately carved of wood and featuring fine detail and bright colors!  Pieces like this can bring in big bucks for collectors and restoration specialists, and it’s easy to see why!

This piece was in great condition for its age, but needed some care and restoration.  Its sale at $600.00 shows the potential for this genre, as great Carousel and Carnival items can be huge sellers.  The detail of the carvings, the bright colors, and the size (roughly 60″ by 30″) all lent toward a strong sale.  Auction Bay showcased its features, and the buyer did the rest.

If you have classic American carved art like this, it could bring in the bids on eBay, and Auction Bay Online will help you sell it!

This antique Parpoint jar sold for $276.00 thanks to Auction Bay!

Yet another lovely antique captures our appreciation at Auction Bay!

This antique PARPOINT Biscuit Jar (or Cracker Jar, depending on where and when you may be from) was a delightful collectible item, in great condition.  It had a rich coloration with gradient change from peach to orange, enhanced with its original hand-painted floral design.  The silver lid and decorative element above the bail were in great shape, and the maker’s marks were nice and clear on the white glass.  Even though the silver and the glass were separated, this antique vessel brought 15 bids for a $276.00 sale!

Here’s an eBay Hint for all our home eBayers out there!  Identification is key with a piece like this!  The name PARPOINT was not spelled out, and the maker’s mark was subtly stamped in the lid and easy to miss.  There are numerous websites that catalog silver marks, and finding that letter P in the Diamond hallmark takes good research.  The name Parpoint meant the difference between a 27 dollar sale and a 276 dollar sale!

Don't let its small size fool you! This bank could be a huge sale!

We were excited to watch this great item sell this week.  This antique bank offered us an opportunity to watch the bidding process unfold for a rare and collectible item.

This is the HALL’S LILIPUT BANK - an antique Cast Iron Mechanical Bank, with patent dates from 1875 and 1876!  It retains little of its original paint, but is still in great working condition, with a surprising amount of detail in the cast body of the bank.  After only two days running, it had 8 bids from 6 different bidders, at just a fraction of its potential worth.  By the time the dust had cleared from the bidding war it saw, this bank had 20 bids for a total sale of $375.71!

There are lots of collectible banks out there, and each has a chance to be worth a bundle!  Whether yours is a still bank or a mechanical bank, with original paint or in need of restoration, Auction Bay can sell it for you!

Auction Bay can sell your old radios, just like this Zenith Trans-Oceanic Z7000, which brought $237.93 at auction!

Auction Bay Online is where you can find all the Vintage Vacuum Tube Radio Sets you could want!  Thanks to a couple consignors bringing in their collection of Radios, we’ve had the chance to test out some real classics!  These radios are far older than we can remember, but our research has taught us lots about these old machines.

Whether they work or not, these old radio sets can sell!  Some will sell for parts, using hard-to-find tubes in their operation.  Others use wood or bakelite in their construction, which can be a real source of an item’s value!  In any case, we’ve seen some impressive sales lately, and here’s one example!

This radio is from the Trans-Oceanic line by Zenith.  This model R7000 was in good physical condition, and tuned in to stations, albeit with some additional noise.  To a radio enthusiast, this is an easy fix, so the set brought a great sale at $237.93!

What’s even better? We’re still listing even more radios from this lot, including top-selling names like RCA, Grundig, Zenith, Motorola, Realtone, Detrola, Crosley, Truetone, Bosch, Philco, GE, Pilot, Coronado, and many more!  Check out our Vintage Electronics category to see them all!

This Antique Pocketwatch by WALTHAM sold for $282.00!

Anyone who appreciates a high-quality timepiece can appreciate these items!  At Auction Bay, we find great success with items like this one: an antique pocketwatch, boasting a 14K Gold watch case.  This watch was in good physical shape, but didn’t keep time, and it still brought $282.00 at auction!

Antique watches can sell well, as long as they have quality clockwork, or a desirable maker’s name like WALTHAM, Illinois, ELGIN, Hamilton, or others.  The key to selling antique watches is to show off the clockwork!  The face and the watch case are the obvious things to show off, and can have markings to help identify the piece, but at Auction Bay, we make sure to open the back of the case, if it’s possible, to show the clock movement inside!  The movement is usually marked with the maker’s name and additional serial numbers, and shows how many jewels the clockwork contains.  Sometimes, they are even decorated with highly detailed engravings inside, and all of this can lend toward a fantastic sale.

If you’re fond of antique pocketwatches or new wristwatches, keep an eye on our upcoming auctions!  We’ve got some big-ticket watches to sell soon, including modern stylish pieces from Invictus and some real beauties from Breitling and Rolex!!

This mantel clock brought a handsome sale!

At Auction Bay, we are pleased to see antique mantel clocks come across our counter with some frequency.  Here’s a great example: an E.N. Welch Mantel Clock with a white face and wooden housing, in great condition!  This handsome timepiece brought an impressive $152.50 at auction on eBay!

We’ve seen all manner of mantel clocks, from simple wood block clocks to marble and slate creations to elaborate brass and glass enclosures, from names like Seth Thomas, Gilbert, Bucherer, New Haven, and many more.  Our skilled photographers pour over every inch of these clocks to capture any and all maker’s marks, and we can often find markings on the clockwork itself (which can be difficult when this clockwork is hidden behind the face with no back panel!

If you have an old mantel clock, even one that isn’t fully functional, it can bring a pretty penny on eBay.  Contact Auction Bay, and we’ll help get it sold for you!

These antique leg irons, once used to shackle slave prisoners, sold for $910.00 on eBay!

At Auction Bay, we’ve found good successes with sales of historical memorabilia, specifically period pieces with some provenance behind them.  Recently, we sold a set of antique Leg Irons, or Shackles dating to the early 1800s.  These shackles were from the estate of a professional who caught runaway slaves, and were used as he plied his trade.

There are many collectors of all manner of historical items, and this item drew attention from several.  It brought an impressive sale at $910.00, and incidentally went back to the state of its origin: Alabama.

This auction shows that there are highly collectible historical items that still fetch a handsome price in this economy, and collectors are looking for their next treasures on eBay!  Even items that date to a tumultuous and dark time in history can bring in the interest and the bids.  Sometimes these items go to collectors, while often they are purchased by museums, who display them for all to see, that we may not forget the errors of the past.  Either way, an eBay sale will get an item to a place of appreciation, so don’t be shy to bring in your items!

We are pleased to share with you a fantastic item: a Tachi made by master swordsmith Bishu Osafune Morimitsu in the year 1419! This item has sold for $7,000.00!

Check out this gorgeous antique sword, available for purchase on eBay right now!

Once in a great while, we get a real treat to showcase.  We take pride in every auction, but sometimes we encounter something that whets our appetite and inspires us to go further than usual in the photographic and descriptive process.  Each of our specialists have their hobbies and preferences, with some of us specializing in sports and sporting equipment, others into coins and numismatics, and in this case, our weapons enthusiast was absolutely giddy to take the photos and write the listing for a centuries-old Japanese Sword.

Check out the auction, and you’ll see how we take every effort to sell an item this special.  We make certain to perform proper research to know which terms to use in the description, and we go the extra mile when it comes to detailed photographs.  With an item such as this which is a real work of art, we make certain to highlight every important aspect.  On a Japanese Sword like this Tachi, it’s important to show it with proper lighting and using multiple angles in order to reveal the hamon, or temper line, plus reveal any visible damage.  The mei or signature on the tang is very important, and fortunately, this sword has papers with it that identify its maker and year, confirmed by a noted sword evaluator.  Our consignor provided us all the information we needed, and the result is an auction that has a far greater chance of sale.

We’ve had the pleasure of selling Katana before, and the Tanto which this consignor brought in sold last week for $4500, so we have seen some great successes in selling fine Japanese antiques.