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Most Recent Posts DRIVE YOURSELF EBAY: Pimp Your Ride the eBay Way with License Plate Frames, License Plates, Bumper Stickers, & Antenna ToppersPosted Jul-03-09 19:56:29 PDT Updated Jul-04-09 20:20:52 PDT How can you drive yourself eBay? Let me count the ways. You would be surprised to know just how many eBay license plate frames and eBay bumper stickers are out there. And I know of at least three eBay license plates, two of which are even street legal. And don't forget your eBay Motors antenna topper! First of all, there's the basic black eBay Motors license plate frame. It's got the URL www.ebaymotors.com across the top in white, and across the bottom it has the eBay logo followed by the word Motors™, also in white. Somehow or other we accumulated seven of these, and we managed to resell them all on eBay as a Fixed Price 30-Day (FP30) listing with a Best Offer option. Our favorite offer came from Japan, whence a Buyer offered to buy 6 of them for only $1 each less than what we were asking. And shipping wasn't free to Japan, either. We'd already sold the first one at full price, so overall we really made out like bandits — relatively speaking, of course, since we still made less than $50 total for all 7 plate frames. But they went to appreciative new homes. The Japanese Buyer was especially excited, because he planned to share them with friends. So somewhere on the island of Japan, there's a posse of buddies all driving around with eBay Motors license plate frames. Next up is the equally classic black and white ebay.com license plate frame. It says ebaY.COM in white across the top (with the word "ebay" in logo form) and has the URL www.ebay.com in white across the bottom. This is a really early item of eBayana, because it was made before eBay dropped the .com from their corporate name. You really can't go wrong with elegant black and white. It's like a tuxedo for your license plate. We sold this one too, but I forget who bought it. But whoever it was really liked it, because I do remember that they left us very positive feedback. For those who prefer to eBay in color — and to make a statement while doing so — there are a couple of choices, again ranging from basic black to pristine white. To start us off white, there's a lovely license plate frame with the www.ebay.com URL across the top; across the bottom, it says "I'd rather be trading on ebaY", with the full-color eBay logo. Now, who could argue with that? But we sold this one too, although now I sort of wish we hadn't. Slightly trendier — and now either nostalgically classic or hopelessly dated, depending on your point of view (I'm of the nostalgia school of thought, because it's such a classic line) — there's a black license plate frame that says "honk if you got it" (with the word "it" in its ad-campaign logo form and colors of green, orange, and yellow) across the top and "on ebaY" across the bottom, with the word "ebay" in full-color logo form. As shown in my guide to this subject, this particular license plate frame nicely complements the real-life license plate EBAY-01, which belongs to onecrazyredhead from Connecticut. Check out her eBay store for good buys all the time! I've also seen this license plate frame on an EBAYQUN license plate. There's another eBay license plate that we might as well mention at this time. It was sold by The eBay Shop a few years ago, and it says CUONEBAY in true license-plate style, accented by the official eBay color ribbon with the full-color eBay logo in a tastefully offset oval above the letters. In fact, if your state permits you to have a novelty plate as your front license plate, it will look great on your wheels. There's an eBay drop-off shop near us that has a company car done up in an eBay wrap, and I keep wanting to put this license plate on it with an eBay license plate frame front and back. We were going to sell it, but it's so rare and I like it so much that I'm keeping it for myself, to hang with my antique Texas and SLEAZE and SPAM FAN license plates. (My ex-husband's and my old personalized plates, JUMP HI and HI VLTG, hang elsewhere in our decor.) Speaking of eBay license plate frames, you might want to stop reading here unless you are either a PowerSeller or an aspiring PowerSeller. If you're not a PowerSeller (yet), at least try not to be jealous. No one but you will know whether you're faking it if you put one of the two extant (that I know about) eBay PowerSeller license plate frames on your vehicle. Maybe there are even more PowerSeller license plate frames in existence; if so, please let me know. I believe these were available through the special PowerSeller section of The eBay Shop (which absolutely anyone can access nowadays, more's the pity), but I'm not sure, since I wasn't yet a PowerSeller (under our selling ID of monjott) when these license plate frames were on offer. Both are an elegant black. The classic black and white version says "I'm a proud" across the top in white and has the eBay and PowerSeller logos at the bottom, also in white, along with the word PowerSeller as included in the PowerSeller logo. "I'm a proud eBay PowerSeller" — what more can you say? What else do you need to say? A trendier, now nostalgic (again) and more colorful black PowerSeller License Plate Frame features the tagline "You can sell it on ebaY" across the top in white, with both the words "it" and "eBay" in full-color logo form. At the bottom is the eBay logo with the PowerSeller icon and the word "PowerSeller", all in white. All of the eBay license plate frames and also the eBay license plate are VHTF (Very Hard To Find), so grab 'em when and if you see 'em. I'm guessing that the various eBay license plate frames originally came from The eBay Shop, as did the CUONEBAY license plate, but I really don't know for sure. What more can you do to pimp your ride the eBay way? Why, add an eBay bumper sticker, of course! eBay stickers in general are a subject for a whole 'nother blog entry, but I'll tell you about a few highlights made especially for the road. First, of course, there's your basic classic I (heart) ebay.com, with the full-color eBay logo. These were sold by The eBay Shop way back in the day, when eBay was still ebay.com. Then there's my personal favorite: "Find the people who love what you love." This is a particularly beautiful bumper sticker, with the tagline in a green band above an eBay color-wheel excerpt centered by the full-color eBay logo. There's another one that looks just like it that says, with the words in a blue band, "The world is getting smaller, one bid at a time." These were part of a one-sheet set given out at eBay Live! 2005 in San José (the 10-year anniversary year that The Power Of All Of Us was eBay's slogan) and also available as a printout from thepowerofallofus.com. I think they might also have been sold at The eBay Shop (which was kind of a rip-off, if you knew about the freebies). Nowadays you can probably find one for sale on eBay. That's not a rip-off, that's entrepreneurship. For truly cosmopolitan eBayers, there's also the "tuned by ebay" bumper stickers that were available at ebay.at as part of a special eBay Motors promotion at eBay Austria. (I also got a thong and camisole with the "tuned by ebay" logo, but that's all I'm going to tell you about that.) Then there are clear oval country stickers that bear the full-color ebay.NL (Netherlands) or ebay.BE (Belgium) logos. There might be others, but I've never seen them. We've got ebay.NL on our rear side window, because I'm half Dutch. These are very hard to find, but I got mine at eBay Germany (ebay.de). From there we get into the bootleg eBay bumper stickers, which are almost too numerous to mention here. My favorites are d.c.diesel's "POWERED BY ebay", with the full-color eBay logo, and insigniaworks1's "ebay FUELS THIS VEHICLE", also with the full-color eBay logo. Both Sellers are from eBay UK but sell at ebay.com. Or you can get a bumper sticker from atomgrey that says "Maybe you should go to ebay and BUY A CLUE". eBay Education Specialists and Trading Assistants can get custom window decals with their phone numbers from westcoastdecalz. eBay PowerSeller and eBay Trading Assistant decals are available in both white and full color from groovy-graphics. And plain white ebaY logo decals can be had from creative_fx. Perhaps you'd prefer the tasteful legend "I'm an eBay whore" as offered by tranzaction, whose About Me page says that they are located in the armpit of Ohio. But why not go with the cheerful sentiment espoused by grannieannie, whose custom-made limited edition bumper sticker says, "Don't Worry, Be Happy EBAY" against a wavy background of music notes. Top it all off with an eBay Motors antenna topper (only ever seen in blue with white lettering, never yet in red, yellow, or green; I think they might have came from eBay Live! the year that eBay Motors first opened) and start driving yourself the eBay way! Thank you for reading my blog post. Please feel free to comment below. IT'S BACK: Return of the Most Valuable eBayana Ever?Posted May-25-09 17:28:04 PDT Updated May-25-09 17:41:34 PDT I thought it was pretty funny the first time around when I saw a set of eBay Live! 2005 Limited Edition Collector Pins up for auction at an opening bid of $10,000. I even wrote about it here, and quoted from the reply the seller sent me when I inquired if the price was serious. True to his or her word in that reply, the same seller is back, with the same set of pins — and since they didn't sell the first time around for $10,000, they're now listed at an opening bid of $20,000 with free shipping. Yes, you read it correctly: Twenty. Thousand. Dollars. Now, I value my eBayana highly, but I really don't think I have any that I could swap for, say, a new car. But this seller, whose name I am graciously refraining from mentioning (you can see it for yourself if you look up the auction) is evidently pretty proud of his or her pin set: brand new, in the round collector's tin that says "10-Year Time Capsule Pin Collection". You can see it as eBay #200325071225 @ http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200325071225, but you'd better hurry, because as of this writing there are only 16 hours left until it closes. Meanwhile, you can shop for other eBay pin sets priced anywhere from $29.99 to $250. $250 (or Best Offer) will buy you a set of rare eBay Live! 2003 Limited Edition Collector's Pins, but shop wisely and you can score the same set for $50 or, better yet, $35. A Pin Parade set from eBay Live! 2004 (so called because the pins are displayed in a clear plastic tube pinned to a colorful street-scene background that makes them look like a parade) is $35, Buy It Now. So is a set of eBay Live! 2006 poker-chip pins, new in the box with a COA (Certificate of Authenticity). Limited Edition eBay Live! 2008 pin sets are priced at $29.99, $79.9, and $175. Guitar pick pins from the Hard Rock Café at eBay Live! 2008 will set you back more than $80, whichever of two currently available sets you choose. And the eBay Live! 2005 Limited Edition Pin Set? Right now it's also available in the employees' version — given to employees in honor of eBay's 10th anniversary — which came in a clear tube with the pins displayed on a timeline of eBay's first 10 years. IMHO, it's a much more fun way to show off the pins, and it doesn't require you to remove the lid to see them as is necessary for the set in the round collector's tin. It also explains the significance of each year as referenced by its pin. That eBay price? Buy It Now for just $35. Thank you for reading my blog post! Please feel free to comment. MOST VALUABLE EBAYANA EVER? One Seller's OpinionPosted Apr-04-09 15:58:39 PDT Updated May-25-09 17:32:23 PDT I value my eBayana collection, but not quite as highly as one current seller evidently values his. He's got a brand-new-in-the-round-presentation-tin (not the trophy tube) set of limited edition eBay collector pins from eBay Live! 2005 listed for auction in the eBay-ana category @ http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200325071225 and he's offering it at the Buy-It-Now price of...$10,000. No Best Offer option, either; it's either pay the full $10,000, or don't buy it at all. I wrote to the seller and asked if they were serious about their price. Here is their reply: Yes, It is. If any buyer offers me $9,999.00.-one cent less than my listing. I still will not sell it. It is proudly to represent it to sell it and have it in my hand. If it is bought, my pride will be gone too. If I have enough money for my Ebay insertion, I will list for sell at $2,000,000.00 ( why it is 2 M, but not 1M or 2M? That is my different story) After every question regarding to this listing item. The price will be increased twice after one week. You will see it increased to $20,000 next week. to the maximum of 91 times.( Why it is 91 times? It is different story about it) at that time the world could not afford to buy it. Thanks for your asking. What does that mean? I'm not sure either. But evidently this seller has decided to keep raising the price of this item if it doesn't sell. I thought they said they were going to raise it after every question, too, but the price doesn't seem to have changed after my question, so perhaps I misunderstood. This set of eBay collector pins from eBay Live! 2005 is collectible, but IMHO, not $10,000 worth of collectible — not even brand new in the round presentation tin. In fact, you can find a full set brand new in the clear plastic "trophy" tube currently being offered by a seller in Israel for a mere $100 (also listed in the eBay-ana category, of course). In The eBay Shop at eBay Live! 2005, these pins originally cost $75 in the round presentation tin. I forget how much they originally cost in the tube, but they were cheaper than in the tin. If you didn't collect a full set of these pins to wear on your eBay Live! lanyard during the event, you can buy them one at a time (or fill in the missing pins) on eBay. They are almost always available, often in the Stores section of the eBay-ana category. But if you want to buy the full set all at once, I personally prefer the tube — which also was given to employees in honor of eBay's 10th anniversary — because it gives you the perfect way to display the pins: right in the tube. And the way they are distributed inside the tube comes along with cool eBay timeline graphics describing the significance of each year's pin. And they shouldn't cost you $10,000, either. Thank you for reading my blog post! Please feel free to comment. EBETSY'S EBAYANA: 10 of My Favorite Things, As Told To Kat Simpson & Beth Cherkowsky On Their New Talk Show, "The River The Ranch and The Bay"Posted Mar-11-09 18:44:55 PDT Updated May-25-09 17:35:58 PDT I hate to set a bad precedent here by blogging two days in a row, but I worked up this little list of 10 of my Favorite eBay Things to talk about tonight on Beth Cherkowsky's and Kat Simpson's brand-new TalkShoe talk show, "The River The Ranch and The Bay", so I wanted to share it with you too. Believe me, limiting it to 10 is just scratching the surface. In fact, let me be more specific: This is not THE Top 10 list, because I could never narrow it down that much. I have 10 favorite things from shwaihat of Jordan alone. This is just 10 items from my list of Favorite Things in my eBayana collection. And even at that, I snuck in a parenthetical 11th item. So you can see what I mean. eBay NASDAQ Dinosaur — one of only 3 in the world that were given to Meg Whitman, Pierre Omidyar, and Jeff Skoll by the powers that be at NASDAQ to celebrate eBay's IPO. Bought from Meg Whitman as meg4givefest, so even though I spent a ridiculous amount to get it, it was for charity my ebetsy eBay Radio baseball cap given to me by the president of wsRadio shwaihat of Jordan's "homage to eBay" items — hand-cross-stitched vests and a shawl with the eBay logo; a sand bottle containing the eBay logo (how do they DO that?); hand-woven wool rugs and wall hangings featuring different eBay motifs (eBay Live!, eBay Radio, eBay Over the Mountains of Jordan, eBay at Sunset…even ebetsy and PayPal wall hangings, which were given as surprise gifts); mosaics (logos from eBay, eBay Live!, eBay Radio, and Education Specialist Trained By eBay…even a desktop mosaic sign that says "monjott", our Seller ID); and LBNL, an amazing hand-beaded and hand-gold-embroidered tablecloth with the eBay logo in translucent jewel-like beads eBay Champagne from eBay Germany — given as a Red Star feedback award; ebay.de also gives out eBay star magnets in the appropriate colors for each level of feedback star attained, right up to the shooting star. I remember when we used to get pins, but that was a long time ago. At least we still get downloadable printable PDF certificates… eBay Buy/Sell Spinner — it's a little silver plastic device with a full-color eBay logo on it that fits in the palm of your hand, and when you touch the two metal contacts on its back, it lights up and spins this silver ball around in a circle until it stops in a hole that says "Buy", "Sell", or "Bid". Kind of like the eBay 8-ball, but more definitive — and rarer, too! eBay Cricket Bat & Ball sets from eBay India — each one slightly different, carved with the various eBay India icons (e.g., temple dancer, elephant) in a lovely commemorative wooden box with a clear plastic lid (I also really like my set of 4 glittery gel candles from eBay India, one in each of the 4 eBay colors in a lovely sandalwood box) eBay Skydiving Helmet — you just have to ask yourself, why a skydiving helmet? Comes in handy for riding our Segways, which we also won on eBay eBay Picnic Basket — a lovely woven basket with an embossed-on-leather eBay logo; it contains a full set of four plastic plates, mugs, knives, forks, and spoons plus a checked tablecloth and four checked napkins, all with an embroidered eBay logo. I've got a set in blue and white and a set in red and white. I don't know what happened to yellow and green eBay Gingerbread Cookie from eBay Austria — it's a 6-pointed star frosted with a full-color eBay logo and the words "Merry Christmas" in German; I had to ask for permission to bid on this one "EBAY" spelled out in fake dog poop, bringing new meaning to the term "doo it eBay"! Believe it or not, that's not the only form of eBay in fake dog poop that I've ever seen. A seller who regularly sells items purportedly made by her dogs offered a faux poop with an eBay logo stuck in it. Now I can't believe I didn't bid on it. I guess I was waiting for our dogs to make me one, but it hasn't happened yet. All of the above-mentioned items were obtained — where else? — on eBay, of course! Thank you for reading my blog post! Please feel free to comment. A COLLECTOR'S GUIDE TO EBAYANA (EBAY-ANA): Hunting For Hidden TreasuresPosted Mar-10-09 23:32:34 PDT Updated May-25-09 17:29:49 PDT
Now I'm going to tell you a few of the keywords I've used to discover obscure eBayana
treasures. I've put them in quotation marks for clarity of reading
purposes, but you'll want to use just the words themselves without the
quotes except in this case: "e bay". It is amazing how many people cannot spell the word "eBay" so this will find you some real "e-bay", "e Bay", and/or "e*bay" bargains, all of which will pop up under "e bay" with quotation marks, exactly as written. Remember: Search keywords are NOT case sensitive. Also, adding an asterisk lets you automatically search the plural and/or other variations as well as the singular of any given word. I've also found some great stuff using keywords "ebay color*" (no quotes) to bring up items whose title includes the words "ebay color", "eBay colors", and "ebay colored", including four-colored curtains with a matching valence; a four-colored wallpaper border (now being used by my friend Danna in her new eBay office; a set of four barstools, one in each primary eBay color; and even some wigs. Using the same words in German @ ebay.de, "ebay farben" scored me several packages of eBay-colored silk rose petals in the four eBay colors — great to sprinkle in with your packing popcorn when shipping special sale or gift items! At the time this guide was written, keywords "ebay color*" brought up such treasures as a set of four eBay Crystal Colored Heart Pez Dispensers; an eBay Full Color Embroidered Logo Ball Cap Baseball Hat; and 100 Color eBay Thank You Customer Business Cards, none of which were listed in the eBay-ana category. Those same keywords also helped me find wonderful earrings made of eBay-colored beads. That led me to using the keywords "ebay earrings", which led me to tjsminis' I LOVE EBAY Dangle Button Earrings and jakeeangel's fabulous Handmade eBay Beaded Dangle Earrings. Keywords "ebay star* -wars" allowed me to discover gorgeous feedback-star-inspired star-shaped handmade Christmas ornaments, each one unique, from ebronxdotnet. Using keywords "ebay sign*" gave me the chance to win a 13-foot-high collapsible banner sign that says EBAY, while they also might can find you an eBay Sign Aluminum License Plate "CUONEBAY"; an UNPAINTED WOODEN SIGN-I LOVE EBAY; PEOPLESCHOICES14U2--CUSTOM MADE EBAY SIGNS HOME/OFFICE; and a Key Chain Pocket Watch eBay Positive Sign that says "I (heart) Positive Feedback". Searching for "ebay painting*" will yield artistpavel's 7x9 original PAINTING eBay PowerSeller Logo Design. Here are some more useful keywords, in no particular order: "ebay custom"; "ebay employee"; "ebay OOAK" (One Of A Kind); "ebay VHTF" (Very Hard To Find) — I won a pendant necklace engraved with those letters; "ebayana" or "ebay-ana"; "ebay clock" (several timely choices exist); "ebay radio*" (for a retro-style tabletop model plus two over-the-ear styles); "ebay shirt*" (for wonderful unofficial as well as official eBay-wear); "ebay sweat*" (for sweaters and/or sweatshirts); "ebay towel*" (I've gradually accumulated an entire set of eBay bath towels @ ebay.com and ebay.de as well as several different beach towels, including a bright yellow one from eBay Australia); "ebay bag*"; "ebay live"; "ebay logo"; "ebay original" (that's how I originally came across artistpavel's eBay paintings); "ebay promo"; and "ebay unique". Last but not least, try "ebay it". When the ad campaign was new, I won a 14-karat gold "it" necklace; handmade "it" earrings in two different styles (the same seller offered three styles altogether); an "it" ring just like in the "Whatever it is, you can get it on eBay" commercials; an "it" tiara (ditto, and hilarious); a fabulous handmade "it" dress for Barbie (ditto ditto, and it came with an eBay logo'd Barbie shopping bag); and numerous versions of "it" in a plethora of different materials including several different kinds of exotic wood, styrofoam, and faux marble. Remember: You can save keywords as Favorite Searches with an email option so that eBay will notify you whenever new items become available. Now you know the basics as well as some insider tips. So get out there and find your very own eBayana treasures! Oh, and one last keyword? Searching for "ebetsy" will pull up most of the eBayana items currently offered by my husband and myself under our Seller ID of monjott. Happy eBaying! Thank you for reading my blog post! Please feel free to comment. |
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