If you take a few minutes to properly install your whirlibird, it should give you years of pleasure.

The main considerations are that the setup is strong enough to endure wind in your area, and that the wings or legs on your whirlibird don't hit obstructions -- such as top of the fence.

Safety precuations, moving parts can spin fast. Install so as to not present a danger to other people.

Using a Pole - To get the height needed for clearance, most people use a pole or dowel.

To avoid splitting the pole, you may need to drill a 3/16" diameter hole 1 " deep.

Then tap the setup nail that was included with your Whirlibird point down into the hole.

The Whirlibird should be able to turn freely on a setup nail, without scraping the top of the pole.

Also make sure your Whirlibird doesn't hit the side of the pole as it turns.

If you don't have a setup nail, (if one didn't come with a whirli you bought somewhere else),then cut the head off a 20d penny sized four inch galvanized common nail.

Have fun flying your new whirli !!

(If you don't have one yet, there are 95 models in the Whirlibirds eBay Store...just click on the Seagull(s) below !)

Notified a little earlier today via email that we were winners in eBay's "$100,000.00 Blogs, Reviews, and Guides Contest"  for the third period of the contest.

At first I thought it was one of those phfishing scam emails where they want you to log in using your password, as neither Tina or I had written a guide or review, but the link, Click Here took me to an official eBay page, and lo and behold, we came in #100 for the third period contest by just posting in our blog!

As Tina would say... "woo-hoo!!" very excitedly!!

So all of you that haven't blogged yet, or written a review or guide, there is still hope for the fourth period of the contest as it ends October 3rd, and the fifth period ends October 17th.  Appears you can win a prize in this contest by just posting in your blog, which is what we did!

Thanks eBay!  Michael

An earlier post mentioned that we are no longer selling my dad's whirli gigs from our eBay Store since he opened up his own eBay Store at:

However we neglected to point out why his whirleygigs are so durable and why we and now he were/are proud to sell them.

Here is what each listing description includes:

This whirligig / whirlibird been hand-crafted with pride and workmanship, using spruce, pine or fir for durablility. These same whirligigs have been sold at craft markets since 1991.

Hardware used on winged whirligigs includes:

nylon bushing on each wing to keep the wings turning freely

wood winged hubs

2" zinc plated woodscrews, (which don't have a tendency to unscrew!)

and a piece of 5/8" or 3/4" birch dowel

Each Whirligig comes with a 4" 20d nail with head removed to be inserted into the 3/16" brass pivot tubing. The whirligig does not come with a stake

Primer is on each whirligig plus there are two coats of exterior latex acrylic semi-gloss enamel paint.

Hamersky's Whirlibirds whirligigs have been Hand Crafted in Southern California since 1991 ... Hamersky whirleygigs are inspected for perfection and performance before shipping. Recycled boxes are used in shipment of whirligigs, therby saving the forest. Whirligigs made from the finest quality materials.

In addition, Francis Hamersky was a featured Crafter in Family Circle's 'EASY GARDENING' Summer 2000 Magazine! As seen in this issue where three of his actual whirlis were presented along with an article about his handiworks:

To those not in the know about Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, he had a bout of alcoholism in the comic book series 'the Invincible Iron Man'.  Iron Man started in 1963 so he has a very loooong history that new writers have reshaped the character during the years.

"Downey, who has battled his fair share of inner demons, worked hard to get the role, getting in shape and even growing a goatee like the one Stark sports in the comic books."

This is one of the first comic book movies to be independently produced by Marvel Entertainment, unlike the Spider-Man and X-Men movies, which were licensed to other studios.

For more on this developing story check out the newswire story by clicking on the Iron Man Comic Book Cover:

At the San Diego Comic Con this past July, we attended the Marvel Studios program where they outlined the upcoming movies they had in development.  The 'Iron Man' movie sounded like it had a better chance than the rest to be a big hit. The signing of Downey Jr to the title role may affect our earlier enthusiasm for the project.... 

What's your thoughts on this???

We were selling cartoon whirligigs that my dad made in our eBay Store until recently as they complemented our cartoon comic books category.

However my dad now has 89 different whirligigs in his own store at: (click picture)

Not all are cartoon characters, he also sells the traditional pink flamingo, hummingbird and other varities of birds, so many that he called his store 'Whirlibirds'.

Take a look, the whirleygigs make great yard decorations, and he has over 150 different models to choose from. Not all are in stock, some like the football player whirli gig pictured below are custom made, he currently has one on core listing format, check it out at:

You can also place them on wood block stands in your bedroom and they make great gifts. 

And No, contrary to popular belief, they don't chase away birds from fruit trees in your yard !

Thanks for looking !!

Well, the 'New' TV Season is basically on now, with only a few new shows left to premiere.

We are looking forward to the new episodes of 'Lost', only a short while before it starts season three. Too bad there isn't a comic book series on this one, even though a comic book was part of the props in the show.

We can't keep the comic book '24' in stock, all issues are sold out once again. We watched Seasons One thru Three this summer on DVD to get our 'fix' until January 2007 comes around with a new season!

Smallville, the comic book, is a steady seller for us, it has returned for a new season on TV.

Missed 'Alias' so much we have rented Seasons One thru Two to watch this summer, sorry, no comic book series for this show.

Buffy's comic book series are back in stock now, this series has ongoing interest by collectors. Buffy's Angel, David Boreanaz has gone on to the 'Bones' TV Show. We still have copies of his Angel comic book series.

CSI in its various shows is still going strong, we have a few copies left of previously issued comics.

We have moved several of our TV & Movie comics to our eBay ProStore instead of relisting in our eBay Store. So be sure to check out our brand new eBay ProStore. Just go to our 'about me' for the link to that store.

You can Click on the comic book covers below to see what is listed currently in our eBay Store in the category of TV & Movie comic books to see what you have been missing:

We usually at least skim the latest emails from eBay to keep up with changes. Sometimes a change is made that we are not aware of until seeing it inserted and it jumps out at us!

One of the latest changes is "My Top Performing Store Categories", a NEW Feature in the Selling Manager Pro Summary screen.

We usually have to run the QuickBooks report to know what category is currently selling the best for the month, but now with "My Top Performing Store Categories" it can be seen quickly, so more of the same category can be listed or relisted to ride the current trend.

The section in the Selling Manager Pro Summary looks like the following:

Category                             $ Amt Sold     Quantity Sold

Marvel Super Heroes          $,$$$.$$        ###

CGC Comics                        $,$$$.$$           ##

HoRRoR MoNSter books     $,$$$.$$        ###

DC Superheroes                 $,$$$.$$        ###

Westerns                              $$$.$$         ##

Appears that the above is a good addition to Seller Manager Pro, for those that subscribe to it or get it included in a Featured Store Subsription.

As we are no longer relisting comic books in our eBay Store automatically due to the new eBay Store Fee hike, this new feature will show us that a certain genre(s) of comics are selling and that we should relist similiar items in that genre(s).

We haven't posted in our eBay Blog for a few days, as we have been busy opening up a NEW eBay Pro Store for listing the least expensive comics that were in our eBay Store. 

With the new fee hikes for eBay Store owners, it just wasn't feasible to continually re-list comics that are worth less than $4.99 in our eBay Store.  Comics that fall between $4.99 and $9.99 retail price will be reevaulated after a few re-listing periods if they don't sell and possibly moved to the Pro Store.

So for now on, we will list our newly purchased comics in the eBay Store, eBay Store Make-It-So-Marketing for a few months, and if not sold within a reasonable amount of time, the comic(s) will be listed in our eBay PRO Store at: eBay Pro Store for Make It So Marketing .

We are known for more than just Super-hero fare, we usually have kept the 'Oddball Comics' in our eBay store for months until the buyer who has been searching for that oddball comic finally finds our store!  We have a large selection of westerns, horror comics, jungle comics, sword and sorcery comics, and other non-super hero genres for sale.  We have gone from 6,500 listings down to 1,500 with the new eBay store fee hike temporarily until items are relisted in either store.

Thus we have come up with the eBay Pro Store as a solution. The major plus to this move is that our customers can shop at Make It So Marketing's eBay Store AND Pro Store using the same shopping cart for ALL purchases!  Additionally, the design and color themes for both stores are very similiar so it should appear almost seamless for our customers!

That is how we are 'Making It So' for continuing our eBay business and providing for our customers.

What are you doing to adjust to the new fee hikes??

Michael & Tina

MYSTERY AUCTION for HoRRoR or MoNSTer Comic Books for Halloween time ????? !!!

What makes it a Mystery Auction?

Well, it will have 7 different HoRRoR or MoNSTer comic books, from our well stocked store.... for a starting bid of only $9.99 plus shipping, and the envelope will be shipped Priority Flat Rate Envelope mail with delivery confirmation receipt for only $4.98 to USA bidders, so no, there isn't an excessive shipping charge !!

Each comic book will be bagged and boarded to protect each comic book.

Are they collectible???  Well, there won't be any House of Mystery #92 in the envelope for $9.99, but as the bid grows, we will up the guide value of the comics inside the envelope. 

Are there duplicates??  No duplicates in each envelope.  When we list more mystery auctions, and you buy more than one auction, there could be a duplicate between envelopes....

Just click the spooky castle pic below to check out this great listing & ALL of our other MYSTERY AUCTIONS !!!

According to the new Annual Report from Family Room Entertainment Corporation, the company announced back on May 2nd, 2006, in conjunction with a third part fiancier, that they had acquired the rights to produce and distribute a feature film on the 'RED SONJA' property.

That would be great for fans of Red Sonja, as the newest items on Red Sonja have been the comics from Dynamite Entertainment.  Their #0 issue sold in excess of 240,000 which is very good these days with most new comic books selling at low numbers.

For those that want to catch up with Red Sonja's history, we have back issues of her series, and of course her appearances in CONAN THE BARBARIAN !! Just click on the great comic book cover below !!

We pride ourselves on stocking obscure "oddball" comics in our eBay Store.

Quite often we receive emails about what year a comic was published, or what genre the comic book is in, or do we have any comics from defunct publishers such as 'SkyWald' or 'Modern Comics' publishers....

www.Wikipedia.com is a good resource for these type of questions, such as finding more about 'Super Comics', of which we have had several comics from this publisher.  The publisher's name was I. W. Publications, who was in effect Israel Waldman, who went on to be a co-publisher of the 'SkyWald' Comics Group, with Sol Brodsky, who had left Marvel Comics to start this comic imprint with Israel.

Skywald lasted from the late 1970 - 1975 period. These are not commonly found comics. We currently have a few of the 'SkyWald' Comics for sale in the eBay Store. Just Click on the Grading / Photography Area photo of our Store below to view:  

1. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
2. FANTASTIC FOUR 
3. X-MEN

4. DAREDEVIL

5. BATMAN

6. SUPERMAN

7. GOLD KEY

8. STRANGE TALES

9. WESTERN

10. WAR

11. RAWHIDE KID

12. CONAN

13. THOR

14. KID COLT

15. ROY ROGERS

16. HULK

17. GENE AUTRY

18. MONSTER

19. TALES TO ASTONISH

20. ADVENTURE

21. STAR TREK

22. ACG

23. HORROR

24. JACK KIRBY

25. TOMB OF DRACULA

ANALYIS OF THE ABOVE:  

WESTERNS - We are still #1 in eBay stores in the total amount of westerns for sale at the end of August with 404 listings, so the fact that 'Western', 'Roy Rogers', 'Gene Autry', 'Rawhide Kid', and 'Kid Colt' make up 5 of our top 25 is no real surprise!

HoRRoR & MoNSTer COMICS - We currently have 606 of this genre listed in the eBay Store - a pretty hefty selection of these comics. 

FANTASTIC FOUR - At the end of August we listed 4 CGC graded comics which may have helped this title to reach the number two position in searches in our store. The highest graded was a Fantastic Four #45 9.4 NM CGC comic book, of which only four other copies are graded higher per the CGC census !!!

SUPERMAN comics - The new movie has revitalized interest in this comic book family of titles.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN - This title is usually at least in our top 5, and remains at #1 for this tally.

GOLD KEY COMICS - We noticed an increase of interet in this Publisher's comics, but didn't realize how much of an  increase until this month end report.  We did pick up several issues at the SDCC which may have helped its' entry into the top 25 for this month....

THOR COMICS - There's renewed interest in Thor - and we love it (Michael's favorite comic T-shirt is Thor and his hammer!) Where is spurring all this interest?  The storyline in FF where the Hammer of Thors reappears is what is bringing this title new interest...

That's It for this month's report.... feel free to post any comments below !!

Michael & Tina