eBay posts

Last week on WalletPop, I looked at how Currier & Ives prints and Kodak cameras have provided vastly different economic returns to collectors over the past 40 years.

This week, as promised, I asked a few of the smartest antiques and collectibles experts I know one question: Which antiques and collectibles -- that normal people have the resources to collect -- are likely to increase in value in the future?

Tammy Fennell, Host of CollectiblesCornerTV and owner of VintageRareStuff.com, suggests vintage "10-cent" comic books, especially those featuring super heroes and the rarer Archie issues. "These just seem to keep going up," she said. "Just not as many people are finding their old collections anymore. They've been lost or thrown out as the Baby Boomers are getting old!"

She also suggests Civil War-related magazines, but warns to be careful of reprints which generally are of no value. "Harper's Weeklies from the Civil War years are not that hard to find," she added, but she believes their prospects for appreciation are good.

Matthew C. Quinn of Quinn's Auction Galleries in Virginia, said that the key thing to remember with buying vintage stuff is that, financially, you'll be better off than buying retail.

Ah, the Internet: We'd be hard-pressed to name another invention that made our day-to-day lives easier, especially when it comes to exchanging goods, services and money without having to uncomfortably interact with anyone on the other end of the deal. And when you're a starving student, online haggling begins to feel like a fine art form as you explore a virtually endless sea of empty apartments, lightly used textbooks and part-time jobs just beyond our fingertips.

Unfortunately, the art of dealing with strangers online is never really one you can master, and that's probably a good thing. Case-in-point: Just last week, I was trying to sell an old iPod on eBay. The 'pod sold, and I was told by eBay to send it to an address in the United Arab Emirates. No problem, I thought, until I received a message shortly after from the site's control center advising me the buyer's account had been compromised.

Free listings on eBay -- up to 100 a month for sellers who start auctions at 99 cents -- could change the online selling world as we know it: back to the way it used to be. (The company will still take a "final value fee," 9% of the selling price or $50, whichever is less.)

It was 1999; the internet was our oyster. My ex-boyfriend and a business school classmate had an idea: contract with internet sellers to pick up returned goods and, instead of junking them or sending them in pallets to resellers, sell them on eBay. Over the next months and years, I worked with them to hone the idea and develop a scheme for selling barely used things on eBay. At first, it was a brilliant success, and it was new. We sat in rooms with leading experts on auction theory and chortled over economist's jokes. But soon every company with which we wanted to deal was selling on eBay -- my home state was selling old airplanes and windmills there -- and the bloom was off the rose. I left the company (and the boyfriend); eventually, it went through bankruptcy; about the same time, I too lost my love for eBay.

It's official, as of a little after midnight Friday Pacific time -- Conan is exiting NBC to the tune of $32 million.

Cue the wailing from comedy fans and younger viewers. Their rallies and Tweets have gone unheeded -- so how can Conan diehards console themselves as they say goodbye?

Well, the ginger-haired host is cleaning out his office and throwing some of its contents on eBay -- he even used NBC's Web site to direct people to the sale.

But before you fire up your PayPal -- an embroidered carry-on is currently going for $25,100, and it appears the sale is restricted to pre-approved bidders.

Black Friday deals are already appealing, with plenty of Black Friday laptop deals and clothing deals and plenty more. But what would you say if you could get an extra; 5%, 10%, 20%, or even 35% off of your purchase in the form of cash back just by starting your holiday shopping on Bing.com?

For a limited time on Black Friday, November 27th, Bing will offer bigger cash-back rewards as part of their Bing Goldrush promotion. This will include cash-back amounts from 5 to 35 percent from retailers such as Macy's, Sears, The Gap, AT&T, Walmart, eBay, HP and many more.

Just in time to kick off your holiday shopping comes the ultimate gift for the teenage Republican on your list: an Xbox 360 video game console signed by former U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. And the cost? Oh, just a paltry $1 million and change.

Seller David Morrill has listed the item on online auction site eBay, hoping to get interested buyers to pony up at least $1.1 million for the item. According to the description on the site, the video game console was signed by Palin on July 24 in Wasilla, Alaska, two days before she resigned as the state's governor.

So what makes this Xbox 360 worth so much more than the average retail price of $399? "You can own this 60GB, perfect-condition, one-of-a-kind item before her expected run for president of the United States of America in 2012," Morrill wrote on the item listing. Morrill didn't immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment from WalletPop.

There's little surprising news out of the high-low fashion collaboration trend these days. H&M pacts with a fierceness icon and splashes them across a billboard; Gap gets up-and-comers to sketch khakis and white shirts. Target stocks designer collections as regularly as it does dorm essentials.

But today, smack dab in the middle of Fashion Week, the cheap-chic sector has come out with a curveball. Narciso Rodriguez, couturier to Michelle Obama, Sarah Jessica Parker and Rachel Weisz, is producing a line of clothing that will top out at $350 (his pieces usually run $1,000 and up).

His partner in this scheme? eBay.

Now, this is different. Fashion-focused consumers are well-acquainted with eBay; in the search for that elusive, last-season, sold-out item, it can be a handy tool. But the clothing segment of the site spans an enormous range of products, from secondhand sweatpants to pristine couture gowns. There is also -- and this has long been the sticking point in the relationship between fashion and eBay -- an inundation of fakes. It's the Canal Street of cyberspace. Rodriguez is wading into seriously untested, wild waters.

He's also making a conscious decision to expand his audience. The vast majority of Americans have no reason to know who Rodriguez is. Many of us will likely still find his diffusion line for eBay to be out of our price range. But even the eBay users who don't end up buying any Narciso-for-eBay will likely see Rodriguez's name somewhere on the site in the course of their browsing. When you put your brand in the position of being seen by Internet shoppers who are searching for lawn mowers or textbooks, you've gone mass in a way that no H&M flavor of the month has.

It all goes back to the zeitgeist of this year's shows, the feeling in the air that fashion may be finally considering the world outside its tight traditional circles. I never thought I'd see the day when Narciso joined the world of of combined shipping and last-minute bids -- and I'll certainly be logging on when the line launches this spring. eBay might want to beef up its server capacity -- fashion hounds are hunting for bargains more than ever before.

Yesterday Apple announced an update to its popular iPod mp3 players, including major upgrades to the iPod Touch and the iPod Nano. The iPod Touch received a speed boost, which gives it more gaming power and puts it in direct competition with gaming devices like the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.

The new iPod Nano also saw a big upgrade, including the addition of a video camera, which Apple boasted would replace your need for a Flip camcorder.

If you think the new iPods will replace one of the gadgets you own, you can sell it to NextWorth, and for a limited time NextWorth will pay you an extra 20%!

EBay has always been a great place to look for deals on new and used items and now, thanks to the eBay Bucks program, you can save even more when you buy on eBay. Eligible purchases paid for with PayPal will earn a 2% cash-back reward.

Earning eBay Bucks on your purchase is pretty simple. Once you register for the rewards program, all you have to do is find the item you want and pay for it with PayPal through an approved eBay checkout system. Basically, that means you can't send money straight through PayPal but instead need to use the checkout links that eBay or an authorized seller sends you in your order confirmation email.

The dorm rooms have been cleaned and a steady buzz of techno is drifting from the corner suite which can mean only that school is back in session. Getting back in the swing of things can be a challenge but here are 10 applications for your Android phone to make the school year easier and, best off all, most of them are free.

For easy access to any of these applications, simply click on the name and you'll be taken to a description page that includes ratings and a QR code that you can scan with your phone's camera for a quick download.

One of the knocks on General Motors has long been that the company is arrogant and out of touch with the needs of its customers.

Has that changed since the company went into bankruptcy and pledged that it was building a new, more nimble car company? Exhibit A in the "Nothing has changed" file is this: the feedback rating for GM's eBay account.

In total, yourgmdealer has received six positive ratings and two negatives, but because one buyer left three ratings, the actual feedback score is +2. . . four positive and two negatives. And if you think that's bad, there's more: Three of the positive feedback ratings come from a user with the ID "661henryglen" who left this glowing review after purchasing a 2009 Chevy Cobalt: "THIS IS A VERY SIMPLE PROCESS."

That feedback was left on Aug-20-09 at 16:51. The auction ended on Aug 20, 2009 at 16:48:01 PDT. That raises a fantastic question: How does a person buy a car on eBay and then complete the transaction in less than three minutes, allowing enough time to log back in and leave feedback? That must have been a simple process indeed!

Fascinating -- and suspicious -- stuff.

Looking for a simple way to make some extra cash by selling your skills to the highest bidder? If so, then the recently launched Jobpic, an online auction site for services, may be just what you're looking for.

Jobpic is essentially an eBay for your talent; letting you turn your skills into cash for customers locally or globally.

Jobpic is new so there aren't a million auctions to choose from but there are some interesting examples of how to use Jobpic to earn some extra cash or to find a freelancer to do some work for you.

California residents can now bid on new General Motors cars and trucks through eBay's online marketplace. Approximately 250 GM dealers in California are selling Buick, Chevrolet, GMC and Pontiac vehicles on eBay Motors, and you can either use the "Buy It Now" option or make your best offer. You can browse 2008, 2009 and 2010 vehicles, ask dealers questions and figure out financing. Non-California residents can contact California dealers to see if they're willing to sell and ship vehicles to them -- and with the auto industry still in shambles, chances are they'll agree to that.

General Motors said they started the online car-buying trial in California because there are so many tech-savvy people here, and also because it's one state where company sales historically have not been so great. I can vouch for that, as most people I know in Northern California go for foreigh brands like Honda, Toyota, BMW and Saab. Even in "red" areas of the state like the Sierra Nevada foothills and the Central Valley, the Ford F-150 is the pickup truck of choice. While I too am planning to switch out my 10-year-old Volkswagen for a Honda or Toyota when the time comes, I had to give props to GM for breaking ground and being the first to use eBay as an auto marketplace, so I decided to check out the site.

For a while Google has been protecting users of its popular Gmail service from phishing e-mails by rejecting any message it knows is fake from senders such as eBay and PayPal.

This week Google announced a new tool that makes it even easier to know if an e-mail is legit. Gmail users can now enable a new feature "Authentication icon for verified senders" which places a key icon next to e-mails that have been verified as "Super-Trustworthy" by Gmail.

Right now the Super-Trustworthy designation will only appear on e-mails from eBay and PayPal since they have completed the numerous steps needed to get verified, but the Gmail team expects to roll this designation out to banks and other senders shortly.