Since purveying dandelions as a 4-year-old in a booth I made out of a refrigerator box, I've always loved to sell things. Striking teachers picketing at my elementary school snatched up frozen treats I sold from a Coleman cooler atop my Radio Flyer wagon one sweltering summer's day. Schoolmates with change jingling in their pockets clamored to buy the Tangy Taffys and Lemon Heads I brought from the neighborhood 5 & 10 to the playground. I procured discards from a local library and sold them in my front yard, even bartering some books with the ice cream truck driver. Those were the good ol' days. The method has changed since my childhood, but the passion for finding a thing to sell, and connecting with someone delighted to buy, remains. I detoured for a while, going to music school and playing the bassoon professionally in a symphony orchestra, but found I prefer the flexibility and variety afforded by selling on Ebay. And I must admit I love an excuse to go on a treasure hunt, for items to make available to the buying public. I enjoy hearing what people want but cannot find, and delighting them by finding it for them. Just let me know about that elusive must-have, and I'll see if I can work my "magic" for you.

"How do you know what to sell?," I'm often asked. When hear a phrase such as, "I love X," or "My mom had an X," often followed by "but they don't make it anymore," my ears perk up, and I make a mental note to check it on eBay when I get home. Almost invariably it is something that is eBay-able. Also, I sometimes choose an eBay category that interests me (I'm a sucker for housewares), then do a completed item category search, starting from highest priced items first. The items at the very top of the list I may never find; however, when it gets into items below $100, I start thinking, "Hey--I see those all the time. Oh, and I see those all the time." Then when I'm on my treasure-hunting rounds, I pick up the items that I saw were successful in my completed item searches. After a while, one gets a feel for what might be desirable. In a nutshell, if it's no longer produced and is unusual for its type, that's a tip-off that it's likely to do well on eBay. Of course I have my share of eBay flops, but there are lots of successes, too. And it feels good when I can take an unusual item that's a garage sale Cinderella, and find the handful of people in the world who would want it, on the wonderful international marketplace that is eBay.

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