Shipping Price Increase

I have decided to increase my shipping and handling charges on all future eBay lots. For years I have been charging $1.50 for the first item and 25 cents for each additional. While this covers postage costs, it doesn't come anywhere near the time cost of handling.

I will now charge $2 for the first items and 35 cents for each additional lots sold to US Addresses. The rate to Canada will be $2.25 for the first items and 35 cents for each additional. To the rest of the world, I will charge $2.50 for the first item and 35 cents for each additional.

Last month and for January, 2008, I am running a special offer, where I will pay the shipping and handling charge for any order of three or more lots.

My goal is encourage more multiple unit purchases. More purchases theoretically means more of a profit margin per mailing.

As I have reported previously, I figure I have 15 minutes handling time invested into each lot on average. That said the new rates mean I am giving myself a raise from $6 and hour to $8 an hour for my time, less actual mailing costs.

I currently offer thousands of items with minimum bids below $10. The economics just don't work unless I can get a greater percentage of people to buy multiple lots.

It may seem like nothing, but the time it takes to print out an order, pick it from inventory, stuff the envelope, address it, stamp it, file feedback, record the transaction, and mail it add up quickly.

When people ask for special services, like insurance or registered mail, I only charge what the post office charges, and nothing for the time it takes me to stand in line at the post office.

I understand that this is not a popular move from my customers point of view, but it's something I need to do. I hope you understand. etn

eBay 10 cent listing day

Thursday December 27th was a 10 cent listing day on eBay auctions.

In past years eBay had free listing days. These were big hits at first and gave a real advantage to dealers like me who have automated inventories. I used to do wholesale dumps of my inventory on eBay.

The problem was that while it didn't cost anything to list, the number of items sold as a percentage of those listed tanked. Since it was free it didn't matter. For some years now though, eBay has been having fewer such promotions and not free.

That is probably a better idea. When they were free the site would just become overwhelmingly cluttered. Since I now have to pay a dime, I am using a bit more discretion as I load the site.

Rather than dump 16,000+listings, I took advantage yesterday and listed 316 items in the $25-$300 range from virtually all categories of material. Then since listings were cheap, I added gallery view so my images would show to viewers. That brings the auction listings to 45 cents each which is cheaper than a straight listing without gallery normally would be.

With so many others taking advantage of the cheap listings, I am hoping my better priced items will stand out in the sea of cheap un-galleried items.

If I am able to sell over 9.5% of the items, I will deem the experiment of adding the gallery expense worth while. Thats 2% more than the average sold in past big blizzard listing days, which covers the additional gallery charges at $25 per items sold.

We will find out next Thursday if I am able to sell 30 of 316 items. Should be easy. But to help it out, I am extending my free shipping and handling deal till the end of January.

If you buy three or more (non bulk) listings, and pay for them at the same time, I will pay for shipping and handling worldwide.

This deal applies not only to items at auction on eBay but also any items in my eBay store or on my ship cover web site.

Use these links to go there: Naval Covers

eBay Store

Inventory Time

It's year end and time to take stock of my cover inventory for the tax man as well as my own information. Turns out I have a total of 24,314 items with 16,163 unique listings in my internet inventory. Total value at my minimum prices of about $187,000.

That represents about two work years of labor if I use my standard estimate of 15 minutes per item on average for handling. The 15 minutes includes time on the shipping and handling end, so the two years estimate includes yet to be done work.

I'd be happy to give someone a 10% discount if they want to buy the entire inventory, perhaps a bit (lot) deeper if anyone were seriously interested. Not included are the boxes of yet to be processed material.

One of my goals for the coming year is to decrease the total number of items significantly, while increasing the average dollar value per item.

Merry Christmas. I hope you and your families and friends are enjoying all the blessings of the season. As I write this Sunday, the house is still in a high state of chaos, with presents yet to be bought, wrapping behind schedule, and countless last minute errands to run as well as greetings to write. And yet somehow it will all come together ready or not by tomorrow eve. We celebrate Christmas eve with my wife’s family, and the day with mine. Christmas eve traditionally was at Joan’s parent’s house. There, in a small stucco bungalow, the MacKenzie clan would gather for T-bone steaks, mashed potatoes, fruit soup, and ever so much more. Hazel would never sit down, pushing mountains of food at any plate half empty. Art offered everyone a glass of Mogan David wine, perhaps the only day of the year such beverage was shared in the house. The kids table was always loud, in the now ever so small living room. It’s dimensions indented by the gloriously lit, always perfectly decorated Christmas tree. Even more constricting were the mounds of presents in every other corner and stacked along the walls. After dinner, Hazel required a carol or two to be sung before the presents could be opened. And then the walls would reverberate with the shredding of wrappings, giggles of excitement and politely pronounced thank yous crisscrossing the room. As the loot was unwrapped, each item was exclaimed about and thanked for and stashed into piles, every so careful to make sure the to-from tags were neatly tucked within each box. The bedlam would last till nearly eleven when it was time to sneak out and start warming the frozen cars, and load the trunks with the incoming, now that the outgoing was dispersed. Got to get the kids ready for bed, cause Santa Claus is yet to come. Mrs. Claus always managed to whip up a great reason for the kids to wake us the next morning. Even with fresh piles of yet to be played with gifts from the night before, there was always something special under the tree. I hope that you were able to both give and find something special under your tree this year. Best wishes and Merry Christmas. etn

Recent and Future eBay Listings: You can find all my current eBay auctions and my eBay Store items in my store by searching the following link. ETN Covers eBay Store I also have a significant collection of ship covers at … www.shipcovers.com

USS California USS California ACR 6. It's keel was laid 5/7/1902 and commissioned August 1, 1907. It's named was changed to the San Diego on 9/1/1914. As the San Diego, it was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-156 off Fire Island Inlet, July 19, 1918. Postal markings from the California or San Diego are scarce to rare. Above is a postally used non philatelic cover from a crew member of the USS California BB44. The cancel is a machine cancel. Battleships, in essence small floating towns, handled enough mail to warrant automated canceling equipment. In this example the ships name is in the top of the dial which gives this particular cancel a designation as a type 7t for those who are interested in not just getting a cancel from each ship, but also examples of all the different types of cancels used. This particular cancel rates a “C” value in the ship cancel catalog which puts it in the scarce category. The California BB44 was launched in 1919 and was on battleship row on Dec 7th 1941 where she was sunk, killing 100 crew members and wounding an additional 62. She was refloated in early 1942 and largely rebuilt in time to participate in the May 5th 1944 invasion of the Marianas. During subsequent action she was hit by shore fire and suffered a Kamikaze attack, both with fatalities. But not put out of action again until being put into the reserve fleet in 1946 and ultimately sold until 1959. The above cover is from the USS California CGN 36. It celebrates the 200th anniversary of the US Navy. This ship was originally designated as DLGN 36 but was changed to the Cruiser class July 1, 1975. This California, nicknamed the Golden Grizzly, was deactivated in August of 1998. An excellent web page about her is located at http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6636/. The CGN36 was the 7th US Naval ship to bear the name USS California. Four others pre-dated the ACR6. etn

The Battleship

A battleship is a large, heavily armored warship with a main battery consisting of the largest caliber of guns. Battleships are larger, and better-armed and better-armored than cruisers and destroyers.

Battleship design continually evolved to incorporate and adapt technological advances to maintain an edge. The word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a shortened form of line-of-battle ship, the dominant warship in the Age of Sail. The term came into formal use in the late 1880s to describe a type of iron clad warship whose design culminated in the 1890s with the generation of ships now known as pre-dreadnought battleships. In 1906, HMS Dreadnaught heralded a revolution in battleship design, and for many years modern battleships were referred to as dreadnaughts. The key distinction being the focus on being a platform for strictly big guns.

USS Texas BB35

Battleships were the subject of a major arms race in the early 1900's and remained so until World War II when the aircraft carrier emerged as the primary vehicle to extend military power at sea.

For more information on Battleships go to Wikipedia.

I am currently featuring a nice selection of 127 Battleship Covers Battleship covers on eBay. A number of these majestic ships were placed in and out of service multiple times, coming back for the Korean and Vietnam wars, primarily as gunfire platforms.

Covers and post cards from these ships are not uncommon, after all they had crew comparable in size to many small towns. At the same time, because of the volume of mail and time in service there are many opportunities to collect different postmark types as well as events. Dread naught the battleship, it makes a fine collecting topic.

etn