The Real Reason I Got Hooked THE PEOPLE

So there I was with a new venture on my hands that could possibly provide me the resources to decorate the house, and the funds to do so if I sold off my "treasures" that didn't work for me. But there was a big unknown factor, could I actually hold my own as a seller?
Those first three items sold were to be the most challenging of all! Next up was packing and shipping, YIKES! A trip to the Post Office brought me home with a few of those blue and white boxes that were soon to take over my house.
I had carefully saved all packing material from my online purchases, and thought I had enough to send dozens of items out! Well, that calculation was not correct. The three items I had sold were rather packing material intensive, a trend I continue to this day! By the end of that day I was to learn to shop price for wrapping materials right on eBay, found the one I was, and am still the most comfortable with to this day, so that was solved. Sadly I live in a really expensive price zone for the big box stores, and have yet to see anyone beat the prices I get from this guy, even factoring in the shipping.
By the end of that day too, I was to learn that I knew nothing about quoting shipping prices! I had put 3 or 4 dollars on each item! And that is where the people entered the equation.
The buyer of the red Pyrex bowl was an eBayer from CA with a rank of about 750, which to me was a scary number at that point. I had him figured as some sort of very advanced seller who was sure to find fault with my not yet acquired packing skills.
Mike turned out to be a lovely guy who was chatty in the emails about the sale from the getgo, his wife's family was from the town in NJ I was then living in! When this Mike 750 actually recieved the package I sent and saw the price I had paid to ship the item, against what he had paid me by about 4 dollars, he immediately sent me an email to watch my regular snail mail, that help was on the way. About a week later the old (pre USPS zoning) postage rate chart appeared in my mailbox, as a way of ensuring that I didn't cheat myself like that again!

I had entered a world of wonderful folks who watch out for each other, and knew I wanted to stay in that world.

How the Machine Took Over My Life

As I was bidding on every piece of Stanford Corn Pottery in sight, I was also snooping around, and realizing the value of things I saw all around in my flea market treks. It didn't take long to see the writing on the wall, that the way to finance the decorating of the house was to learn to sell off the things I could find that might have been special to someone else, and when my FB was at about 12, I gingerly put up 3 listings, and it took me about 4 hours to do that! A 402 Red Pyrex Primary bowl, a Red Cliff Ironstone Pitcher, and an AH Turquoise 8 inch serving bowl were my entries.

All of these had been bought the day before at a flea market for about 6.00 total. I started the two bowls at 6.99, and the pitcher at 9.99. They sat for about 5 days, and then the miracle happened, one of the numbers in the "Items I'm selling" had turned green! By the end of that day all three were green, and on the 7th day lo and behold, the three items totalled over 60 dollars. That was it, I knew then this was for me!

My First Jump!

Many years ago I found an unmarked piece of corn pottery at a flea market. It was the nicest pottery item I had ever seen.
Around the time we were buying this house I started hearing about the famous auction site, and the goings on with flea market type finds.
I became the last person I knew to buy a computer.
I found the type of corn pottery I had (Stanfordware) and in the course of bidding on the various pieces of cornware, I guess I crossed my Rubicon! Life has never been the same since!