Lords of the Fly 1 Cent Auctions on ebay

Beatles Trading Cards, ca 1964

Hawaiian Odysseus Photo

Special Holiday Fun for our Enthusiastic Buyers

Welcome to our ebay 

1 cent auction!

Are we NUTS? 

The simple answer is: Yes, we are! We're absolutely nuts about our terrific ebay buyers, and at this very special time of year, we're inviting you to engage in some old-fashioned ebay holiday frivolity.

In celebrating the conclusion of our twelfth year on this wonderful global marketplace, we'll be tossing in a penny auction from time to time from Halloween evening through New Year's Day, 2013. So please check back with us often, and let's all have a great time commemorating the good fun days of founder Pierre Omidyar; first employee, Chris Agarpao; and the brilliant President and CEO, Meg Whitman.

Up on our penny auction block tonight, we have...

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And so begins our 2012 holiday campaign on ebay! 

What better way to do so than to go retro with a penny auction emphasis!

Sprinkled throughout our usual store and auction offerings will be a handful of spicy and saucy 1 cent listings. It's a great way to thank our loyal customer base while appealing to the curiosity and sense of intrigue of new visitors to our online site. You can find us at:

http://stores.ebay.com/Lords-of-the-Fly

Penny auctions are the exception rather than the rule these days. Administrative changes on ebay, the topsy-turvy global economy, a more sophisticated and internet-savvy shopper, and a tremendous surge in online marketplace choices have all contributed to a greater emphasis on Buy it Now prices that are set as well as higher starting amounts for auctions.

At Lords of the Fly, a mom and pop ebay shop for a dozen years now, we believe in honoring tradition. That's why we're very excited to provide our customers with a nostalgic, fun, and what we hope to be  successful business strategy--the 1 cent auction! 

http://stores.ebay.com/Lords-of-the-Fly

The penny auction campaign kicked off on Halloween night and will run through New Year's Day, 2013.

Obviously, we're not giving any credence to the Mayan calendar issue. No disrespect to the Mayans or their wonderful descendants, mind you. On the contrary, we'd love to have all interested Mayans participating in our penny auctions. And while we're on the subject, if anyone has the last known Mayan calendar and would like to make a generous commission, we'd love to be your ebay Trading Assistant.

So where's the action at? Right here, at Lords of the Fly on ebay!

http://stores.ebay.com/Lords-of-the-Fly

Lords of the Fly Eclectic $.99 Sale

Abandoned

A Caesar Hernandez Water Color Painting

Aloha! When I'm not lounging around in my favorite coffee shops in downtown Walla Walla writing profusely while sipping on a tall cup of bold or, whenever I feel like splurging, guzzling down a venti-sized caramel frappucino, I'm diligently taking photographs and working on listings for my eBay business, Lords of the Fly.

http://hawaiianodysseus.hubpages.com/hub/Vintage-Us-The-Story-Behind-eBays-Lords-of-the-Fly

The large majority of our sales have been through our fixed-price items in our eBay store. Lately, we've opted to complement those Buy It Now listings--on a weekly basis for now and, hopefully, more frequently in the future--with a nostalgic throwback to the good old days of eBay...the 99 cents listing.

Yes, there's always a risk, more so in an unsteady economy, that we could take a loss. But the marketing psychology behind the move is akin to driving in slippery conditions: Turn your wheel in the direction of the skid!

What?!

Call me crazy (don't worry, I call myself that all the time), but nothing in life worth striving for ever came without risk. Sales have been down these last couple of months, so I'm simply retrieving the old welcome mat from storage, giving it a good dusting, and laying it out there for the global marketplace to tread upon. 

My metaphorical welcome mat--the 99 cents sale--says loud and clear in my language of origin:

E komo mai!

Come on in!

http://stores.ebay.com/Lords-of-the-Fly

So here are some of the items that I'm listing today. First, a mention of the artwork at the top of this post. Caesar Hernandez was a prominent watercolor artist in California. His paintings have sold for hundreds of dollars. My listing of this particular item for a starting bid of 99 cents without any reserve (a set amount that the seller determines ahead of time that is unknown to the buyers, unless the seller chooses to tell them; if it isn't reached, there is no winner...thus, no real risk to the seller) is probably the highest kind of risk I could take with my eBay item(s). Ah, but what the heck? What's life without risk? Besides, read the beginning of paragraph 5 again.

Here are more interesting items.

Collectible Vintage Hershey's Kisses Christmas Wishes Mug

Collectible Vintage Set of 3 Teddy Bear Porcelain Thimbles

Collectible Vintage Duck Figurine 

Collectible Vintage Brooding Hen Salt or Pepper Shaker

Collectible Vintage Bee, Hive, & Flower Salt or Pepper Shaker

Collectible Vintage Leanin' Tree Greeting Card featuring

Norman Rockwell's 1947 Saturday Evening Post Cover--"Family Outing"

National Geographic--October, 2009 Back Issue

The Tallest Trees 

Collectible Vintage Schramberg Cow Figurine

Collectible Vintage Konica Minolta AF Maxxum 70 SLR Camera

With Quantaray Lens 28-90 mm f/3.5-5.6

Dipinto A Mano Hand-Painted Vintage Collector Plate

Venezia Ponte Di Rialto

Vintage Collector Plate

Mission San Juan Capistrano, California

We earnestly pray that our eclectic 99 cent auctions will be a fruitful venture and a great win-win experience for our buyers and us. We truly believe it keeps us entrepreneurially sharp, focused, and motivated to honor the heart of the buyer. Empathizing with our customers  and uplifting their perspective will help us make steady progress on the road to becoming better sellers.

http://hawaiianodysseus.hubpages.com/hub/Im-Tired-of-Just-Thinking-About-It-Im-Doing-It

WANTED: AFLAC DUCK EGG SAVINGS BANK ON eBAY

AFLAC Duck Egg Savings Bank

Hawaiian Odysseus photo

Boredom can make one do some crazy things.

The other day, I rummaged through the freebies area just outside a thrift store.  I don't know...maybe I've been watching too many Storage Wars episodes on TV lately, or maybe what I was able to tolerate of the lackluster Seahawks offense did me in.  In any case, I was bored like a gourd, and I needed to do something.

So I...okay, I'll just say it...I dumpster-dived outside a thrift store.  Except it wasn't a dumpster.  It was more of a table with boxes and paper sacks and plastic bags filled with dusty, dirty stuff, making like Barry the antique aficionado hoping to unearth in all that debris a treasure of immense significance.  

My wife kept interrupting me, showing me some great stuff she'd found inside the thrift store.  It was beginning to annoy me just a little bit because I was feverishly employed in my intense battle with the donated knickknacks.  

You see, the more I get involved in this self-employed (and hopefully not self-delusional) gambit to sell novelty items along with my standard fly tying niche fare on eBay, the more I'm driven to prove a point...to myself more than anyone else...that on any given day, a very determined man can muster up every bit of his resourcefulness and sell another man's junk.  (Okay, this is the part in my daydream where the piped-in THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM music volume builds to a crescendo as Richard Kiley belts out "...To reach the unreachable star!")

Falling abruptly back to earth, and fast-reversing to about an hour ago, I took a half dozen photos and whipped up a quick description and posted the item.  (I am posting a link to the item, but it'll be gone after three months, so I'll just copy and paste the verbiage below as well.)

Have fun!  I did!  And I'm curious to see how the bidding goes on this one.

Ciao!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160672477795#ht_2205wt_952

LORDS OF THE FLY COLLECTIBLES

Presents

CONTEMPORARY COLLECTIBLE

AFLAC DUCK EGG SAVINGS BANK

The AFLAC duck is at it again.  This time, she played us pretty close to home.

It appears that she went dumpster diving outside a local College Place, Washington, thrift store. Since we've been tracking her whereabouts ever since she "dissed" Yogi Berra at the barber shop in that TV commercial, the owners of the thrift store called us to investigate.

We pulled out our forensic investigation tools--stuff we'd found on eBay--and went to work.

And we found enough evidence to indict her of vandalism and littering if she ever shows up in our conservative town again.

She had the nerve to lay an egg in the midst of all the donated merchandise from the locals.  We're now offering it up on auction, hoping some good citizen can make good use out of something she'd left as a poor joke on us.

The egg has a photo of this public enemy next to the AFLAC logo. It is approximately 4-1/2 inches tall with about a 3-inch diameter. The duck must have been eating a diet rich in PVC lately because the egg has a plastic composition.  It is cracked and can be disassembled and re-assembled quite easily. There is a handy slot at the top into which you or your youngster can insert coins.

There is a reward out for this duck, so please be on the lookout. In the meantime, bid heartily, and have a great time!

PayPal is the preferred method of payment.

We will ship to either USA or international destinations via USPS First Class Mail.

Thank you for participating in this eBay listing.  More importantly, thank you for vigilantly being on alert for this rascal little duck!

Why Collectibles? 

• To preserve Americana
• To understand our heritage
• To appreciate our social, cultural, political, and economic roots
• To enhance our grasp of history
• To compare and contrast the past with the present
• To own as antique or contemporary treasures
• To acknowledge the art and artists of yesteryear and contemporary times
• To frame and craft into attractive gifts
• To utilize as decorative household pieces
• To buy, sell, and trade
• To enjoy a good return on investment
• To keep tens of thousands of eBay sellers from becoming chronic couch potatoes

PayPal is the preferred method of payment.

We will utilize USPS Parcel Post to ship to USA destinations.  For international destinations, we will use USPS First Class Mail International.

Thank you for participating in this auction.  Be sure to check out our other items. Welcome back anytime!