Telephones for sale.... do you advertise???

[Babybearjs]

I got a call from a friend today asking about having a "old Black Phone"  for sale... its Christmas... so my friend Amy want to buy a present for a friend... SOLD! anyway, how many of you actually tell people about your phones and are willing to sell phones from your collection.... interesting question....

[Doug Rose]

I was told many years ago by an "oldtimer" which I guess is a catergory  I now fall under, "when you want to get serious about telephone collecting, you will sell telephones." "Decide what you want to collect as you cannot collect them all." BUT I wanted them all!!

This was long before eBay or me finding the ATCA. I thought he was crazy. Knowledgeable ....but nuts. Then I thought, how many black 302s or 500 sets did I need. I had dozens. He was speaking from experience that I did not yet have.

Buy to sell. Keep the ones for my collection that I want  and then sell the others to pay for phones I want to add to my collection. I have never regretted one phone that I have sold.

eBay and Craig's List certainly does make it a lot easier than packing up and going to flea markets or renting a spot in an an antique mall ......Doug

[dsk]

I have sold one, so maybe. I have traded some, and I have given away some. No I do not sell, actually I don't feel as a collector. I have a few phones I hardly well see leave the house. I love to take the challenge to get a phone in working order with as little as possible of modern parts. 
I may have some for sale, e.g. a Norwegian (made in Denmark) payphone from the 80ies, a rotary with a pulse to dtmf module (added by me) and a pretty simple external DIY timer with 16 kHz billing signal. As far as I know the only working one in the of that type.  It was fun to get working, but now it works so would like to get it out, and a new project in.  I do not have any idea about earning money on this, still it is rather expensive, ugly (because they always was) and does only accept Norwegian 1 or 5  KR coins from before 1996.  Here it is no market for such things, and with shipping and all it is a limited marked for selling. 

When it comes to collecting, I'm just in the wrong country.

dsk

[19and41]

How are the classifieds here working?  I would imagine they would a laser beam to a target market.

[Dan/Panther]

I was told many years ago by an "oldtimer" which I guess is a catergory  I now fall under, "when you want to get serious about telephone collecting, you will sell telephones." "Decide what you want to collect as you cannot collect them all." BUT I wanted them all!!

This was long before eBay or me finding the ATCA. I thought he was crazy. Knowledgeable ....but nuts. Then I thought, how many black 302s or 500 sets did I need. I had dozens. He was speaking from experience that I did not yet have.

Buy to sell. Keep the ones for my collection that I want  and then sell the others to pay for phones I want to add to my collection. I have never regretted one phone that I have sold.

eBay and Craig's List certainly does make it a lot easier than packing up and going to flea markets or renting a spot in an an antique mall ......Doug

This can be a real problem. Like in my case, I started out buying everything I could afford. NOW I have several phones that i don't particularly care for, and either i suck it up, or take a loss at sale time. Stand back, study, go to shows, ask questions, THEN decide what you want to collect. I narrowed mine down to W.E. Which is several thousand choices. I have maybe 50 phones in boxes in my storage shed out back, that I will most likely never get to, and only hope to sell.

D/P

[HarrySmith]

I also sell phones, As Doug said, to get more phones I want. I sell on eBay, I have an ad I run regularly on Craigslist which has resulted in quite a few sales. I got one customer from that ad who had already purchased phones and wanted me to restore them, I did about 7 for him. He also purchased a Black 500 from me. I keep a phone on my desk at work, with a sign describing the phone and giving a little history on it. I use it as a conversation point but I have had people ask about buying one and sold a few. I also had a customer who said he was cleaning out his Dad's garage and found a few old phones he was going to throw away and asked if I wanted them, of course I said YES! I expected a couple of 70's or 80's 500's. I forgot about it but a month later this guy walks in and puts a box on my desk saying "These are the phones I told you about, enjoy them." He left and I opened a box containing 4 302's! Best result so far!

[Jim Stettler]

How are the classifieds here working?  I would imagine they would a laser beam to a target market.

The classifieds on the forum results in very few sales. Most of the sales are from "Ebay alerts" for phones being sold by forum members.
JMO<
Jim S.

[Jim Stettler]

I originally started selling phones in an antique mall because I spent to much @ a show. Once I realized I overspent, I bought a few more to sell and offset my costs. I kept the antique location for 3 years and wrote off my expenses (at that time I needed the write offs).
The best thing that happened while I was selling, was I met a former ATCA member from New Mexico, He offered to sell the last of his collection/accumulation of telephone stuff. I bought a min. of $20-30K  of phone stuff for 8k, 4k down for the good stuff and the other 4k due after I raised it from selling items.
Among the good stuff was a strowger stick, direct line stick, conneticut Taper shaft, Short McKinley wall phone, a very early gamewell box with guts, glass front MW 2 box, a "Gibson girl" tandem, There was another stick or 2 and a few more  "nice" wood phones, There was lots of misc parts, paper, odds and ends  ect.


I sold the strowger, McKinley, tapershaft, and 1 other phone to raise the 4K. At the next phone show I sold many items cheap and walked away with over 3k in cash and 2 K in purchases. I have still been selling items from this collection on occasion. Since then I have bought at least 6 smaller collections most at less than $1,000.

If you want to build a great collection without a lot of out -of-pocket expense you need to buy and sell phones.
JMO,
Jim S.

The way I value the collection is: Everything is paid for and was bought  with phone money.
I don't like to sell at a loss, but if I overpaid or have an opportunity to buy something better with the money, I will sell at a loss. Sometimes I sell @ a loss just to get rid of the item and the bad memory of overpayment. If I don't see it, it doesn't bother me anymore.

[Matilo Telephones]

I sell Phone. Started by accident really. Years ago I responded to several ads and got 2 positive responses. I felt obliged to buy both phones (same model). So I decided to sell one of them and got a lot more for it than I payed. Instant profit!

Now I sell restored Phone mostly. I like restoring phones and in this way I can practise restoring, learn new techniques etc.

I also have quite a collection of spare parts, which I offer for sale too. I do that as a service mostly, because it often is a lot of work for only a little money. Nobody in the Netherlands offers spare parts and I know how hard it is to find a spare part if you do not have any donor telephones.

In this way my hobby pays for itself. And once in a while it pays for a present for the wife too. :-)