Specialized home-based eBay trading assistants will always have their place, but right now the real competition is between two kinds of storefront businesses: franchises and independents
To the uneducated eye, the silver tea service on Snappy Auction’s photo table looked like any old set of silver plate — something you could walk by at a garage sale without a second look.
But Brian Sun, manager of Snappy Auctions in Sarasota, researched the maker’s marks on the bottom of each piece in the elaborate set.
He found that his consignor had brought him a Colonial-era tea service, made by Gerardus Boyce of New York in sterling silver sometime between 1814 and 1854.
Most of the stuff Boyce made is in museums. Some pitchers recently sold for $10,000 each in Palm Beach.
Say Sun lands a $15,000 high bid for the tea service.
His store would generate more than $3,000 in commissions, just for posting a seven-day auction that could be seen by millions of eBay bidders around the world.
“It’s like that every day,” said Sun, manager of eBay drop-off stores on Stickney Point Road and on Main Street in Sarasota. “You never know what you’re going to be getting next.
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