Print Genre - Natural History

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2 Introduction: I created these guides to introduce popular ebay Artists and Genres that are very successful and very profitable niches. In each guide I have chosen an artist or genre and then provided you with all the data that I typically gather when researching a vintage & antique print niche. The guides consist of the following: A short bio of the artist or a description of the selected print genre. A bibliographic listing of the books that the artist illustrated or that particular genre appears. Recent successful ebay closed listings featuring several different sellers, different sources and different illustration types (if applicable). Ideas for Additional Income Streams. Each of the successful ebay listings featured in this guide have screenshots of the actual closed listings, the print/plate that was sold, a description of the particular auction(s), a screenshot of the Addall listing showing the actual source and a potential profit calculation. For the Additional Income Streams, I focus (mostly) on using digital images to create physical products. Each product that is shown in this guide has been successfully sold on ebay by that particular seller. Please note that when using digital content of any kind, it is your responsibility to research whether or not the item is indeed in the public domain and not under copyright protection. Determining an item s copyright is a complicated matter that is determined by the date of publication, the country of origin and the country that you will be selling your items from. For further information visit: The Public Domain Treasure Hunter Kind Regards - Stuart & Deb This guide was created by Stuart Turnbull, Turnbull Media & Deb Henry, DoneByDeb and is copyright protected. All images, layout and information contained herein may not be copied, sold or transferred without express written permission by the author. The author does not guarantee or warranty that the reader will have the same or similar final ebay selling prices, but has performed due diligence and research to verify these prices are typical final realized prices.

3 Genre Overview: Natural history is an extremely popular and therefore very lucrative vintage print genre on ebay. By natural history I mean prints featuring animals, birds, fish, plants, sea shells etc. Because the subject matter is so wide and varied there are many thousands of vintage prints listed at any one time and it is only when you commence your own research that you will begin to understand the vast size and scope of this niche. I have discovered many successful sellers specializing in vintage natural history prints on ebay during my own research and you should save the ID's of the successful sellers that you come across because you can learn so much by studying their listings. Firstly, you can learn about WHAT they sell. Most sellers will quote the details of the source publication including title, author/artist, date of publication and often even the publishing company. All you have to do then is simply copy and paste these details into the appropriate search fields on Addall.com to locate similar books that you can buy.

4 Genre Overview: You can also learn HOW they sell. Do they use auctions with low starting prices or higher, fixed price buy it now listings? Do they sell their vintage prints matted/mounted or simply as un-matted plates? I note from my own research that the vast majority of sales are un-matted which is great news for us. If you can buy an old book, remove the plates and sell them 'as is' you avoid the additional up front cost of the mats and you reduce your time investment which means more time to research new genres and books and more money available to buy them. When you are looking through the examples I have provided in this guide take note of the way the sellers describe their prints, the way they focus on the rarity of the plates and the quality of the vintage printing techniques. The way that they often provide the history of the work and biography of the artist. I note that some sellers include a copy of the title page from the source publication with their prints, this is a cost effective and creative way of providing a COA (certificate of authenticity) and adds value to the item.

5 Other details to look out for: Genre Overview: Do they offer free shipping? Do they combine 2,3 or more plates in one lot to increase the value of the auction? Another tip from my own research is to focus on the lower end of the price band when researching completed listings on ebay (see Print Sorcery for a step by step guide to setting up the special search) What you will tend to find is that the prints fetching the high end prices ($100 plus) will be the extremely rare and colorful bird prints typically by Gould, Audubon, Brasher etc. The source publications are so rare that the Addall prices will often be thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. My advice is to spend your time researching at the lower end where you will find gems like the 1884 US fisheries book featured on the next page.

6 Recent ebay Sales - Fish:

7 Recent ebay Sales - Fish:

8 Recent ebay Sales - Fish: Addall.com comprises of book sellers from several countries so you will often find descriptions in languages other than English. Don't be put off by this as you will often find that particular artists and genres have their following in particular countries. This presents us with the opportunity to buy where the item is less sought after and bring it to the market where it is more popular. I use Google Translate (do a Google search for translation ) and simply copy the description from the Addall.com listing and paste it into the left hand pane of the tool. The tool automatically detects the source language and translates it to your own. This is a perfect example of what you can discover at the lower end of the price range. This book contains 277 plates and is priced at $ That works out at 66c per plate! The lowest price this seller sold the individual plates for was $9.99 (I saw several $9.99 sales although I have only shown one in this example) This book, therefore represents a huge potential profit of 277x$9.99 less the cost of the book which equals $2,584!

9 Recent ebay Sales - Fruit: The 27 colored plates work out at $5.96 per plate. Potential profit of 27x30 less the cost of the book which equals $649!

10 Recent ebay Sales - Butterfly: A certain amount of detective work is required when researching the Addall.com search results and this particular book is a good example of this. At first sight it appears to be exactly what we are looking for, the author's name is there (Kirby), the description mentions the date that is in our ebay description (1898) and the book contains 30 color plates.

11 Recent ebay Sales - Butterfly: It is only when you study the titles and descriptions of the other books listed in the Addall.com search results that it becomes apparent that there are 3 completely different books listed. There is the book entitled British and European Butterflies and Moths (above) published by Lister and Dutton and undated (the seller has guessed at the date) containing 30 plates. Then there is the book European Butterflies and Moths published by Cassell & Co dated 1898 containing 61 colored plates. And finally (to complicate matters further!) there is another edition of the Cassell & Co book dated 1882 which is described as the first edition containing 62 colored plates. So which of the 3 books is our ebay seller using to source their prints? If we look carefully the answer is in the ebay description. The seller describes the title page (a copy of which is included as a form of COA to add value to the item) as being dated 1898 so it is NOT the first edition Cassell & Co which is dated 1882.

12 Recent ebay Sales - Butterfly: The seller is also very specific about the title of the book European Butterflies and Moths so we can ignore the Lister and Dutton edition which is entitled British and European Butterflies and Moths. The source book is therefore the 1898 Cassell & Co edition with 61 colored plates. It is, of course important to source the same book that the ebay seller is using so we can realistically expect similar final values. It does not necessarily follow, however that the plates from the other editions are worthless. In this particular example the lowest priced 1898 Cassell & Co edition is $205 which works out at $3.36 per plate and our seller achieved a final value of $17.99 for 4 plates - $4.49 each. After taking our ebay and PayPal fees into account we could lose money if we purchased this particular edition. The book that caught my eye whilst researching this title is this one: The description is minimal but we know from our research that the 1882 Cassell & Co edition contains 62 hand colored plates. I have included the Amazon description above so you can see why the book is priced so low. The plates in this book work out at 66c each and at this price it represents a very low risk investment perfect for aspiring print sellers who are starting with a limited budget.

13 Recent ebay Sales - Botany: Note how this seller combines several plates in one lot to add value to the auctions. This tactic is certainly effective judging by the number of bids!

14 Recent ebay Sales - Botany: The average sale price per plate based on the 3 auctions shown is $2.70. The cost per plate is 64c. The profit potential on these books is 319x$2.70 less the cost of the books = $656.

15 Recent ebay Sales - Ferns:

16 Recent ebay Sales - Ferns: I have included the Abebooks description below (obtained by clicking on the book title in the Addall.com search results) to show the year of publication which isn't quoted in the Addall description. 72 plates for $ comes to $2.58 per plate. Profit potential at a sale price of $11 each ($66 for 6 plates) is 72 x 11 less the cost of the book = $607

17 Recent ebay Sales - Ferns: Cost per plate is $3.04 Sale price per plate is $19.75 Potential profit is 41 x $19.75 less the cost of the book = $684

18 Additional Income Ideas: Another way to sell public domain images is through curating. Curating is defined as amassing a TON of items (stuff, information, books, images...) and putting it all in one central repository. The sellers above used the Natural History theme to curate thousands of individual images and saved them in one product (on CD). Although the initial work was time intensive, once complete these can be sold as set it and forget it.

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