eBay Selling Tips: Valuable Linens

My grandmother always had TONS of linens around the antique store and her house. I guess that should have been my first clue that they were valuable.

We remodeled her old kitchen and included that area in her store. I remember that we used the old kitchen drawers to hold linens that were for sale. We had drawers and drawers full of linens that sold on a regular basis.

I loved to go through the boxes of linens and price them with her. I would hold up a piece of linen, then she and I would look at each other and each say a price out loud. When it was the same price we would crack up laughing (I loved her laugh) If not we would pick the highest of the two when we differed. We never differed very much in price. It was amazing!

Then I would write the price on a hangtag and carefully use a safety pin to attach it in a place where it wouldn’t cause damage. It is amazing that I still miss things as simple as pricing with her on a Saturday morning in the summer. She passed away ten years ago this August 2nd and it seems like yesterday.

Sorry for getting nostalgic but I tend to do that around this time of year, especially when Live Boot Camp takes place. Now, let’s get to the great and profitable business of selling linens.

Just what is a linen? I think of a linen as a piece of fabric used for decorative or utilitarian purposes. Usually handmade but many in later times were machine made. When I did a thesaurus search for linen check out all these wonderful terms that came up.

96 Moby Thesaurus words for “linen”: Skivvies, afghan, apparel, array, attire, bed linen, bedclothes, bedcover, bedding, bedizenment, bedsheet, bedspread, blanket, blouse, bodice, body clothes, bodywear, buffalo robe, case, clothes, clothing, comfort, comforter, contour sheet, corsage, costume, counterpane, cover, coverlet, coverlid, dickey, drapery, dress, dressing, dry goods, duds, eiderdown, fashion, fatigues, feathers, fig, fitted sheet, flannels, garb, garments, gear, guise, habiliment, habit, investiture, investment, lap robe, leather goods, leatherware, linens, lingerie, napery, patchwork quilt, pillow slip, pillowcase, quilt, rags, raiment, robe, robes, rug, sheet, sheeting, shift, shirt, slip, smallclothes, soft goods, sporting goods, sportswear, spread, style, textiles, threads, togs, toilette, trim, underclothes, underclothing, undergarments, underlinen, unde rwear, undies, unmentionables, vestment, vesture, waist, wear, wearing apparel, white goods, yard goods.

Then I decided to check a dictionary. Here is the definition:

Linen \Lin”en\, n. 1. Thread or cloth made of flax or (rarely) of hemp; — used in a general sense to include cambric, shirting, sheeting, towels, tablecloths, etc.; as, bed linens “In linen white as milk.” –Robert of Brunne. [1913 Webster]

2. Underclothing, esp. the shirt, as being, in former times, chiefly made of linen. [1913 Webster] [1913 Webster]

I didn’t realize that linen also referred to underclothing until I read the thesaurus definitions. Yikes!!! Well, it will all sell on eBay, so list away.

Maybe I put listing these items off because it reminded me of my grandmother. I didn’t put two and two together until writing this but I think that could be a HUGE reason I waited so long. I still have not opened and listed the 140 or so boxes that we all inherited.

Well, thanks to my wonderful mother we moved forward with this project. She wrote them all up for me on I Sell sheets during a visit six months ago. I finally took the photos on August 1st before we flew out for our 2 weeks in Bellingham. Then, on August 17th I made myself sit and list them all (well almost all of them).

Here is how it all played out. I decided to list nine of the items (linens) starting at $49.99, seven starting at $24.99 and 21 starting at $9.99. That adds up to about $775.00 without any extra bids. Yikes! Why did I wait so long? Well, I think we know the answer to that!

Here are my three top tips to decide the pricing for linens.

1.     If you look at it and go WOW. How did anyone ever make something like this? Or what a beautiful piece of work (even if machine made) or if it has a label, Price it at $49.99 (at least).

2.     If it is heavy and there is a lot of fabric, price it at either $24.99 or $49.99.

3.     If there is a lot of damage and wear, choose $9.99.

In addition to the grandmother factor, there are obviously other reasons that I put off listing these items. There are the measurements and condition concerns when writing it up, the very specialized listing detail each piece will require and the fact that I didn’t know that linens really sold on eBay!

So to help you get over your fears of listing linens, I want to share with you how long each listing took and what my returns were (as in sales…gotta love sales.)

The first five I listed took me fifteen minutes…that is my usual three-minute listing time. Yeah!

The next sixteen I listed took me 100 minutes, but within that 100 minutes I took fifteen minutes to eat lunch (yes that is allowed). So 85 minutes for sixteen items works out to 5.31 minutes per item. Not so bad!

Finally, the last twenty items I listed took 164 minutes. Within that time frame, I did a lot of multi-tasking (like most of us do during listing). I started packing to leave Washington, stopped to answer emails, and moved packages outside for UPS. The list goes on. In any event, I am just going to call it 164 minutes for twenty items or about eight minutes per item. Not my fastest. But understandable for the multi-tasking and the labor-intensive listing of linens.

Bottom line. I don’t care if my three-minute average was compromised. Even at eight minutes per listing, I made a great return on my investment!

Here are my actual sales results. Don’t forget I have quite a few pieces left for sale that I am going to list at (at least) double my starting auctions prices.

Total sold so far is $329.54 ($61.00, $56.00, 2 at $49.99 each, $26.60, $25.49, $24.99, $15.50 and 2 at $9.99 each) and I still have thirteen more items up for auction that have not ended yet. Of those thirteen, four items currently have bids that add up to $49.22. Grand total $378.76. Awesome!

To wind up, let’s talk about some popular linen styles.

Dresser Scarf: A decorative piece of linen that is used down the center of a dresser to protect the wood. Many people then put items like perfume bottles or other collections on top.

Table Runner: A long thin decorative piece of linen that is placed down the center of a dining room table. It is to protect the table and is also used to showcase centerpieces and other serving items like silver tea sets.

Doily: Usually a round or oval shaped piece of linen that is used as decoration on tables, end tables, coffee tables, dressers, sideboards and buffets. They also protect the wood and serve to highlight a pretty vase or other piece of art that can be placed in the center.

Tablecloth: Can be oval, round, rectangular or square. Used to protect the wood and also as a decoration.

Coverlet/Bedspread: The old fashioned word for comforter or duvet. A coverlet is a great traditional term for a linen that would cover a bed for decoration and also for warmth. It just dawned on me that I was the comforter buyer for May Company department stores right after graduation from college. How could I have not known about linens being great sellers? My department (#41) sold over $10 million in comforters and bedding accessories annually in 35 stores.

Of all the linens I listed, the items that did not sell well were the guest or fingertip towels. Maybe pass these up unless they are really unusual.

Good luck to you with linens. I had no idea! Well, I really did have an idea (thanks to Cheryl Leaf). But what I didn’t know and understand was that this is one category that is still HOT on and off eBay. Hip, Hip, Hooray!