Reviewer Rank # 2079

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Awhile back I wrote a review for eBay and I am now ranked in the top 5000 reviewers. My actual place right now is #2079. Perhaps you will go to eBay and find my review and vote. Here is the review.

Inside tip on searching for Vintage& Retired Fiesta

by: skymetalsmith( 339)


I can not add to the wealth of information about buying and collecting Fiestaware that you can find in the books that have been written about it, but I can offer a tip to those buying right now on Ebay! You won't find this information in the books about Fiesta as most of the collector books do not take Ebay into consideration. I found this method of search quite by accident. I hope this is as helpful to you as it is to me, and that you will profit from it. Sometimes Ebay sellers do not do the research before posting an auction. So for instance, they will post a vintage or retired piece of Fiestaware and use a color name that is not the official color name that was given by The Homer Laughlin China Company. For example cream instead of ivory. Uninformed sellers will sometimes post in their title the words "cream", "off white", or "beige". This error is way cool for the collector, because in the keyword search for the item "Ivory" is the correct listing color. "Cream" isn't the official color name, so key word searching folks won't find the item. Instead of searching for Lilac, you could search for Purple and you will find sometimes retired pieces at rock bottom prices without the competition of other bidders searching for Lilac. Once a seller knows this they will gladly list their pieces under the official Fiesta name. Until they learn though, you can buy such things as "cream" Fiestaware for a low price, and resell under the correct name "ivory" for much more money. It is profitable to capitalize on this sort of error. It can also be done with other colors that are not official such as " "blue", "green" "red" and "yellow" because it truly matters in the Fiesta world, the official name of the color in key word searching. The difference in value between a cobalt blue plate and a sapphire blue plate is several dollars, but both plates may be listed incorrectly as blue. Try it, and see for yourself. You can do a search for "cream", "blue" and "peach", and invariably you will get results that most folks will miss because they are searching for the true names like "Sapphire, Apricot, and Sea Mist". You can spell Gray with an a or Grey with an e. Old gray Fiesta looks almost identical to Pearl Gray the new Fiesta color. The old Gray is much more valuable than Pearl Gray. Also try misspelling any color name for similar results. If I give too much away here, I might be bidding against you for pieces I want! So I am not going to teach you how to misspell vintage and discontinued Fiesta colors in this guide. You will have to use your imagination and learn to misspell on your own. How do you spell Chartreuse? This phenomenon only happens on Ebay and online buying. If you were hunting Fiesta at an Antique store the misspelling wouldn't be a factor at all. Most Antique dealers know exactly what they have. But even Antique dealers who attempt online selling just might mislist a piece of Fiesta...or not even put Fiesta in the Title! If they don't even put Fiesta in the title, then their item isn't seen by Fiesta seekers. Happy hunting. Let me know how you do shopping using my method. And please vote on this guide. Thanks.