When researching this week’s “interesting auction finds and Success Stories” I came across some Nike Shoes. While I’ve been able to get a pretty good deal on shoes at Amazon and Ebay, I’ve yet to find Nike Air Max Sq Uptempo Zm Mens Basketball shoes for less than about $100. In fact these Size 9.5 shoes usually go for around $150.00.  Current bid at Sac Valley Auction is $16!

Of course one of the drawbacks of finding shoes at an auction is the lack of choices to choose from. Other than a lack of different sizes this particular auction seems to be an exception.

​For example this lot has two pairs the Air Max White/white no 386240 and the White /Silver No 698902 both with the original boxes. Both are stated to be “very lightly worn” giving the idea that they may have been just tried on in the store or brought back without really being used. Either way could put your kid in some Nike Air Max shoes at a great price.

There’s also lot 110 Some Michael Jordan Westbrook shoes. Which are going for $200 at store.nike.com and are currently auctioning for $5.00 Michael Jordan Westbrook.

Once again these are lightly worn but with the original box. 

So, as an auctioneer why would you want to auction shoes? Looking at these prices it would appear the profit margin is pretty low! While this is a great deal for the buyer what’s in it for you?

Good questions. Successful auctions need bidders .....

One undeniable advantage of shopping on the online auction sites of estates sale companies is being able to look for buys on your favorite design styles without leaving the comfort of your home. This is certainly true when you are searching out retro design furniture.  A perfect example is this Midcentury modern reclining chair by designer Milo Baughman and manufactured by Thayer Coggins as seen on this Northern California Auction.

​This recliner was manufactured at the height of the Midcentury Modern Design era which is loosely defined as between 1933 and 1965 and is limited by many as between 1947 to 1957, the middle of the 20th century.  

​Milo Baughman was brought in by manufacturer Thayer Coggin in the mid 1950s and is regarded as a highly influential designer of Midcentury modern furniture. 

Auctions are a great place to find rare and one of a kind music instruments. I stumbled across a great find at one of our member actions. A rare 1762 Jacobus Stainer Violin. My wife would love to get her hands on this one! Stainer Violins were one of the most sought after in Europe until the late 1800s.

Unique Features of Jacobus Stainer Violins

• highly skilled craftsmanship, particularly displayed in cut scrolls and occasionally carved heads of lions, angels, or women
• pronounced higher arching of the belly than the back
• Broad lower back
• varnish ranging in color from amber to orange-red, comparable in brilliance to Cremonese varnish​

Recently I was very happy to push out an update to all of our clients websites. This is a new image viewer that actually uses the maximum viewable size on each client's computer. Also it is very easy for the user to go forward and backwards to view the images. This allows the users to see the photos with great detail and large image sizes that fill up the entire screen.

You can try out a sample right now on one of our demo sites.
https://xpertonlineauctions.com

Warren Churulich
Engineer

Sometimes it is necessary to rotate a photo after uploading it to the server. Our software is unique in the way that it rotates photos. If a normal photo size such as 1920px x 1080px is uploaded, our software can rotate it without any loss of information. This means you could rotate the photo an infinite amount of times without any loss of information or re-compression. Normally this does not happen with other software. The way most software works is it rotates the image and compresses the image each time. This has the effect of creating a loss of quality. This is similar to making a photocopy of a photocopy.

After researching this with Microsoft I was able to come up with some great code that will automatically rotate an image without a loss of quality. This is very important for JPEGs. Which is the most common format for images on the web? JPEG.

This update was recently released on all of our clients sites.

Thank you
Warren
Engineer

Recently a new free update was pushed out to each of the clients using Expert Auction Software.

The new update automatically detects image orientation. It will then attempt to rotate based on the orientation of the camera that took the photo.

For instance if a person took a photo holding the camera vertically, then after the photo is uploaded to our server our software will attempt to read special information embedded in the photo/image file that is related to the orientation of the camera. Then based on that information our software on the server will rotate the image.

This has been a great update for some of our users.

Thank you.

Warren Churulich
Engineer

As an Estate Liquidator you understand the need to attract large audiences for your liquidation sales. Large audiences give a better chance that someone will know the value of what you are selling and be in a position to pay a good price for the item being auctioned. People are often willing to pay more for an item that others are also looking to buy. Estate Liquidators and Auction companies that consistently auction their client’s items at a higher price are in demand. While there are many ways to advertise your auction website to attract this large audience, one of the most basic ways is to let the search engines do the work of sending prospective buyers to your auction. 

Unfortunately many auction website designs lack this basic design consideration, the ability to attract search engine traffic, commonly called SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Unlike SEM (Search Engine Marketing), which focuses on advertising on the web to attract visitor, SEO focuses on making your site understandable for the search engines and helping them know what is important on your website.

Choosing the correct Software

Adding the additional information about an item being auctioned on your website takes a little more work and likely you will not need to spend that time for each item being offered. What is important though is that your auction site lets you quickly and easily add that information to the larger and more popular auction items. 

Search engines like Google, MSN, and others use several page attributes to determine how a page is listed in the search engine results and how high it is listed for a given search term. Many of these items are handled automatically by a well designed auction website like we provide to each of our clients. Other aspects can be added by auctioneer simply giving a little more thought and adding a little more information when the more important auction items are added to the auction.

Xpert Auction Websites takes the information you provide for an auction item and ensures that each page on your website has the onpage SEO attributes necessary to help your auction pages rank well in the search engine results. 

Basic SEO Attributes

While not the oddest collection ever found at an estate sale, this collection of 8 swords from the Philippine Islands certainly was unusual and got my undivided attention.

Even though the sword is no longer the weapon of choice and really provides very little practical value, there is something undeniably intriguing about them. I know every time I see a sword it still brings out the child in me and gives me a burning desire to swing it around like an 8 year boy.

Chances are I’m not the only one.

Swords With Character

However, these swords are not of the typical sword design that comes to mind when we think of the swords of King Arthur and his knights of the round table, basically straight edge swords. These Filipino swords have a bit more character.  

Don’t take my word for it, check out the pictures below and see for yourself.

NorCal Estate Sales has been in estate liquidation sale industry for over 15 years, In an ever changing era of technology its was time for a modern approach to estate sales & liquidation auctions, I have applied the Xpert Online Auction method for conducting all of my estate liquidation sales. NorCal Online Auctions is my current market place which draws over 250,000 page view a month. 
I personally use the Xpert Online Auction Software Platform. Let me share how I have increased my Estate Sale & Liquidation revenue. One trick to a successful estate sale or online auction is finding the right buyer for your items, by using Xpert Online Auction Software has enabled buyers from all over a chance to participate in the estate sale without ever leaving home. Everyone has a fair chance at every items in the Liquidation Sale. 
Today 75% of my business comes in from referrals from past clients & word of mouth. Some of the items NorCal Online Auctions has sold at double or triple what you might sell them for at an estate sale. here is just one example.

Original ~ "Stickley Brothers" ~ Oak Slat Back Rocker -By the looks of the condition you might price this chair in a 2 day estate sale for $150.00. This chair is an antique & was made by a desirable furniture designer in the early 1900`s during the Arts & Craft era but the condition left alittle to be desired. Using the Xpert Online Auction method I was able to reach the right buyer and the chair SOLD for $705.00. 

Using the Xpert Online Auction method I am able to keep 100% control of the estate and provide security & transparency our clients. I have estate sale clients from all over the united states that can view the results of their family estate from any internet device. 
The reason I am so excited to share my online auction method with other estate sale & liquidation companies is that it really works. 

We are not a mass market online auction software company, we are a group of dedicated professionals sharing our expertise with select companies all over the USA. 

There is some pretty interesting stuff in this world. Run of the mill doodads from the past and items that were once upon a time top of the line technology. The trick is finding them. You would be surprised at what you can find at Estate Sale Auctions.

While most of the items are pretty ordinary, tools, paintings, future and stuff like that, Estate Sale Auctions are one of the best places to find interesting, one of kind and rare items. We thought you might like to see some of the more interesting items that some of our Xpert Auction Software clients have recently sold on their online auctions. Today we are going to show you five antique items found in Sacramento online auctions.

1. El Chico Cuban Rum

These two hard to find bottles of 90 proof Cuban Rum were found near Knights Landing. 

This rare Cuban Rum produced by Ramon del Collado of Havana was made sometime after the prohibition, but before the embargo placed on Cuba in the early 60’s. 

The bottles of El Chico were found with some age and wear, as well as partial corks, but still intact. That’s right this 90 proof hard to find Cuban Rum is complete and ready to drink

2. Antique Keystone 8mm Movie Projector

Break out the old movies!

Next, we have an Antique Keystone 8mm Movie Projector model r-8. It was also found near Knights landing. This generation of old time movie project saw its hay day in the early 40’s. 

It was found functional, but with repairs to be made. A little work and it is ready to be used to see some good old black and whites.