Post by WilliamC on Sept 21, 2003 20:09:24 GMT -5
Greetings All,
Well, it's happened. I've barely completed my first load and I'm already thinking about how to sell something. I've been checking out Ebay and am going to put together a plan to see how much it would cost me to sell something there, then see how long it would take to make enough product to make it worthwhile to start offering, then see how long it will take me to sell rocks non-Ebay to raise the money to buy the Ebay service, and only after this will I buy into selling on Ebay. So before I start on Ebay I need i)enough finished product to make it worthwhile and ii)profit to purchase the Ebay service with. That takes care of the thinking about selling part.
For the buying, I've rambled a bit in the thread Indiarockhounder.com about purchasing 500 kilos of rocks and having them shipped sea freight from Bombay to Mobile, where I can pick them up. I should be able to do this by the middle of Octobler, at least paying for it won't be a problem. Convincing my wife I'm not insane though... that's a different story. No matter how much money we have I don't think she will ever see buying this much rock as anything other than foolish. So I have to figure out how to convince her that I can make my money back just by selling the rough, even before it's worked up and polished. That means I just have to find a way to sell 1/3rd of what I get, or 367 lbs of rough, for the price I pay for it. Assuming I have my Ebay selling ready, I would just have to dive in with that. It would be nice to have both polished rocks for sale, priced by the carat, and rough, priced by the pound. Then it's just a matter of seeing if the rocks can move
Finally, the trading. As I've already found shipping costs to bring rock to me are significant, and without some way to make the rocks themselves pay for their own shipping I will rapidly run out of excess cash to do it myself. But assuming I myself actually start travelling to rock shows and going places and taking my rocks with me, why then I can always trade rough for rough and polished rocks for...that's the catch. I suppose as long as I am acting out of a hobby mentality I can trade polished rocks for mineral specimens and use them as a no-cash way to build a good mineral collection. Or I could trade polished rocks for other types of gems. Or I could trade polished rocks for anything as long as I pay attention to the actual cost to myself of how much they cost me to make and make sure I only trade for things that I would otherwise spend the equivalent amount of cash on, or preferably more. Ultimately I'd love to trade gems for gold and silver coins, so that means I'd have to be able to compare cost of my finished stones in carats to cost of bullion. Right now gold is trading at ~$386.00 per ounce, humm...how much rock would I have to offer to make someone want to trade a 1 oz. gold Krugerand for it? How about...42 lbs of tumble polished green aventurine? How much rough would I have to start to get 42 lbs of finished green aventurine? Based on my experience so far, I would guesstimate about...65 lbs. How much grit and polish would it take to get that 65 lbs finished? How much more would I need to spend on tumblers to make it feasible to tumble that in a relatively short time?
I can see where this rock tumbling hobby can get real interesting...if I let it
WilliamC
Well, it's happened. I've barely completed my first load and I'm already thinking about how to sell something. I've been checking out Ebay and am going to put together a plan to see how much it would cost me to sell something there, then see how long it would take to make enough product to make it worthwhile to start offering, then see how long it will take me to sell rocks non-Ebay to raise the money to buy the Ebay service, and only after this will I buy into selling on Ebay. So before I start on Ebay I need i)enough finished product to make it worthwhile and ii)profit to purchase the Ebay service with. That takes care of the thinking about selling part.
For the buying, I've rambled a bit in the thread Indiarockhounder.com about purchasing 500 kilos of rocks and having them shipped sea freight from Bombay to Mobile, where I can pick them up. I should be able to do this by the middle of Octobler, at least paying for it won't be a problem. Convincing my wife I'm not insane though... that's a different story. No matter how much money we have I don't think she will ever see buying this much rock as anything other than foolish. So I have to figure out how to convince her that I can make my money back just by selling the rough, even before it's worked up and polished. That means I just have to find a way to sell 1/3rd of what I get, or 367 lbs of rough, for the price I pay for it. Assuming I have my Ebay selling ready, I would just have to dive in with that. It would be nice to have both polished rocks for sale, priced by the carat, and rough, priced by the pound. Then it's just a matter of seeing if the rocks can move
Finally, the trading. As I've already found shipping costs to bring rock to me are significant, and without some way to make the rocks themselves pay for their own shipping I will rapidly run out of excess cash to do it myself. But assuming I myself actually start travelling to rock shows and going places and taking my rocks with me, why then I can always trade rough for rough and polished rocks for...that's the catch. I suppose as long as I am acting out of a hobby mentality I can trade polished rocks for mineral specimens and use them as a no-cash way to build a good mineral collection. Or I could trade polished rocks for other types of gems. Or I could trade polished rocks for anything as long as I pay attention to the actual cost to myself of how much they cost me to make and make sure I only trade for things that I would otherwise spend the equivalent amount of cash on, or preferably more. Ultimately I'd love to trade gems for gold and silver coins, so that means I'd have to be able to compare cost of my finished stones in carats to cost of bullion. Right now gold is trading at ~$386.00 per ounce, humm...how much rock would I have to offer to make someone want to trade a 1 oz. gold Krugerand for it? How about...42 lbs of tumble polished green aventurine? How much rough would I have to start to get 42 lbs of finished green aventurine? Based on my experience so far, I would guesstimate about...65 lbs. How much grit and polish would it take to get that 65 lbs finished? How much more would I need to spend on tumblers to make it feasible to tumble that in a relatively short time?
I can see where this rock tumbling hobby can get real interesting...if I let it
WilliamC