There's a Sherman choker currently listed on eBay with a "buy it now" price I find a little hard to believe. You can take a look at it HERE. The reason I'm having trouble with the seller's asking price of $275 CAD or best offer is that I am selling the exact same Sherman choker shown on the right from my SHOP AT RUBY LANE for only $95 including Free Insured Shipping! So which one of us is missing something here? Am I, in my usual way, asking too little for a Sherman or is that eBay seller asking too much?
You know I'm finding it harder and harder to price Shermans these days. When it comes to the Siam red Shermans, you know the price is going to be sky-high, whether you're trying to win it on ebay or just trying to buy one. And I sometimes think that each such auction just pumps the prices of Shermans up and up so that sooner or later, like the stock market, there'll be a bubble and when it bursts, watch out for the fallout!
Everyday new people are writing to me asking about Shermans. They're in love with the designer, want to collect but like anything one collects, you still have to be careful to not overpay. Maybe it won't matter today if all you're doing is collecting, but if for some reason, tomorrow you have to sell a piece, it sure can hurt if you overpaid in the first place. I had that experience just recently when I listed the lovely book piece necklace shown below on Ebay and foolishly started
the bidding at $9.95. Never did I dream that the most anyone would bid for this beauty was $37. To my horror, I watched myself lose over $60 on this one because I had obviously overpaid it when I bought it. It was my first Sherman purchase and I was thrilled to later find it listed in Valerie Hammond's "All that Glitters" book. Valerie put a price on it of $195 - $225. I congratulated myself for buying it for only $110. Later, I listed it on my site at SHERMAN JEWELLERY SHOWCASE and also in MY SHOP AT RUBY LANE. Months went by and no-one bought it. I kept dropping the price till it was listed at what I'd paid and still no takers. So I sent it to eBay. The rest is history.I'll never understand why a lovely necklace like that garnered so few bids. I'll never understand why a Sherman authority valued it for twice what I paid and 5 times what my winning bidder paid. But there's a moral in all this: when you're buying Sherman or any collectible designer vintage jewelry, shop around. Get savvy before you start buying up. Watch ebay auctions. Visit websites selling Shermans. Compare prices. Only then will you know whether you would or should pay this or that for a particular Sherman.
