Thread: New Guys - Please read

Originally Posted by Sigurd Aaset

Just tried it, and it works. What's the logic behind using that many search words? Seems like half of them aren't even related to straights, but I'm probably wrong, being a newbie an all.

Well, what I do is start first-time searches with just a few simple words .... Then I watch for annoying patterns of repeating mis-hits ..... Then I pick out a word or phase that has absolutely NOTHING to do with straight razors and insert that (preceded by a space-and-minus) at the end of my search phrase and then search again.

This process goes on until I get fairly pure results .... Or I run out of space in the search box ..... which allows for LOTS of modifications like this

ANOTHER THING you can do for efficiency is to use an either/or within parenthesis ..... for instance, (sowbelly,sow-belly), which is the shape of one particular pocketknife, will find either spelling .... That is better than using sow*, which is going to buy you a ton of hits that are not for a pocketknife.

Oh ...... and a lot of people suck at spelling ...... so for a vintage Sheaffer fountain pen, I start off with the terms: (Sheaffer,Shaffer,Schafer,Schaffer,Schaefer,Schaef fer,Shafer) then, I add the space-and-minus for the bad hit items ..... some of by best bargains were because sellers didn't get picked up by peoples' automated searches because they misspelled the brand or item name ....

Once you find a search that really works for you, save it! Then next time just go to "My eBay" and click on the saved search to launch it again ...... OR, if you are hot for a particular item or brand, you can edit the search style and have eBay send you an e-mail when new items that match that search get listed on eBay ..... sort of convenient, because from your e-mail reader, you can launch a new window to look at the new listing without going back and forth from eBay.

I probably just killed all my easy "steals" on eBay razors with this, but hey, I'm selling now, not buying, LOL

daviduthe

In addition Cut Throat razor and open razor also are good searches.