What items do eBay buyers/bidders undervalue or overvalue?

I'm not an eBayer but I do often lurk on the site trying to learn about items and pricing trends. Over the years I've noticed some items sell really well on eBay while others bring lower than what I'd expect compared to other venues such as flea markets, antique shops, auctions, and other online dealer sites.

Generally rarer, higher end antiques/collectables seem to do really well on eBay when they are properly identified while cheaper more common antiques/collectables seem to not fare that well compared to other venues. For the better items there is no competing listings to drive down the prices while on more common items there may be dozens of listings for the same exact item.

There are also some categories that seem to have more or less demand for items on eBay. There is a huge following for collector coins & bullion on eBay and the site has become one of the automatic places for internet savvy coin collectors to buy and sell. Other collectable categories have not seemingly built up this type of fanatical following on eBay.

Here are the categories that I feel competent to comment on in my experience. Please add how you feel about certain categories of antiques and collectables in the comments.

Collectables Categories: Undervalued or Overvalued

Undervalued on eBay:
Art Pottery (Rookwood, Roseville, Hull, Weller)
Political Pins
Stoneware & Crocks

Overvalued on eBay:
Coins & Bullion
Art Pottery (McCoy)
Vintage Toys

Your thoughts?

 

Talking used, collectible, and antique here..... Rare, esoteric, and weird does well on ebay. For just about everything else, it is a wholesale venue.

New merchandise generally sells lower on ebay than most other places but it is not a hard and fast rule. On some items, I have found better deals elsewhere.

 

Natural history prints are undervalued. They were very sought-after and well-valued in the early 2000s, inspiring people to find, buy, and tear up old books (for example, Jardine's Naturalist's Library volumes) and then post the individual prints. The market got totally inflated. One of Lear's birds from the aforementioned volumes fetched 20-30 dollars at the height of the market. Today, even his most popular parrots will sit around with no bids at 10 dollars.
Same with the higher-end prints. Another Lear example... I have a Lear parrot that was valued at about 3000 in the early 2000s; I believe I could have sold it for about that on eBay then. Presently, I doubt I could sell it there for 1500.