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That’s because if you know where your item originated it can very easily start a bidding war on eBay, among two or three or even dozens of people collecting topographical memorabilia of all types and eras.

But what happens where you have an item depicting a named location but absolutely no idea where that place is, or was?  How do you determine whether your bookmark depicting ‘Tibshelf’, for example, somewhere in the UK, should be listed under Yorkshire or Lancashire, Argyll or other UK county?

The easiest and usually most responsive way to locate a little known town or village is via Google where a search will normally reveal historical and modern day facts about virtually any place on earth. 

But I say ‘usually’ because there is a major problem typically accompanying place names from the late 1800s and early 1900s, being that many smaller locations have changed either their name or spelling over the decades and, given many small places were inadequately documented in earlier times, you won’t find those places indexed by Google or other major search engines. 

Even today many people collecting local memorabilia might be completely unaware of place names in their area which were common one hundred years ago and are largely forgotten today. 

In my case, for example, even though it’s more than forty years since I began collecting memorabilia from my local area, it wasn’t until a few weeks ago I discovered the village where I live was called something entirely different in the early 1900s.  That means I’ve probably missed collectibles I might otherwise have paid hundreds of pounds for on eBay.

Putting this into context, let’s say you have a great photograph or print (as I actually do have) depicting a farm and church in ‘Tibshelf’, and you don’t know where Tibshelf is.  This means you either list your item blind on eBay and hope someone somewhere might key ‘Tibshelf’ into eBay’s search engine (unlikely), or you work harder to locate some well-known nearby town to feature in your eBay listing and generate interest from local topographical collectors.  Here’s a tip: choose the latter or you’ll be throwing hundreds of pounds down the drain!

The real beauty of what I’m telling you now is that ‘unidentified’ topographical collectibles can go for pennies at flea markets, boot sales, collectors’ and antiques fairs, purely because sellers can’t be bothered to research their item.  That’s where really massive profits can be made by anyone, like you – like me, who is prepared to spend thirty minutes or so researching the location, not on Google but by asking questions in local history forums, on Yahoo’s Questions and Answers pages, even on eBay itself.

As an example, I’ve several times listed an item with uncertain location on eBay and ended by inviting more information about location or background.  In all cases I’ve been rewarded with information from people who genuinely want to be helpful, alongside others just wanting to boast their superior knowledge, but whatever the reason I’ve almost always at least doubled my profits for whatever I’m selling.   

I’ve had similar success searching local history forums (find them by searching Google for ‘local + history + forums’), and from frequenting sites specifically designed to answer questions from members, including my current favourites:

http://www.answers.yahoo.com

http://www.answerbag.com

http://www.uk.ask.com

http://www.blurtit.com

Try them next time you’re stuck for information and you want to double or triple your earnings from pocket money finds at boot sales and flea markets. 

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