Newspaper story on ebay. Forum thread. I think a problem in basing one's ebay business around collectibles is that there's a limited audience for them. There's only so many people who collect a particular thing, and after a while, the audience is satiated. Another issue is that time keeps moving on. Maybe some items were rarer on ebay when the bulk of the boomers didn't know how to sell on ebay. But now, they all know how to use ebay, so there's a bigger supply than there is a demand. Of course, another issue is expectations. People expect to make 1000s of dollars a month on ebay, so when that doesn't happen, people get upset.