As a test I've switched my sales over to say I'll sell internationally, but they have to wait for my invoice so I can tell them how much the shipping will cost. I don't know if that will spoil the effect, but people who want to buy from overseas know things are going to be more expensive.

I look at some of the precious objects for sale from China and know they have a scam going--the item is listed for $9 and the shipping is $160. Of course they want $160 for the item and the shipping is probably so slow that it only costs $9. But if someone gets in there and bids the item up they get something over the cost of shipping. This is pretty easy to sort out when you see that some shippers are quite reasonable from the same area.

I ended up not selling to the guy from Italy because he couldn't bid since my ad said U.S. only. So that's why I've switched it for a while, to see what happens. If it is a headache, I'll stop shipping to the rest of the world. (For now I can't see a huge market for used American paperback mysteries in Asia or South America--I doubt I'm going to be troubled by much international postage).

As to the bear rug--I've done some preliminary research. There are some sites that will occasionally buy rugs and resell them in their shops or magazines. I think if I did it on eBay I'd put in a reserve price and I'd run it for a long time (30 days) to give buyers a chance to discover it. This rug stays in the U.S. because to start shipping skins is more bother than I want to deal with.

SRS