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selling old pointe shoes...?


Gargouillade

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hi everyone i have been clearing out my possessions recently and have been listing items on eBay. one of the listings were for old pointe shoes as i thought someone might like to deshank them for demi pointes. however, i received a creepy message..

 

"mmm lovely pointes how long you had them and used them for thank you"

 

i was wondering if that in listing the shoes i might have perhaps inadvertently advertised something else...? or to a community i didn't know existed on eBay...? :unsure:  if anyone has any experience with dealing with this sort of thing i would appreciate advice. 

 

thanks in advance

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Weird! I remember when dd had some footwork vids on YouTube a few years ago, some of the viewers comments had absolutely nothing to do with any technical aspects of ballet whatsoever! And as for old pointe shoes ... Uuurrrggghhhh, they're simply horrible.

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I've seen them being sold on etsy to be used as house decorations, because they have the 'real, used' look, and unfortunately there is also the foot fetish thing, which is quite creepy.  I've heard they can sell for as much as you originally paid for the pair, sometimes more, so depending how you feel about people's reasons for buying them, it could quite easily help you pay for new shoes!  I've been thinking about selling my old ones, but was a little worried about getting such messages, and then I thought, well if it pays for the pair I recently bought that came in at £65, does it matter?  I'm still making my decision.

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I thought my no-longer-dancing-playing-rugby-instead-daughter (now 20) had only kept her first and last pairs, until I went looking in her room for a pair of ballet flats for me to wear to adult ballet and found a big box full of pointe shoes on top of her wardrobe.

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I saw some old point shoes on sale on Ebay once.  They were dirty, battered and tatty and clearly not wearable.  I wouldn't even have wanted them in my house.  The bidding was up to £60 when I looked and the auction was not even over!!!  I thought, who on earth would pay £60 for those?  I think that there is a fetish thing for them clearly as the bidding was so high. Very odd.

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hi everyone, i'm glad to find that this thread has given some of you laughs and others a new business plan!

 

i was really freaked out when i got that message -- in the early hours of the morning -- and so have blocked that eBay buyer. (anyone interested in contacting him -- yes, him -- to get rid of pointe shoes is more than welcome to PM me...) i suspected that it might be a foot fetish thing and so thank you all for confirming those suspicions!

 

if i didn't get that creepy message i would still be adopting the 'whatever makes me money' mentality but it's too weird for me now...

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  • 4 years later...

I have sold almost all of DD's old pointe shoes on our equivalent of eBay (no creepiness in the ballet section, thank goodness). I just list them honestly as worn, broken in, but suitable for decoration or craft project. They always sell, usually for £5-10 (they cost at least £65 new here, although the Bloch ones say 'Made in Thailand' on the bottom, exactly the same as the ones I get from the UK when I have someone to bring them over). It's much harder to sell the unworn ones where DD has outgrown them or changed style, and you want to make some money back, but size/fit is so specific that it's rare to find a buyer!

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My DD needs to raise some money to attend courses she has been offered places on....would love to see some of these craft ideas with old pointe shoes as am sure there must be a few pairs I can persuade her to part with (hoards them!!) and she (not I!) is pretty arty. Also be interested to get advice on how to/where to sell finished items & rough idea of how much they go for! I’m an eBay etc virgin.....😲

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Haha love this thread!

My DD isn’t on pointe yet however we also have tonnes of used ballet shoes and was wondering what to do with them.

 

I vaguely recall reading an article somewhere (BBC perhaps?) where disadvantaged children in Africa were donated old ballet slippers. 

 

Regarding where to sell “arty” items - Etsy is a fabulous place to buy and sell of sorts of wonderful items! 

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On 19/02/2015 at 16:49, hopeforpointe said:

I've seen them being sold on etsy to be used as house decorations, because they have the 'real, used' look, and unfortunately there is also the foot fetish thing, which is quite creepy.  I've heard they can sell for as much as you originally paid for the pair, sometimes more, so depending how you feel about people's reasons for buying them, it could quite easily help you pay for new shoes!  I've been thinking about selling my old ones, but was a little worried about getting such messages, and then I thought, well if it pays for the pair I recently bought that came in at £65, does it matter?  I'm still making my decision.

Drat - I just put 50 pairs into the skip 😱

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On 04/03/2019 at 21:00, ashiebashie said:

I would love to buy some new/used pointe shoes for a decoration project for a little girl!! anyone in England??

I have some I’d be happy to send you if you’d like to pm me your address? 

 

Edited by Loulabelle
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Apologies if I’m hijacking this thread as the title is particularly about selling but I thought that I’d do a little research regarding my earlier post (shouldn’t have been so lazy to do so before!) so for anyone feeling a bit squeamish about selling their DC’s old pointe shoes and don’t want them to end up in a landfill here might be a suggestion:

https://gambia-ballet-school.com/donations-of-ballet-shoes-ballet-costumes/

 

 

 

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