I have not spent as much time on etsy as I should.

loading pictures until after Christmas. The set up was pretty easy.

that others shop the way I do. When I limit by category, I miss so many things. Often people post in a wrong category.
In other words, I think you will be fine!

Check the DU Marketplace thread on DU2 for some history.

I sell both new hand-made as well as semi-sorta vintage sewing patterns.

It's very easy, very affordable, and pretty much restricted to hand-made, vintage, and supplies. Some of the hand-made really isn't, and some of it gets deleted when alerted on, but the vast majority appears to be legit.

do they sell well there?

I've only been on Etsy a little over a month. I do not have a big "shop" and I do no other paid advertising.

I have bought vintage patterns, and I have managed to sell one. My goal is simply to get them into the hands of someone who wants them, as they were given to me to dispose of and I'm too much of a hoarder to just throw them away.

They do sell. How well and how often, I don't know. I would recommend, if you have the time (I don't right now), looking at some of the shops that sell and see what they've sold.

An acquaintance of mine was selling quite a few vintage patterns regularly on eBay and has switched recently to Etsy due to the issues with shipping costs and commissions. I don't know what her results have been, nor do I know precisely what kind of patterns, condition, age, etc.

My advice is give it a try. The costs are so minimal -- 20 cents per item to list for six months, 3.5% commission (plus whatever PayPal gobbles) only if/when it sells. I can list 100 items for six months for HALF the cost of a cheap local art show.

store on Etsy and am pleasantly surprised at how well it's going. I've managed to sell quite a lot and there really are alot of customers there (at least in vintage), there's also a lot people who shop there from other countries, I've sent to Hong Kong and London so far and had inquiries from Australia and Italy. Now that I've got used to the site and procedures,I would say it's easier than Ebay. The one thing I don't like is that they don't offer a shipping calculator, so I have to price US shipping by using a faraway zip code (I use California) . So far, so good!

I have been seriously thinking about etsy the last few days. I really need to offload many many wonderful vintage things. I'd like to get rid of my storage space, and moving out stock would be a start.

Isn't it fun to sell 'round the world? When eBay was in its prime I sold stuff everywhere, too. Tasmania, Singapore, remote Alaska, Turkey, etc. etc. In those days I only took checks or international money orders as payment, and I never had a bad check in many thousands of transactions. Most of the items I sold were antique/vintage paper items, and that meant easy-to-ship.

what kind of patterns are you selling? I've only bought things on etsy, & I almost always used the vintage drop down, they've changed that recently, though. I love to crochet, sew clothes, hand embroider, any patterns for those?

thanks for any input.

The definition of vintage depends somewhat on what kind of item it is.
1. A widely used definition is anything more than 20 years old.
2. A second definition is "anything from 1969 or before." That date doesn't have anything to do with politics, economics, pop culture, how well the item was made, or who made it or where it was manufactured. It's because collecting (whatever you can think of to collect) as a hobby began in earnest in the 1970s, and so stuff in its original unopened unused condition from the 1960s and before is much harder to find.
3. A third possibility is "when the item was in its heyday" or when it was first manufactured. Some examples: Barbies 1959-1972 (when the items were made in Japan), Star Wars 1977-1983 (the release dates of the original three movies), Star Trek 1966-1969 (when it originally aired). Keep in mind that many items have been in continuous production since they were first introduced, and many items have been reproduced in the past 20 years; for example, Fiesta Ware, LPs, furniture styles.

I was pretty shocked to find this as I have always thought that vintage was a relatively meaningless term, like "alternative music" or something. Guess not, at least from the US govt's viewpoint.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt039.shtmhttp://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt039.shtm