Saladmaster cookware lot, 9 pieces, $20.

One of the best things you can do to get better at this business is to learn as much as you can about the expensive brands of cookware you're going to see. And you can start right here with Saladmaster! This company makes fantastic stuff, and has nothing short of a fanatical following on eBay. Learn to spot Saladmaster cookware, and another door to profit will open for you, so take a little time to learn about their products!

The Saladmaster company started business in very early 1947 by a guy named Harry Lemmons in Dallas, Texas, with a product he called the 'Saladmaster Machine.' Saladmaster has always been sold through full-time and part-time distributors who apparently used to get most of their business by just going door-to-door.

With the brand name so well established nowadays, I assume that Saladmaster distributors could actually wait for their buyers to come to them, but I bet that lots of 'dinner parties' are still being thrown to scare up business. The fact is that you can't buy Saladmaster products in stores. And if you go to their website, they'll be happy to direct you to the sales associate nearest you.

Saladmaster is one of those companies that has developed such an incredibly strong brand loyalty that people search eBay specifically for the Saladmaster name, and are willing to pay very good prices, even for the older and well-used examples.

Most Saladmaster pieces have the name stamped right onto the side, which is one way to identify it when you see it. But another way to spot Saladmaster from literally across a room lies in learning what the knobs and handles look like. Notice the Saladmaster logo on both of them. And notice how both the long handles, as well as the short handles, have that downward curl at the ends, and notice how the short handles also have a sort of 'V' shape to them. Sure, the newer handles look somewhat different, but the older style is the 'cash cow' stuff that you're most likely to see for cheap, so learn to recognize it.

It may sound unusual to concentrate on handles and knobs, but if you think about it, without the knobs and handles, most of this stuff, regardless of brand, looks pretty much the same, doesn't it? It's all silver in color and comes in the same general shapes as other brands. Handles and knobs, though, tend to vary widely from one company to another, and are therefore very important profiles to learn!

Of special interest here is that big tall lid, which always confuses people because it's so deep that they think it's a piece with the handles put on upside down! But it's a lid all right, and something important you should note about this lid is that it doesn't say Saladmaster anywhere on it. The same goes for the little inserts - no Saladmaster anywhere on them at all. So, another reason you should know the knobs and handles is because some Saladmaster pieces don't bear a shred of brand marking on them!

If you look very closely at the first photo below, you'll notice that the ring under the knob on the piece in the right rear of the photo has a piece cracked off of it. Also notice that the piece with the tall lid on it is missing the short handle on the side opposite the long handle. This isn't a real problem, because you can buy replacement parts at the Saladmaster website. This is a nice piece of information to know, because sooner or later you're going to run across some Saladmaster pieces that you can pick up for almost nothing because the handles are missing or broken.

Before I list these pieces, I'll remove all the pieces from the stainless steel so I can soak everything in spray-on oven cleaner like Easy Off. The oven cleaner won't harm anything, but will remove just about everything without the need to use anything abrasive. I'll have to get new pieces to replace the missing/broken ones, but that's no big deal at all. I can even buy them on eBay!