Update: The Wealth Alliance Group has set up a special memorial site for Sue Riek.

Wow. I am truly in shock. Some friends just let us know about the passing of someone very special.

My wife, Jill, and I first met Sue Riek in February of this year at an internet marketing conference in San Antonio. Sue had an eBay business and was there sharpening her skills and expanding her knowledge base. She and my wife and I all joined the Wealth Alliance Group and have spent the last few months working together under the tutelage of Debra Thompson. During that time, we got to know her — not as well as we would’ve like, but quite well, given the fact that our only interactions were via e-mail and by participating on conference calls.

I had the privilege of seeing Sue again in July at another meeting in Atlanta. It became so clear to me what a treasure she was — loving and sweet, sincerely generous. She had her digital camera with her and we had a new friend snap some photos of the Wealth Alliance Group members that were present. Sue was gracious enough to allow me to snag the photos from her camera’s memory card. I posted them here shortly after they were taken.

As an example of her generosity, check out Sue’s blog. Here, she posted a story about the blessing she received when Dave Lakhani did something honorable… and she just happened to be the recipient of his good deed. It couldn’t have happened to a better person.

We’re going to miss you, Sue. Until we see you again…

We told you previously about the armor we listed on eBay. This isn’t necessarily all that unique — people sell interesting things on eBay every day. What was unique was using a proven platform such as a blog in order to promote the listing.

How’d we do?

Well, we’re happy to report that the auction ended last night. We’ve already been in communication with the buyer (a “mate” from the land down under — howdy, Dan, if you’re reading this!). He seems like a great guy. We’ll be shipping his new purchase out to him tomorrow.

More interestingly, however, are the results we managed to achieve on our search keywords. We got into the top 10 (read: 1st page) of results for these words: antique armor cuirass. Here’s some photographic proof for those of you from Missouri:

The lesson? If you’re trying to get noticed, you can’t beat a nicely-placed business blog. From an internet marketing standpoint, this is nearly magical. If you have a business and you aren’t blogging, you’re missing out on a phenomenal opportunity to communicate with your existing and future customers.

For those of you wondering about our traffic, I don’t have any other armor auctions to compare things to, so I can’t speak intelligently to that. But on the blog site itself here, we had a significant spike in traffic looking for armor. Ironically, much of it seems to have come from Digg!

Get busy blogging!

And, by the way, we happen to specialize in getting you off to the right start. Contact us today!

If you can’t wait, here’s a great article we just found from the folks that put together the snazzy new design for Michelle Malkin’s blog.

Well… we said we’d occasionally write about things that might be useless or trivial!

Here’s the skinny on some fascinating armor (breastplate & backplate) that we have listed on eBay. Know anybody who is a weaponry or militaria buff? Perhaps they’d be interested?

We plan to report back on how this process of using eBay in combination with some other internet marketing techniques actually works out. Watch this space!

***UPDATE: This page describes some items that we came into contact with and auctioned on eBay in 2007. We no longer have these items for sale, but you’re welcome to check out the photos and enjoy the information!

This is a fascinating set of pieces we are currently auctioning on eBay. They were purchased from an abandoned storage unit containing a wide variety of antiques and collectibles. These are clearly very old pieces. They are similar to pieces I have seen with dates in the 19th Century, but it is quite possible, based upon the look of the metal, that they are older than that. I do not pretend to be an expert in these matters, however, so I wouldn’t presume to pin a date on them.

We have not attempted to polish or restore the metal in any way (other than wiping off the dust).

Click on any of these pictures to enlarge:

Some Zoomed-In Shots for Detail:

Both of these pieces are of significant weight and have a nice patina of age. Visit the eBay listing for more information.