Kellog's Nurti-Grain tankard / coffee cup

Kellogg Nutri Grain Tankard, 1980, Employee Freeby


ends - Saturday, February 16, 2008

Auction grade: C+

Staring bid: $7.99

Final selling price: $0 - no bids


Up for sale in this eBay auction is a special tankard / coffee cup that was given to Kellogg's workers back in the 1980's. The seller claims that this one is in new condition, and he has the box and paperwork to go along with it. The cup looks pretty solid and would be a nice collector's item for people who used to work in the company, or those that were fans of the cereal or breakfast bars.

The auction title needs a little work. First, the word "freeby" is misspelled (it's actually "freebie", though the other version looks correct if spoken with a Texas twang). Second, when running an auction like this, I wouldn't necessarily mention that this was given to the employees for free in the title. That information is fine in the main body, but I personally wouldn't use it up there. Words like "coffee cup" and "vintage" would produce more search results.

Technically, the name should also be spelled "Nutri-Grain", thought I would also use "NurtiGrain" and bet that many people don't know that it's actually hyphenated. I would also add "1980s" or "early 1980s" in the title. I checked online, and it looks like the actual cereal went into production in 1982 and lasted into the 1990's. I don't know how long the healthy breakfast bars have been in production.

The text in the main body of the auction could use a little bit extra work. Despite a few grammar errors, the seller could have gone into a little bit more detail about the cup. Is it heavy? Is the entire cup made of metal? Does the top part easily detach?

For somebody who nicely listed the manufacturer of the cup and said "I try to describe the best I can", I would have expected a little more detail about the cup than just the height.

I like the picture of the cup. The cup is neatly displayed in front of the manufacturer's information and generic box. You can easily see the nice looking logo on the front of the cup. I also like how the seller tells you which days he ships the products. Seeing that information, you have a good feeling that the seller isn't going to sit around a wait a week before putting things in the mail. With him only accepting PayPal, you should expect your item(s) to be put in the mail within a day or two at the most.

A big negative is that the seller does not list the shipping cost. It's not free (he mentions doing combined shipping for items), but nowhere on the advertisement does it say how much to expect for the cost. Some sellers use shipping calculators while others just use a flat rate.

Overall, this is a decent auction. The title and main body of text definitely need some work, but overall it's a pretty good auction. Not listing the shipping cost was a big deduction in the overall grade of this auction.