A few things that can make your ebay experience fun and enjoyable! After being on ebay for 8 years a lot of my friends that are just getting started on ebay ask for advice on how to bid, search, and sell, and here is some of the pointers that I give my friends. I mostly collect vintage toys. I will cover some of the search techniques I use to find vintage Hartlands first, so if you are already familiar with the search options on ebay, you may want to scroll down past the first part on how I use the search options for vintage toys.  After I describe the search options I will describe things to look for when you are buying Hartland figures. When I do my searches I use different techniques for different toys. Some toys ebay has a category for. Here is an example: Hartland Plastic figures could be found under Collectibles > Animals > Horse > Hartland. Other rarer toys like a vintage child's toy stove and oven  would be under a group category such as, Toys & Hobbies> Vintage, Antique Toys> Other Vintage Toys. Now here is where a little xperience pays off when you are trying to find certain items, I will use the Hartland Plastic Company as an example. I would start off by going to the categories and clicking on Collectibles > Animals > Horse > Hartland. Hartland plastic made plastic western figures that were mostly famous TV Western shows, like The Lone Ranger and Tonto, The Rebel Johnny Yuma, Wanted Dead or Alive Josh Randall, Paladin, Broken Arrow, Matt Dillon, Cheyenne, Wyatt Earp, Davy Crockett, Gil Favor, Maverick, The Rifleman Lucas McCain, The Texan Bill Longley, Gil Favor,  and of course Roy Rogers and Dale Evans just to name a few. The sets consisted of a colorful cardboard box, a hard plastic figure, an identification tag, horse, removable saddle, hat, gun, knife, whip, feather, headdress, bow, tomahawk, spear, shield, sword, rifle, and sometimes a whip or a silk flag. Usually the sets have unique hats and accessories that came with that particular figure. But you have to remember that these toys were made in the 1950's and at the time no one had in mind or knew that they would become major collectibles. Sometimes the sets were shipped with an extra hat or maybe even the wrong hat or saddle for that particular set. Now lets get back to searching for an item. If I did not find what I was looking for in that particular category I would use the Basic Search option. http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/AdvSearch?sofindtype=13&ssPageName=h:h:advsearch:US
And enter Hartland into the enter keyword or item box and click on the little box, Search title and description, and click on search (all categories) and see how many hits I get. If it is too many and I want to narrow down my hits, I can type in Hartland and the figures name I would like to find. Example type in hartland matt dillion, the words do not have to be capitalized. Or you can try unchecking the search title and description box and then it will only search the title for the name you have typed in. Keep in mind when you are searching for items, that some sellers don't know
the name of the item that they are selling and don't always put items in the right category. Sometimes you may get a bargain on an item if it is misplaced in a category or misspelled. Sometimes when I search for Hartlands I misspell the word on purpose, I spell it Heartland and do a search for Heartland cowboy or Heartland horse and you would be surprised to see how many times I have found them and get a good deal. After awhile you will see which search comes up with the most hits. I have searched for the Hartland figures by just going to  advanced search 
http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/AdvSearch?sofindtype=13&ssPageName=h:h:advsearch:US
and typing in plastic cowboy, cowboy lot, or cowboy figure, or just type in different names of the cowboy's like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Paladin, Dan Troop, Johnny McKay, Clay Hollister, Chris Colt, Brett Maverick and don't forget searches like plastic sheriff, plastic indian and vintage cowboy or old western figure. Searches like that may turn up items that other
collectors don't find. After you have the basic search methods down you can go on to the advanced  search which has a lot of choices for you to narrow down your search. The advanced search is just like the basic search except it has more options to choose from. Hartland plastic also
made baseball players and religious figures and if you don't want them to show up in your search for cowboy figures list you could enter the word baseball in the Exclude these words box and the baseball items would not show up in your search for Hartlands or whatever you are searching for. You can exclude more than one word if you like in the exclude these words box. If you don't have any idea how much an item has been selling for you can enter the name of the item and click the small box that is titled Completed listings only and you can view the auctions that are over with and see the selling price and read the description. Some of the pictures may not still be there. Another feature is the Items Priced Min Max boxes. You can enter  the minimum or maximum amount that you are willing to pay and narrow the search down that way. You also can search just one sellers auctions or a favorite sellers auction. There is a location box that can be checked if you would like to shop only in the United States or just a certain country. You can also enter your zip code and do a search. For example if the item is heavy and you would like to pick the item up after the auction so you don't have to pay for shipping. You can do a Multiple item listings for items that are listed in lots. I will not cover every option that is available on the advanced search page, most of them are self explained, but I'm trying to give you an idea of how I use some of the options to narrow down my searches. If you check the Show only  Buy It Now items  box it shows items that the seller has put a price on that can be bought at any time. I personally have gotten some very good deals with
this search option. If you check the small box (The Items listed with PayPal) your search will show only the items that the seller will take PayPal as a payment. (The Sort by option) box lets you sort or look at the auctions 7 different ways. You can sort
by Time: ending the soonest, The next option Time: newly listed is one that I use a lot. If you do a search for a particular item every day then all you need to do is click on the newly listed items and it will show the newest item first and I don't have to
go through the auctions I have already seen. The other 5 options is the  Price lowest first, Price highest first, Distance nearest first, Payment PayPal first, and Payment PayPal last. The Sort by
option box is on the basic search page also. Now if you find an item that you would like to watch and bid on while you are searching click on Watch this item in My eBay and it will list or save the auction in a My ebay page for you. Then when you want  to look at the item all you have to do is go to the tool bar at the top of the page and click on My eBay and your page will display. There are a lot of options on this page that are very useful also. You can receive email from eBay in My eBay. This will eliminate the fake email spams that are supposed to be from eBay. Again, I will not list all the options that are on the My Ebay page. There are a lot of options for sellers and the buyers on this page, but the one you will probably use the most is Watch this item option. Now that you have found an item to bid on, its time to do your homework or research on the item and seller. When you go to an auction page the sellers User ID will show up and beside it will be a number that represents the sellers feedback. If you click on the number the page will display that shows you the history of the people who have left feedback about the transaction that they have had with the seller. You need to look at this and decide whether or not this is the type of person you want to deal with. This is the part of eBay that you should take time and read the feedback and make an opinion of the seller, whether is it good or bad or if you think you would be taking a chance of having a problem. Usually if the seller has 100 percent feedback or just a few points under they will try to do whatever it takes to make the transaction smooth and easy. If the person has a lot of negative comments, you may be better off waiting for another  auction to come along. You will have to decide. Read their description very carefully and read their shipping charge. If the shipping is not listed, Click on the Ask seller a question and send them your zip code and ask them for an estimate and any other questions you may have.

Using the Hartland cowboys as an example, you may want to ask them if the paint is original, do they know if the figures or parts have been repaired or if any of the accessories are a repro. If the item is not listed as new or like new you need to ask questions about the item. Most sellers are prompt about answering questions. You need to be aware of what you are buying, if you cannot tell for sure what material the item is made of don't assume, email the seller and ask. On Hartlands one has to be careful that they have not been repaired and repainted, cracked, how much paint wear, condition is a very big part of used or vintage toys prices. There is also a lot of repro parts out there for Hartland sets that the buyer needs to be aware of. Some of the repros are off a little on color, but some of them need to be examined very carefully before you can tell if they are original. The original flags were made of silk, some of the repros are made of nylon or rayon. It helps if the seller knows where the toy came from or maybe it was the sellers when they were a kid. Most vintage toys have play marks on them unless they are new old stock. There are also web sites  you can go to on the internet that gives the complete history of the Hartland Company and show pictures of the sets and what parts go with the different sets. There are also some very good books that list and show pictures of the sets and their accessories. A lot of people that sell Hartlands and vintage toys on the auction are selling there own toys or pieces from their families and do not remember what saddle, hat, horse, gun, etc. came with the toy originally. This is where your research comes in. Just because you saw it on ebay for sale with those accessories and the person says that is the way they bought it when they were a child it is the buyers responsible to check and see if that is how the Company sold the item 99% of the time. The sets that are complete with the original accessories like the company sold, with no repairs, or touch ups will bring a higher price than a set that has pieces or accessories from different sets. An example would be a Cheyenne set.

 
Most of the time, it came from the factory on semi rearing chestnut horse. His

hat is white, but the hat band  has arrow heads all the way around the hat if you look closely.

 
His saddle is tan and matches his jacket. The Cheyenne set came with a brown or silver pistol and a brown knife. The hat and saddle are unique to this set only. The brown or silver gun was used on most of the sets.

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On this set Cheyenne comes with a loose gun and also a gun molded in his hand. Always check this and see if the pistol barrel is broken or has been repaired. Most of time the saddle had eyelet's that had been punched in the plastic from the factory for the leather tie to hold the saddle on.  The horse
had a leather piece for a rein, some of the sets have been replaced with plastic, just another thing to check out when you are thinking about buying. Each Hartland set comes with unique pieces that can be very hard to find by themselves and
very expensive for the original pieces. When you see a set for sale, research what accessories came with the set ( you can find a book for sale on ebay that is all about Hartlands and I would advise any new or veteran collector to buy one.) (There is also a web site on the internet that gives you the
description of all the sets and how the Hartland Company shipped them.) Access the damage and allow for scratches and rubs, but keep in mind if a hand or arm is broken off the price goes way down. Most collectors keep upgrading their collection and the pieces they want to keep are in excellent or very good condition. Collecting Hartland figures can be a lot of fun, but like anything the more knowledge you have on the subject the better you will do buying sets that will continue to go up in value. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and Bullet are a favorite set for a lot of
people, that displays nice in a game room or on a shelf.

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Here is a picture of just 4 hats to show you how they vary in style and some things to look for  so you can tell the difference in them. Some hats do have letters or numbers inside of them. But there are a lot of them that have no letter or number in them.

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Hartland used to sell accessories. If you needed just a gun, hat, or saddle you could call them  and they would mail it out to you.You could also buy them painted or unpainted. Every once in awhile you will see an unpainted item up for auction. The Hartland Company sold their Company to the Stevens Company. They reproduced 6 or so different sets and they also sold accessories that were for the sets and accessories that were left over from the sale of the Hartland Company. The Stevens sets are pretty easy to tell the difference between them and the older Hartland sets. On the Stevens sets the figures are approximately 1/4 of inch  (.250)  larger than the older Hartland figures, because the Stevens sets have not shrunk in size. Some of the older Hartland hats have shrunk so much that the hat just sets on top of the head of the figure. The Stevens paint was usually duller than the Hartlands.
The Stevens Company sold their molds to another Company. The new Hartland company owns the molds and the rights to the name. Check out their web site for new and upcoming horses, westerns, accessories, and sports figures.
There are some other sets from the 1950s that kind of look like the Hartland sets. Breyer made some cowboys and indians sets and they also made a Mountie set. One way to tell the Hartlands from the Breyer is the trim paint the companies used. Breyer used gold to trim there saddles and champ horses and Hartland used silver paint. The champ style horses mane is on the right side on a Hartland Champ horse and a Breyer Champ style horses mane is on the left side of the horse. Have fun collecting and the best way to learn is ask a lot of questions when you get a chance.