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Sometimes in scavenging, and in life, it’s better to be lucky than good. I kicked off 2024 with a nice reminder of that, as this $20 Cal Ripken 2020 Topps x 2131 set purchase had this randomly inserted numbered autograph inside. Score one for the little guy over the big consignor, though with 11,000 feedback and a sizable inventory across multiple sites, I’m not really a little guy anymore. But I’m still figuring things out, grinding away, paying off debt and figuring out what I want my next moves to be in six months, a year, a couple years. So when I opened the box and found the autograph, I did a little cheer and dance. What a great way to start the year.
Instead of grinding out a $20 to $40 profit selling the set, I’ll make an easy $100 even if I accept a lowball offer. This is why I put in bids on this set even if the profit potential is not always huge. Plant enough seeds and sometimes things will grow. Beyond the profit, I like to think that a perk of my life is to ensure this autograph ends up in someone’s personal collection instead of bouncing around from consignor to consignor to consignor, all of whom are so caught up in that grind of inventory and pictures and listings that they can’t be bothered to open up the dumb box and find the autograph nestled inside. What a strange hobby the trading card and memorabilia world is.
What did you find this week?
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I didn’t scavenge much last week but look forward to seeing your items. I did list some of my daughter’s better clothing on Ebay since Mercari has become dismal for sales. She did another purge.
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I’ve never really used Mercari beyond a quick browse here and there but I’m curious, Christine, what do you think has led to the downturn in sales? Are there simply too many different options for buyers at this point to stick with Mercari? Or are the items you used to sell on there (clothes especially) just oversaturated at this point?
Maybe a better question would be — is there anything Mercari does well, or could do, to distinguish it from eBay and Poshmark/Depop/Etsy/wherever else the kids buy and sell these days?
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Passing on the Stanley cup craze. It’s not even a thing here and the buy in is too high.
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@christiner I didn’t know what a Stanley cup was. And now I do… They’re selling them in the UK at 60 dollars for a one-litre (2 pint) mug, which is kind of Munich-beer-festival size.
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Apparently this has already been a thing since earlier in 2023.
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@Craigrex I love listing on Mercari. It’s very quick, no nonsense, and straightforward. Much better than the EBay app. There is also no social stuff like Poshmark to deal with. The buyers tend to be younger than EBay I think but very cheap. Mercari was going ok but they were originally supplementing the shipping prices to help w their US launch. Then over time I think they failed to cut deals with the shipping services quickly so their shipping was high. Currently shipping prices are better and they cut a deal with the very slow UPS version of smart post. Their timing wasn’t great I think due to clothing becoming oversaturated and all of the competition. I think they also struggled a little bit because many US sellers don’t do what they are supposed to like the Japanese sellers do. Mercari is harsh to those sellers. In the flip side, US buyers want to get their way with forcing returns.
Overall I personally really like the straightforward functionality of Mercari but the prices are just lower than I like to get. My listings are very stale on there now. I don’t think Mercari hides anything but appearance is in order of freshness. Mercari is a great app for people just selling stuff around their house.
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I bought a couple of West german typewriters from the 1960s from a thrift shop for 10 dollars (7 GBP). They were priced cheap as the staff checked them out and noted sticky keys- normally they ask about £20 to £25. So it was a bit of a speculative buy, but it appears typewriters are not too bad to work on, so long as nothing’s missing or broken. I did an antiques fair on New Year’s Day with my friend, and she’s up for doing another one so I guess I’ll take them along, after de-sticking.
And then there was this;
left an online bid, which was unfortunately the highest, at £25 plus costs. Says French, but is Flemish, The phrase is the same in Dutch, which is what I initially thought it was, but then I found a seller in Spain who was selling the identical pattern, but in French, and also some Belgian monks who had one in their brewery in Flemish. I have a theory about the roof on the cross- the crucifix represents not an actual crucifixion but is a representation of a roadside cross, which would have a roof. Anyway, guess that’ll be listed in the breweriana section, for connoisseurs of “het Belgische bier”.
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I went to a Goodwill last week but didn’t buy anything. But I do have a scavenge worth noting.
So I picked up this interesting Sony headphone set a while back at Goodwill. Couldn’t find anything on it at the time but it was Sony, it was vintage, and the price was right.
Last week I finally got around to researching it a bit. There isn’t much info out there and there is ZERO sales history. I found the manual and realized I was missing a piece – the wireless transmitter. I was able to find the transmitter on ebay for $20. Yay!
I got it in and tested the system out – it works perfectly. So for pricing all I know is that it sold for $750 in 1994/95. It was a neat advancement in A/V, but was immediately made irrelevant with other rapidly happening developments.
So how does it work? Well like with most high end audiophile equipment, the effect is subtle to a non-audiophile such as myself. But if you listen a while with the virtual setting on and then turn the setting off it is jarring how much more natural the virtual audio sounds. Moving around with standard headphones on watching the tv felt very unnatural. Here’s the thing though – when watching a movie how often do you look away/turn away? Not much. It’s…kind of pointless. I get the feeling it was just an exercise that needed to be done to push technology forward – innovate just for innovations sakes and to show something off a tech show.
I believe I have the only complete unit for sale in the world. My hope is that somewhere there is a rabid Sony collector who has a search set for this item. I suspect that the buyer will be international. Yes, I priced it to the moon. The market (if there is one) will let me know what the going rate will be.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266608801620
Sony VIP-1000 with VIP-1000H Headphones Virtual Phones COMPLETE TMR-IF310
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