Scavenge of the week July 28 – August 3, 2024

My favorite scavenge of the week item this week was sorting through last week’s 2 mystery boxes of cards. I spent about a half hour sifting through the cards after cracking open the two long boxes and found 4 1980 Topps Larry Bird miniature panel rookie cards which will sell fairly quickly at $15 to $20 each, maybe a bit more if I send them to a live auction through the consignment company I use for most of my individual card listings. I sorted out a few hundred other cards to do some more research on. Some will go to consignment. Some will go into my curated team lots. Some will go in larger wholesale lots, which are a new type of listing I’m working on for my eBay store. Then I will still have another 1000 more cards left (maybe more) to work through.

This is so different from my usual card buying, which focuses on cards with unique attributes like an autograph or serial number from a specific set. I like to have some certainty of the potential for a few dollars profit on every card, and some higher, but I am very particular in what I buy. I typically don’t purchase unnumbered base cards and inserts, and if I do, it’s a large quantity of similar set or similar type for cheap. These boxes are just a random unsorted mess. Literally looks like the inventory of a dealer who does card shows where every card in the box is $1. But their loss is my gain…as long as I do the work of sorting it and selling it.

Unfortunately I have a habit of letting projects like this linger, and take up space, and not make me money. I’m going to try and get these boxes processed over the next few weeks. Part of reselling is keeping things moving. There’s always more to buy, more to sell.

As far as what I bought this week, I added another signed full sized bat to my piles: Denny McLain, 1968 AL Cy Young winner for the Detroit Tigers, for $20. There are multiple solds in the $75 range, including one this week, so I’m thrilled with this pickup. How my attitude has changed since the first bat I sold at the end of May, where I barely made a profit. I swore off bats forever at that point! But I changed my tune because I can’t pass up a good deal when I’m browsing through my regular sellers’ auctions. I just learned to get more selective about which ones I bid on.

I really went all out on Sunday night listing stuff that I photographed last week, which I’m really happy about. I got a nice pile of signed jerseys listed. The listings aren’t perfect, the pictures aren’t great, but who cares. The stuff is listed. So, time to fill a bin back up. I won this Adam Oates signed Flyers jersey for $0.99 and with combined shipping, my COGS is about $5. Terapeak solds in the $50 range. I live a short stumble from a South Jersey dive bar which is a Flyers bar through and through, and I’m so tempted to hold off listing this jersey til hockey season, wear it to the bar and see if I can get someone to literally buy the shirt off my back. But that’s how I get death piles. Get it photographed, get it listed. Worst case, it sells and I have to find a new candidate for the buy my shirt game.

What did you find this week?