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I may have had a brutal week of selling on eBay last week, but it was an outstanding week for buying and I’m grateful that I had the cashflow to pick up some really good deals.
My favorite single card purchase of the week, by far, and maybe of the year, was this Jack Ruby relic card from 2014 Panini Golden Age, one of my favorite modern sport and non-sport sets. Back and to the left…!
I really hit the jackpot with some card lot purchases last week. This lot of 1/1 football proofs at about $1 each was about half of what I hoped to pay, and these numbered Press Pass baseball cards will only run me about $0.10 each and I won a few of these lots. A good amount of these cards will go into my 10 card team lots which I sell for about $2.50 to $3.00 per card, most of the rest will go to consignment where I’ll aim to make a buck or two profit on each card, and I’m sure a few will end up in a random box that I won’t do anything with for a few months. And that’s a little window into how I keep my reselling business going week after week.
I might have overpaid by a few bucks on this Ichiro commemorative 3000 hits hardcover book. Not a ton of Terapeak sales data since the book was made in Japan, but I know the market for Ichiro cards and memorabilia is strong, and he was just elected to the Hall of Fame with almost a unanimous vote, so I have a hunch that this will sell for $50+ to the right buyer.
I had a really fun order from one of my usual sellers I buy from. This Ondrej Palat signed Stanley Cup puck will be an easy $25 profit, and probably soon with the hockey playoffs not terribly far away. The same signed puck with the same JSA certification sold on February 3rd for $52, and the auction I won last week went for $5.02 plus $8 shipping, which comes out to $8 for me with combined shipping. If there’s one thing that is always true about eBay, it’s that $0.99 auctions are a scavenger’s dream.
This Patrick Reed signed golf scorecard cost me a similar amount and should sell in that same $25 profit range. The key for me is getting this stuff photographed and listed. That is where getting on top of my incoming and outgoing inventory, and decluttering the junk, has been such a key for me.
I really played a hunch on this PSA authenticated Concorde flight pass and at $25, it’s at the higher end of what I like to pay for random stuff. But I’ve done okay in the last year with oddball authenticated tickets and photos and other memorabilia like this, and I just had a feeling that this will go in the $100 (or up?) range to the right buyer.
On the other end of things, we have these 1983 Seattle Mariners potato chips boxes at $1 each with combined shipping. These will cost me a few bucks extra to send to consignment since they’re oversized, but with such a cheap winning bid, I only need them to sell for $3 to $5 each to net a $20 profit. And I think I might get $10 each on two of them.
These 1913 pottery cards are the kinds of cards I absolutely love to send to consignment, since a $10 or $15 set can often lead to $50 or more profit when selling singles. The more obscure or oddball set, the more willing I am to dig into the research. And isn’t that one of the best things about reselling? Every day is an opportunity to learn about something new. I would have never guessed that I’d end up buying and selling old pottery cards, but I’m sure these will make me a nice profit six months (or more) down the line.
What did you find this week?
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I’m scavenging in my own garage lately mainly https://www.ebay.com/itm/335817474112
This is a hard to find piece to a popular vintage Italian pottery pattern I should have gotten listed long ago. Paid $10. Not really any solds, someone else is asking like close to $400 but I’m not seeing any serving pieces at that level. Just in case I priced it a little high but with a pretty low offer floor.
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Hmm… R J Lea. “Probably the makers of the first well-known tobacco mixture, under the name of “Boardman’s,” which is still sold wherever English is spoken.” (Grace’s Guide 1935) That’s a really oddball selection of pottery. I guess it’s designed to appeal to children.
It’s funny how tobacco smoking has really died out. Must be almost a decade since I last saw someone searching the pavement for dog-ends.
Didn’t find nothing this week- my car’s Ford Durashift semi-auto gearbox, circa 2003, did what all Ford Durashifts do- die in traffic. When it dies, it also prevents the driver from re-starting the engine. Basically a manual gearbox in which the linkage is replaced by an electric motor, two worm drives in plastic tubes and some kind of computer chip which can only be reset by the Ford mainframe.
So this week’s scavenging target is another car- I gather that’s the cheapest option!
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this will be a combo post since I missed the last one.
I was out last week and bought a few small tubs of radio control Airplane parts and manuals. I had some luck with these before but these parts are all newer so we’ll see. I paid $50 for 3 tubs of parts and one tub of manuals. So far have sold one manual for $20
this past weekend I made an offer to buy a plastic tub full of transformers. none are really that old, I just thought it would be fun to go through them and see which ones are good. not to mention play with them 🙂
and I found a steiff bear in the original box from the 70’s. was priced at $125 and it was 50% off day. I made an offer of $50 which they took. https://www.ebay.com/itm/197027029548
Initially I only saw two listed and neither with the box or all the tags. of course after listing it Ebay decides to show me a listing with the box! damn ebay….. even if I have to knock off 20% on my listing I’ll still do well. -
I bought some cool stuff at thrift last week but I’m too lazy to go through it to pick out the nice stuff to mention. Just know that I did indeed get some cool items. LOL!
Yesterday I saw a Nintendo lot on Facebook marketplace. I picked it up yesterday evening and of course the whole experience makes me question why I bother with FBMP. I drove out of my way, then the person kept me waiting an extra 30 minutes. Had their girlfriend meet me instead of meeting themself. Said girlfriend was apparently ticked off he sold the lot and she pulled out a game. They deleted the post so I couldn’t pull up the listing photos, but I told her which game was missing and she said “oh you wanted that? well I guess I can go get it”. Then she whined more about the fact the boyfriend sold the lot so cheap.
….they lived literally next door to the place I was meeting them…they made me wait 30 minutes….and all they had to do was walk 100 feet over to the parking lot…
In the end I paid $100 for two NES systems (dirty and missing one adapter), 4 NES games (nothing earth shattering, the best game is only worth $20), and one xbox 360 game.
The xbox game is the one she took out and had to go get. In the photos I could only see the side spine and this appeared to be a $70 game – Need for speed Most wanted. The whole deal was worth it because of this game. So YEAH I wanted that game! Then when I got it and saw the front…bummer. This was the “deluxe” edition, which is only worth $10. They appear identical on the spine.
Anyways, I’ll refurb the two nintendos with new 72 pin connectors and sell as refurbished bundles with a game for $150 each. The extra games from this will net me $50. I’ll make about $200 profit on the deal.
Plus, I really like having items like this in my inventory. It’s just fun and fits with my brand!
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That facebook marketplace deal sounds exhausting. It is why I don’t meet up in parking lots to sell cards (or other stuff) anymore, lol.
But $200 profit is not a bad trip. How much time and effort are you putting into refurbishing the nintendos? That ability to fix stuff (or “fix”, sometimes it takes like thirty seconds because the original seller wasn’t handy) is what separates scavengers from jokers.
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I have a wholesale account with a video game parts company and get the 72 pin connectors for four dollars. I always keep a couple on hand in case I come across Nintendos. I’ve done this multiple times so I can change out the pin connector in about five minutes. It makes the Nintendo work like new. I can also get dirt cheap AC adapters and aftermarket controllers.
I prefer to sell these in fourth quarter so I may hold them for a little while.
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That ability to fix stuff (or “fix”, sometimes it takes like thirty seconds because the original seller wasn’t handy)
I just now hit my Durashift semi-automatic gearbox’s something-or-other electric motor with a hammer, wiggled some wires, and now the car’s running.
So… ‘it it with an ‘ammer!
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