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An outstanding week to cap off November, with 40 items sold on eBay across 9 different categories for $1800 gross/$1100 net. I created a 30 percent off Black Friday sale on Thursday which surely helped move some inventory, but sales were strong in the early part of the week, too.
The card business was responsible for a solid 2/3 of my sales, with 10 and 20 card sorted lots leading the way accounting for nearly half my sales figures. Top sale was 5 lots to one buyer, mostly all Colorado based teams.
Top individual sale of the week was this AAGPL signed baseball which had some pretty obvious flaws and still netted me a solid $70 after fees. Bought in June for $20.
This week was my third sale of a Victor Espinoza signed horse betting slip and highest price yet at $40 gross, $31.50 net. I have one more left. I bought all four of these in July for $3 each. Nice $100+ profit total!
Here was a nice longtail flip: this 80s animation cel of Sam the Olympic Eagle, net $71.54 and my COGS was $23. Bought two of these in May 2023, sold one for $50 last November and did a little better on this one which also had a little more documentation with it, if that meant anything in terms of the value (probably not). Sometimes it pays to be patient.
On the other end, this Jackie Stewart (F1 driver) signed book was a quick flip — bought in October, here’s the original listing. $15 net profit as I predicted.
Got a kind of lukewarm positive feedback on this 1970s AFC Championship media guide…
I was a bit surprised how small and thin the program was. Alot smaller than game programs today. But, it was the same one seen in the pic. Fast delivery. Thanks.
…which, I had to take a second to remind myself, doesn’t matter in the slightest because no one reads feedback anymore. Still the softest positive I’ve received in months. With that said, I bought 25 of these media guides in August for $45 and this is the second one that’s sold…which means I’m officially in the profit. I have some duplicates and might try to put together a lot listing and see how that goes.
What did you sell this week?
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LOL! Once upon a time programs were just meant to be throwaway pamphlets to let you know who the players were and have a few advertisements to pay for the printing cost. Nowadays they are sold as “SUPER DUPER SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION COLLECTIBLE” programs. Sold, being the key word.
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I don’t think there is a ton of profit in flipping modern programs beyond the cover price since so much stuff has been digitized and so many stats, etc are freely available online. But vintage programs definitely have some value. More frequently it’s stuff from the 60’s and earlier. I am actually working my way through a pile of yearbooks and programs now and so far, the stuff from the 70’s and 80’s mostly has solds under $10, often under $5.
I think these Super Bowl and championship game pamphlets have retained some value because they were given to the media, so they were not available for purchase by fans (as far as I can tell). I had another one sell this week, so these are starting to pay off. I have a couple with the word DUPE or DUPLICATE scribbled on the cover and I’m curious to see if they’ll sell.
Where there is some value in modern super duper limited edition collectibles is with stadium giveaway items, or SGAs, given away to the first 1,000 (or whatever number) fans. Usually these are bobbleheads or other little trinkets and it’s often a race to the bottom — peak sales right after the game and then down, down, down until a couple months later when sales are in the $20 range. That’s best case for popular items and players since, like with most sports-related items, there have been 25+ years of the same types of items produced with slight variations. I like fast flips with a good sell-through rate, or unique items where I can use my knowledge, so SGAs aren’t the type of flipping game I like to play. But if the opportunity ever comes up to buy a big collection of these types of items, or you find an SGA out in the wild, it’s at least worth looking up.
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I had a similar feedback on some old magazines a few weeks ago: “quite rough but I was warned“.
These antique set of 5 books was a commission from my neighbor (well, he moved out a year ago). The History of the World War was published when there was only one WW to talk about and sold for $75. He said they came from a used book store that was going out of business near his home when he was a kid, and his parents purchased a number of books on sale.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/186022349568
And this was one of his wife’s kinda cool looking wool coat that sold for $37.
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Sharyn those antique book sets were always a great find when I was a regular at library sales. Full sets are usually priced surprisingly low with a handwritten little old lady created sign. No barcodes so the scanner dorks will skip them entirely. It is fun to see some of these books dating back to the 19th century and the topics they cover. And as you’ve found, some sets are still worth a surprising amount of money to collectors. Only downsides are that book sets tend to be very longtail and some of them would occasionally trigger my allergies, I guess from dust or mold.
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I picked up the two volumes of “With The Flag To Pretoria” on Saturday for a couple of pounds. That’s about the Second Boer War (the first is where the Boers introduced us British to guerilla warfare and commandos, the second is where we introduced the concentration camp). Pretty unsaleable. I knew that when I picked them out of a tray of household junk, but I still bought them ‘cos I’m an eejit.
A Great War book that turns up sometimes is “Covenants With Death”, a picture book from 1934, published by the “Daily Express” newspaper as an anti-war polemic. What’s the opposite of BOLO?
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The AI assistant on Google says it is Do Not Look For which would be DNLF. Not as pronounceable as BOLO.
I had to look up eejit as well which is idiot. Seems like the book set of four goes for $76 – $110. Single books go around $20 ish. That doesn’t seem like such an idiot thing to buy, although, maybe the price is higher in the US?
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Well, definitely DNLF images of “Covenant”! On AbeBooks in the UK the two volumes of the first edition of “Pretoria” are £12.50 and then £19. Maybe the four-volume set includes what appears to be a sequel,”After Pretoria: The Guerilla War”.
Another book that turns up a lot is “The Great War Illustrated”, which is bound volumes of a weekly periodical issued from 1914 through to 1919. It’s a sanitised view of the war for the home market.
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https://www.ebay.com/itm/266925936311
Mystery Science Theater 3000 MST3K Single-Stitch Shirt Size XL Crow
I picked this shirt up along with the Metallica shirts this summer for $1. I’ve now sold the 3 shirts that weren’t Metallica for $70-100 each. No bites at all on Metallica shirts, but I am priced to the moon. I’m gonna stand pat on price for those. These shirts can only go up in value over time.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266892006372
Playskool Duracell Flashlight Red Green Color Change Lenses Vintage 1986
Vintage toys will always have a place in my store, but they definitely aren’t the focal point anymore. Paid $1.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266824895899
Trapper Keeper Mead Original Binder Retro Portfolio Vintage Style SUNSET Pink
I make this my sale of the week beause I sold ALL of them finally. A buyer bought 6 of them about 6 weeks ago. They messaged me and asked if I could do the same deal on more. I said yes so they bought the last 17 of them. I crunched them numbers and after selling 51 of these, my total net profit was an amazing…….$90. LOL! When I went all in on these I was expecting to sell them for $20+ a pop. Then they just….sat. I’m so incredibly happy that they are gone off my shelf.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266288051865
Scentlok Cold Blooded Late Season Pants Mens Size 2XL Realtree Xtra 86221
Speaking of bad buys… WAAAAYYYY back pre-covid Dick’s sporting goods would have a huge tent sale every summer. One of these sales is where I got my very lucrative Smartwool socks from. Anyways, they had all this hunting gear on super clearance – 90% off. These were like $250 pants originally. Now I have sold the majority of the hunting gear I bought then and I’m well into profit, but these specific pants I can’t sell! This specific pair I sold for $70 free shipping. I have 3 pair left so I just went ahead and dropped the price to $79.99 to see if I can blow them out this month.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/267001452351
Definitive Technology ProMonitor 800 Bookshelf Speaker (Single, Black)
I picked up 4 of these speakers at a yard sale for $20 total. This sale is kind of a bummer because of the flawed “send offer” system on ebay. I sent an offer and the buyer accepted. I messaged them to say I’d honor the same price on the others, but it was too late – they had already bought the other 3 elsewhere. They thought they could only get one from me.Ebay needs to fix the send offers function so that the buyer could increase the quantity on multi quantity items.
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