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I have a couple big scavenges to report on this week. First, I got the results back from my bulk autograph submission from back in December. It’s something I do every year through the one card forum I participate in. You mail all the autographs that you want authenticated to one member, who sends them off to PSA for authentication and because he’s sending in hundreds (thousands?) of cards, we all get a discount on fees. Other members offer the same service for grading, and I can do that through consignment as well. But this autograph authentication is always a nice money-maker.
It’s not cheap! $15/card depending on who the signer is, and it can go higher than that for famous names. Of course, there is no guarantee that your cards will pass authentication. A lot of people will submit cards and items that they got signed at card shows and signing appearances, but I buy all my cards for this submission unauthenticated from eBay. So there’s more risk involved. A few years ago, more than half my cards did not pass authentication, so I spent money on fees and shipping and got nothing from it. But I did good this year! 10 out of 14 passed, including one card that failed two years ago. I’ll definitely make a solid $250 profit on the whole endeavor, and it might end up closer to $500 profit once I price everything out. Well worth the time buying, sorting and researching the signatures like a detective. I will probably sell these on eBay, since I can make a more descriptive title than the consignment company I use. And I’m going to go even bigger on the next bulk submission in August.
My other big scavenge was stumbling across the annual auctions for Leaf printing plate sets which always pop up around this time of year. This was, by far, my best bulk buy since I’ve started picking these up — 187 plates for almost exactly $250 total. I paid almost twice that cost per plate last year. But this was a function of sloppier listings. The card market is healthy as ever.
I got assorted football, college football, baseball, basketball and hockey players this time. I can trade these in bulk for about $3/plate, but I’ll list 4 plate sets of higher profile players and should make my money back from 7 or 8 of those. The manufacturer of these plates, Leaf, has started using the live auction platform Whatnot pretty often this year, and lately I’ve been wondering if these eBay sellers are picking up these plates from those streams. If so, maybe I can cut out the middleman. I’m going to do some Whatnot investigating of their streams later this week, and see how it goes.
I’m sure I have some other scavengers to report on, but I have an appointment in a bit. So I’ll save the rest for later in the week or next week.
What did you find this week?
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No yard sales this week, but I did stop at a few Goodwills. I picked up some good shoes that will get put up on ebay quickly instead of going into a death pile thanks to my current system prioritizing shoe listings.
One neat item I picked up was a new in box acrylic paint rotating rack. It holds 160 of the little craft acrylic paint bottles. I paid $15 but it will sell almost instantly for $100.
There is a 1980’s Magnavox console TV there that I’m sorely tempted to buy and list, but it takes up so much room! Those old console tv’s with the ornate woodwork and cloth covered speakers can go for really good money to the right buyer.
I also just missed out on a pinball machine on FBMP. I don’t really have any desire to do pinball anymore, but this was a machine that sells for $3500 that just needed a little bit of work and was asking $1k. I messaged within an hour but it was already spoken for. Oh well! I’m kind of relieved.
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I bid on, and got, two fruit boxes of stamp albums and first-day covers for £101 including fees. It’s the collection of Dr K Shallcross Dickinson, who (if he’s the same K S D) became a pharmacist in 1914, filmed the daily life of Romaldkirk in the Pennine hills in the 1930s and spent all his money on British stamps in the 1970s through to 1980s.
Looks like he wasted thousands of pounds. Plenty of part sheets of mint (unused) commemoratives. No Penny Blacks or any other “wow” stamp.
I’ve sorted out the first-day covers which I’m going to give to my next-door neighbour, who deals in that kind of thing. The only way to make money out of those is to be given them.
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