- This topic has 5 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 11 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
I had the chance to do some scavenging out in the world this week, and decided to take a few trips to my old favorites, the library sales. Wednesday was a trip to a library in Pennsylvania. Their website marketed their sale as the first since before the pandemic. I ponied up the $10 for the preview since I was eager to see what cool stuff they’d accumulated in the last couple years. The answer? Not much! I found a few art books with some potential, but those can be very longtail and they’re all bulky. So one sale might cover the $25 I spent on everything or the art books might end up donated around this time next year, only to end up in the hands of someone else trying to sell them for a few pennies more than I paid for them. Probably my best score was a pile of Jean Greenhowe knitting pattern books from the 80’s. I’ll be watching this auction with interest as I’d prefer to sell them all in a lot.
The next day was a trip to a New Jersey sale I’ve been to before, and I wanted to get there for the opening bell because they don’t let the scanner people in until a few hours into the sale. Happily, I got there right as the clock ticked to 11, and had a nice time joking with some other people in line as the self-important volunteer babbled on for what felt like an hour about where everything was and all the work they’d put in and how they would take you out back and shoot you if you pulled out a scanner. Finally, they let us in, and I made a beeline for the DVD section since the crowds all go to books. I found a few Criterion collection box sets with nice low price tags like $3 and $5 on them, and it seemed like a promising start. Then I glanced down underneath the table and saw another box. Full of box sets with cartoonish font and bright animations —
It was all anime box sets. I know anime can be worth some money thanks to @Retro-Treasures-WV and selling DVD’s off and on for 10 years, but I don’t know much about anime at all.
I played a hunch and scooped up almost everything but the stuff that was damaged or pirated, found the holding area, then found a few more little things browsing the rest of the sale to fill up an entire USPS bin. My total damage was $80, and the box set Berserk Body of War (the rarest of the bunch by far) will cover my costs and then some. The bulk of my profit will be in $15 and $30 individual sales, plus I am going to lot up the $5 and $10 sets into a flat rate box and hopefully net another $75 or so. I should clear $400 profit from everything I bought, and I expect a lot of the sets to sell quickly since there are a lot of complete series. Top 10 score of the year for me, and might end up being my best in-person scavenge of the whole year. I’ve found valuable individual items before at these library sales, but never so many valuable items in one go. It will be hard to top this at the next one!
What did you find this week?
-
I’ve just got back from my second car boot sale of the weekend. Picked up a beer stein made for a Bavarian artillery regiment for £3. This was about an hour and a half after the sale opened, so plenty of people must have seen it, with its neat little field gun on the cap, and passed it by!
-
https://www.ebay.com/itm/334854372850 This was fun to research and I finally found one of the same shape with a totally different paint job. Very unfortunately it has a repaired chip but easy to miss it as I did originally. This is exactly the kind of item I would love to be finding and listing on the regular, but instead I am adding some mundane stuff to my store as well.
-
That’s cool that the one sale doesn’t allow in the scanners initially. Last one I went to you couldn’t get near the books for the scanner people. I’ll have to keep your DVD strategy in mind at the next one here.
I’ve got so much inventory on hand right now that we didn’t do much scavenging this week. Just dropped into the thrift store when I stopped by to drop off a van load. I really had to hold back this weekend as there were yard sales everywhere. I just can’t until I clear some room.
-
-
Sweet find on the Anime DVD’s. I actually have a MASSIVE binder of anime DVD’s I bought at a yard sale that I’ve never messed with. This person had multiple binders full of DVD’s.
They said they threw out all the cases, just kept the discs and now just stream everything.
The discs look authentic, but I’m skeptical enough to have held off. The lack of boxes also hampers value.
My scavenge of the week was a Bernina 2000DE serger for $10 at goodwill.
It did not have the foot pedal so it is untested. I’ve ordered a pedal on amazon and this weekend I’ll have my wife put it through its paces.
If it is broke I’ll either sell as-is or part it out. If it works….my wife will likely confiscate it to upgrade her lower quality serger. If that’s the case I can sell hers! Win/win!
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.