Home › Forums › Buying and Selling › Scavenge/Sale of the Week › Scavenge of the week August 11-17, 2024
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Antique Frog.
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08/19/2024 at 4:50 pm #103778
Picked up another pile of sports books for the death piles, this time a large lot of 1960s to 1980s NFL media guides for about $45 total, or less than $2 a pop. I snagged a pair of expensive graded gem mint cards of the great Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman in the same order, and I know those cards (plus a few others) will cover the cost of my entire order plus enough to put food on the table, so to speak. So I’m basically playing with house money on these media guides, and I am really optimistic that I’m going to do well on these. There are so many Terapeak solds in the $20 (and up!) range for these media guides, even the ones from the 80s. There are a few active listings and they basically all have watchers, even guides with notable damage. This is really interesting to me because the 1980s and early 1990s is the era of junk for trading cards. But I can see why that isn’t the case for these media guides. You get a historical record of these championship games, some of them iconic victories (or defeats) in the history of specific teams, so team collectors will be into them. Plus, if they make media guides now, they must look and feel very modern, and these don’t. So add another new type of listing to my future store repertoire. I really want to get these listed in the next few weeks with football season starting up.
Speaking of the junk era for cards, I won this auction of 1991 Ken Griffey Jr. PSA graded cards for about $6/card including combined shipping. These are perfect to send to consignment and then, very likely, to a live auction. These cards would sell for about $1 each ungraded, but graded cards of star players typically get $10 to $20 in a live auction. I don’t personally see the value in cards from this era that were literally printed in the millions, even in a high grade, with a very few exceptions for regional issues or error cards like the 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken F-face card. But I have realized this year that most people involved with cards think differently than I do, and I have gotten more comfortable buying cards like this Griffeys and flipping them quickly. Profit is profit.
This particular seller combines shipping on bulky items for very cheap, despite high posted rates on the individual auctions, so that’s how I end up winning items like this Nolan Hickman signed basketball for the $0.99 opening bid. My real COGS is $8. Hickman is one of the stars on the Gonzaga college basketball team which is a perennial contender in March Madness, and the signature has a COA from Upper Deck, one of the big card and memorabilia manufacturers. There’s one sold Hickman signed ball at $100 and a bunch of active listings at $100 or above it. I still don’t love photographing, listing, packing and shipping bulky items like this, but this looks like it will net me an easy $40 or $50, and I love that.
What did you find this week?
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08/19/2024 at 7:22 pm #103780
My favorite scavenge this week was at the flea market. Randomly two different guys had new linens. https://www.ebay.com/itm/235700338867 Got 6 of these https://www.ebay.com/itm/335534098481
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08/20/2024 at 11:47 am #103787
I only bought a couple things this week.
One was a Playstation 3 and a stack of games. I overpaid at $100 as I screwed up and thought NCAA 12 Football was worth money. I knew better – I just had my excited blinders on LOL!
This deal worked out fine though as the PS3 bundle I created has already sold for full price at $150. I still have several other games that were listed individually so my total sales from this one will be close to $200.
In hindsight I should have never bought this lot. All’s well that ends well as it is already quite profitable!
The other item I bought at yard sales was a bag of Blaze and the Monster Machines Die cast cars for $5. How I handle a bulk pickup like this is that I will use google lens to identify each one and do a quick search to check for rarer/valuable individual cars. Anything with a good STR or sales price will get listed during the research. Any low STR/low value or damaged cars will get set aside for a bulk listing.
In this case I individually listed 6 of them for a total of $83 and then a lot of 6 commons for $26. There was one car that will be a near insta sale at $20.
One other scavenge this reminded me of from the previous week that got lost in the shuffle was a box of Pixar Planes Die cast planes. I love getting Pixar Cars die cast, but I like the Planes figures more! There are less of them and they sell great. There are a couple really good ones in this box as well. If I get to them this week I’ll share some listings.
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08/20/2024 at 2:39 pm #103788
Picked up two pounds of white jade carved into the shape of a Chinese cabbage (bok choy) for £4 ($5) from a local thrift “superstore”. Judging by the style of box it’s in, the intricately-carved brassica dates from the 1980s. There’s lots of them on eBay, ranging from £140 up to £1,500- and no solds! Not surprised.
The same superstore now has a notice on the door refusing further donations as they’re full, and also stating that abuse will not be tolerated. Abusive would-be donors?
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