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In terms of my cost versus the original buyer’s cost, this opened box of 2023 Futera XI Barcelona soccer has to be one of my greatest pickups ever. My cost was $12 including shipping, but the sealed box would have cost the original buyer something like $200 and inside they got one jumbo gold framed card. If their box had a card of the young phenom Lamine Yamal, it would have sold for a cool $1000. Instead their box had Inaki Pena, who sold for $9.50 (to me!) minus whatever they paid in consignment fees. Not great, Bob! But their loss is my gain. This is a very niche card set (jumbo gold framed Spanish soccer), so I’m honestly not sure whether I’ll make $20 or $100. But I’m confident. This is not a good item to sell at auction and the original listing was wacky. Title was goofy and show the damn card in the first picture! It’s not rocket science…but for consignment sellers, quantity trumps quality in terms of listings.
I’ve continued to pick up Portland minor league baseball and hockey photos and books (mostly for $5 or less) as a specific consignment seller has been trickling out new auctions every day or two, and my favorite this week was this team signed 1967 Portland Buckaroos photo. It wasn’t cheap at $30, but my experience with these types of items is: slow dimes but worth holding for the right buyer. This has been one of my favorite buys this year. I am filling up a bin with vintage Portland sports memorabilia and it’s going to be a blast getting it all listed. I have some death piles ahead of it in the queue. But we’re getting there!
I don’t usually buy trading card supplies to resell, but this flat rate box of mags, or magnetic cases, was from one of the regular sellers I buy from every week and ended for about half the going rate. I can usually sell mags for about $1.50 each in a bulk lot, and I was thinking with Q4 approaching that I would like to try and list boxes of mags in two different quantities — 20 for $50 and 50 for $100, something like that. I don’t like to ship in mags because the cards can move around, but a lot of collectors like to display their cards in mags. They are nicer than a regular hard case (a toploader) and less expensive than getting a card graded. But new mags cost $3 and up new, depending on thickness. Modern card collecting is unbelievably expensive, but there are so many inefficiencies in the market and opportunities to make a profit. I think that’s a big part why the hobby transformed from something marketed to kids to something marketed to adults.
Finally, my big buy for my card consignment business this week was this lot of 14 Derek Curiel autographs for $25. He was going to be one of the first round picks in the MLB draft this past July, but chose to go to college and play at the prestigious LSU baseball program instead. So he won’t be in the pros for at least two or three years, but his autographs are typically selling for about $5 each right now. I was stunned to win this lot. I’ll price a few of these autos to sell right now, a few to sell if he has a hot start next spring, and I’ll price a few to the moon. If it all works out, I’ll make a few hundred bucks on my $25 investment. If it doesn’t, I won’t lose much even with consignment fees. That’s the game I play each and every week, and I am always trying to learn something new every day. I had no idea who Derek Curiel was a week ago, but now I have one more name to file away from the 2026 MLB draft. If Derek only becomes average, or gets injured and doesn’t make it, I might never think about him again. Or maybe he’ll be a #1 draft pick and this will become one of my best buys ever. No matter what, Derek, we’ll always have this post.
What did you find this week?
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This week I had fun thrifting for my youngest kids’ new apartment. Really flexing my expert bargain hunting skills. I bought a fair amount of kitchen stuff from one of the indy thrifts. Then I went to Target to supplement, and each little item I got for $1-2 is $8-30. Got a couple things at Costco and a great deal on dishes at Macys clearance. The thrift prices in dishes (all price individually) is absurd. Plus, pulled a couple of Ebay preowned items from my inventory. So much easier when they are local to save a lot of money. I wasn’t confident she would move out when the college recycle sale happened, otherwise I could have saved even more.
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This weekend was the big city wide yard sale near me. While I did fill the back of my van, it felt kind of disappointing. The most prevalent items were good shoes- filled an entire bin with the shoes I bought. I didn’t get any video game, toys, or electronic stuff.
At one sale I bought a BUNCH of gallon size vintage beer can party kegs. Including the smaller ones there were 24 items for $40. They’re worth about $25-30 each after I did some quick research. I listed one that I couldn’t find comps on for $100 just for giggles.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266945984152
Hoepfner Pilsner Beer Mini Party Keg Can 4 Liter Vintage
At the same sale I got a bunch of Dale Earnhardt stuff. There were no prices and I didn’t really want it. My gut identified the two pieces most likely to be valuable, the rest were likely low STR and $20 or less. He asked for $30 for everything – I can deal with that.
My gut was correct – the two I suspected were valuable had good STR and worth about $50-60 each:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266945983749
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266945982435
There is one more worth $50 I haven’t listed yet, then the rest will sell for $15-25. I priced at the low end of comps to help spur sales since the STR is bad on the rest.
I got to talking with the guy and explained I planned to sell everything on ebay. He asked if there was anything else I was looking for and I explained I was hoping he had some of the cone top beer cans. His eyes lit up and he said he had about 50 of them up in his man cave. If you don’t know, I suggest you do a quick google search for “cone top beer can”.
He knows they are worth some good coin. I told him if he ever decides to sell them to give me a call. We exchanged numbers so fingers crossed! If there ever was a deal I would consider doing commission sales, this one would be it.
The big winner from the scavenging week was this BMW headlight I picked up for $5.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266945984968
BMW 3 Series 328i 340i Right Passenger Side Halogen Headlight 2016-2018 OEM 16
My only regret is that they only had the one headlight. LOL!
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Kind of a non-scavenge from a couple of Saturdays ago:
Four watercolours, comprising one on a gunboat in WWII, Firemen, orchestra and propaganda, unframed
So, what’s in this lot is two amateur watercolours, one errmm… man climbing out of a bush, and a drawing of a motor torpedo boat. The “gunboat” painting is close to the style of John Nash, who was appointed as a war artist to the Admiralty in WWII. Close, similar palette, but I wasn’t sure- so I left a bid of £80 ($100). It went for £200, so at least two other people spotted it. Damn!
Never did work out what kind of MTB it was- the two torpedo tubes poking through the bow are unusual. The guns to the left are four Vickers machine guns in one mount.
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