Scavenge of the week June 4-10, 2023

[craig rex]

My only scavenging this past week was online, and there weren’t any amazing finds, but I received a few items early last week which were purchased the previous week and they are contenders for scavenge of the year, so definitely need to mention them.

I won 6 color sketches used by the trading card company Leaf in various trading card sets from 2010-2015, all of them signed by the artist and the sketches have a lot of detail. These sketches were released in packs which retailed for about $100 each (maybe higher) and you received one sketch, but of course the packs have been completely sold out for years.

Here is one of the auctions I won, and you can see the low final bid price as well as all the little mistakes with the listing title and wrong categories. Consignment selling is a huge part of the trading card world, and in many cases it works out well for both the seller and the consignor. But a lot of my inventory is acquired by finding items like this which slip through cracks with these sellers. One listing cost me about $20 and the rest were less than $5, and I will list each of these sketches for between $100 and $200. I can easily understand why a super collector of a particular player or team would pay up for an item like this — it would present really nicely in a frame as a centerpiece for a collection of nice cards of that player, and it’s very unique as this sort of item is not that common (for whatever reason) among ultra-modern trading cards.

What did you find this week?

[Antique Frog]

I bought a 1938-dated shell case, from the 3 inch 20 cwt quick-firing anti-aircraft gun, for £15 on Saturday. On Sunday I discovered that it appears it can’t be sold on eBay UK unless it’s “trench art”, so I guess I’ll either have to develop my brass-bashing skills 🙂 or take it to the auction house.

[ChristineR]

Pretty excited about these items I thrifted last week.  https://www.ebay.com/itm/235040346524 and https://www.ebay.com/itm/334901951987  These fish plates are highly collectible.

[Retro Treasures WV]

So regarding that listing for the sketch. How did you even know what that was??? It amazes me that you have a knowledge base to find all the poorly created listings that are worth much more.

[craig rex]

@retro-treasures-wv

A good question. It starts with looking through every single one of this seller listings. I could tell these listings weren’t normal cards from the lack of identifying card features (no set name, nothing on the back) and the size of the sketches. Plus I had an inkling about the Sportkings art sketches so did a little research and confirmed that these listings matched sold listings of the art sketches.

A lot of sellers who make mistakes like this would cancel the listing after the end of the auction. But I know this seller doesn’t because of the volume they operate at. Sometimes that means I come out on the losing end (occasionally they mix something up in shipping or something is in worse condition than I expect) but that’s all part of the game, and my experience has been that the small victories (or big ones, in this case) add up to a lot more profit than the few losses.

These are on my desk to be scanned so I hope to get them listed this weekend.

[Retro Treasures WV]

So Saturday morning I went out with my wife to early bird from 7:40 until 9. Then we went back out from 10:30-12:30 to finish the second of my normal loops.

Again, the early sales had TONS of amazing things. I cleaned up!

Here is a quick list of the big hits. I’ll get all this listed this week.

• 3 Womens Harley davidson armored riding jackets and a pair of boots for $40 (worth $250+ total)
• A Taekwondo duffel bag full of gear for $10 (worth $75)
• A GIANT set of Denby England Dinnerware for $100. Comps in the same pattern were $10-20 per piece depending on how it is sold. I believe it is about 80 pieces. It’s a pipeline that will take years to sell, but easy to list since every item is a quantity listing.
• Xbox 360 complete mint in box for $20 (worth $125)
• PS2 slim with 6 games for $20 (worth $100)
• Guitar hero fender guitar free as throw-in with pile (worth $50)
• Gaming computer components in original boxes for $15 (worth $200)
• Walking Dead paperback volume set for $5 (worth $40-50)
• Star Wars Millenium Falcon with figures for $15. It was yellowed so I was freaking out thinking it was the original as I walked up. Nope – 2004 reissue. I may part this out due to the yellowing. (Worth $50-75 as is with figs. Would be worth more parted out.)
• Garmin Etrex handheld GPS for $1 (worth $50)
• Case logic 60 cassette case PACKED with awesome 80’s/90’s rock for $2 (worth $100 as a lot, $35 just the case)

 

The later sales for the most part stunk, with a few decent things here and there. So…would the later sales been amazing if I went early? Would all the things I bought at the early sales have been gone if I went later? I think it is a mix of both. The video game stuff and star wars stuff would have definitely been gone.

 

Now aside from the yard sale stuff, we made our regular stop at goodwill yesterday. I scored 2 pair of high end mens dress shoes. One was Mezlan, the other was Bruno…something… Either way, both will sell north of $100. My kids scored their best item so far for their summer ebay sale – an Axe softball bat for $7 – (worth $60-80). I actually bought one of these to hold onto for my youngest daughter at a yard sale last week for $30.

[craig rex]

The later sales for the most part stunk, with a few decent things here and there. So…would the later sales been amazing if I went early? Would all the things I bought at the early sales have been gone if I went later?

This is always a question that I think about. Impossible to be in two places at once as a scavenger but a lot of times sales overlap. But making your choice (even if it is to stay in!) and accepting it is part of having a low-stress scavenger’s life. It is hard to remember that when you really want or need to find new inventory, though.

Amazing that you found video game stuff for those prices. If you had a YouTube channel documenting these finds, you’d have a crazy clickbait title just from those two buys. Ironically, you’ll most likely make more profit from the Harley stuff and maybe the Taekwondo equipment. Congrats to the 2 broke homeschoolers for their softball bat find, too.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Bumping this one as I finally got that Denby China listed this weekend.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/266312073730

 

I sold the butter dish for $70. One single piece…$70. Amazing! My listed price for everything was almost $1600!

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