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I’m starting to get ideas for how my inventory space might look without so much unorganized stuff getting in my way, and one of my shelves will end up as a home for various sports memorabilia. I have two new additions this week, this Dave Robinson signed Packers mini helmet for $15 and this team signed Packers football for $30 plus the few minutes it will take me to reinflate it. Over the last six to eight weeks, I’ve built up a cache of signed and authenticated memorabilia which is now about 15 or 20 deep, basically replacing space which used to be taken up by $1 and $3 library sale finds. I’m much more excited about buying and listing this kind of stuff. I bet this new inventory will sell quite well towards the holiday season.
I’ve been learning a lot about non-sports cards this year, and while I still don’t consider myself an expert, I’ve developed enough of an eye to spot a nice sketch card when I see one. For some reason, almost every consignment seller misses the details of the card that are important to sketch collectors, obvious things like the artist and character. I plan on listing this She-Hulk at $200 and I expect it to sell fairly quickly. But this is a new niche to me and I might be a little off on price or sell-through. It will be fun to see how it goes.
What did you find this week?
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This week I hit a motherlode of 80’s/90’s vintage toy goodness.
So a bit of a backstory. Back in oh 2016/2017 a vintage toy store opened up near me. It was a fun place to take my kids. They always had some cool cheaper toys like transformers minicons or lalaloopsy minis I would buy for my kids. They expanded their store, started hosting pokemon tourneys etc. Then in 2019 their landlord didn’t renew their lease so they could move in a higher paying insurance company. I’ve seen the owners around and in that time I’ve become a much bigger ebay seller. I’ve always wondered what they did with all their stuff after they quit selling – even on ebay. I’ve dreamed many times of scoring their unsold inventory.
So near the end of my yard sale loop I see a sign for a yard sale that said “80’s toys”. Cool! I get there and there is just a TON of stuff! I look around for the seller and sure enough it is the toy store couple. We get to talking, and I explain I sell on ebay now. He tells me to load up a pile and we’ll do some biz. He brings out even more stuff for me to look at and I throw it in the pile. His prices were dirt cheap for what the stuff was. His wife wanted to do something else with a part of the garage so they wanted to just fire sale a bunch of stuff. I get enough stuff to completely fill my van and tell him to make sure to go ahead and round his price up. He says “$100”, so I give him $200 as that just wasn’t enough for all the amazing stuff I had. As I’m loading he gave me a few more items including a board game worth $100 around Christmas time. We exchanged numbers and when he wants to get rid of more he’ll give me a holler. There is ALOT more.
They had a ton of cards too, but unlike you Craig I just don’t do cards.
I’ll be honest, I really don’t know what all I have from this haul. Conservatively it is $2000 worth of inventory – possibly double that. More importantly, I made a GREAT connection that could also tie me into other connections in old toys.
Now in other sales, I hit a rich person sale that was clearing out a garage and attic dirt cheap. The highlights included a silk tapestry rug from Israel, a new in package Ralph Lauren American Living bedding set, and some new with tags Ralph Lauren clothes (of which I’m an expert in now!). The guy gave me his card to call him when he gets even more down from the attic, but I haven’t reached out. I was a bit overwhelmed with the toy haul and…well…I got too much stuff already!
There was an amazing like new vintage cedar chest they wanted $100 for that was worth $600-800, but I just can’t take on big stuff like that right now. It still had the tags and the key still sealed in the envelope. REAL cedar too – not just veneered.
The first sale of the day I got some complete in box Nintendo 64 games and a box of loose NES carts. I love finding vintage video game stuff! Too bad the complete N64 games were just sports games and not Mario or Zelda games.
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I would think with this kind of vintage toy store — there’s one in my small town which runs a small fair every year — the cards are all lower end stuff, mostly Pokemon and other TCGs, maybe a couple here and there worth $5 or $10. It is so easy to sell cards online that I would assume any brick and mortar that’s closed in the last ten years would liquidate their best card inventory online. Then again, I would think they would sell their toy inventory online. Maybe they are just not internet savvy or interested in selling online. I forget sometimes that not everyone wants to go through the “ordeal” of listing, shipping, etc.
If the connection pans out, you’ll have to grab some pics of some of the cards for me. Always impressed by how you make these connections to find these big hauls! Living my dream if/when I get out of the card selling game…
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There was an eccentric guy selling art at the flea market. He has huge cardboard signs out saying he refuses to pay for his storage unit, no reasonable offer refused, etc. I bought a couple of pieces from him, one unframed one sold immeditely at the flea market $10 —> $80. I was so busy I didn’t even look it up but happy to get the flip. It wasn’t in my booth long enough for me to get a picture even.
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Your story reminds me of the outsider art by the late Chicago musician Wesley Willis. I live right outside Philadelphia and some of my happiest times in the city have been when I’ve stumbled across random musicians and dancers and artists in a park or busking on a street corner. A flea market is such an odd way to sell art, but I can picture what his booth must have looked like from your description, and that’s a real character you found. All in a day’s work of scavenging!
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So I’m still plugging away on premium hoarder items during work breaks and lunch. Today I pulled out one of the best pieces from this last haul. Here is the same vest that I have:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/325490066665
Mine is a 46″ chest and I am listing it for $5K!!!
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