Scavenge of the week March 16-22, 2025

[craig rex]

I had a sneaky great week of scavenging, with almost every volume buy under my self-imposed threshold of $2/item including shipping, including a 65 item order with a couple fun random items. The majority of the order was individual cards for my team lots, and consignment port, but the first purchase which kicked off the order were these 1970s Witch and the Chameleon sci-fi magazines at just $3 each. This auction actually sold about a month ago for $70, but I guess the buyer didn’t pay or maybe this consignment seller had multiples of the same run. Regardless, there are no active listings and a few Terapeak solds. These will go in my to-be-listed books and magazines bin for whenever I get up the urge to photograph some stuff.

I also picked up some Insane Clown Posse DVDs and Tech N9ne merch in the same order, all for a couple bucks or less. The most expensive item was this poster signed by rapper ABK for a bid of $3.25 and my favorite was this Tech N9ne belt for a whopping $0.99 bid. It will be a good time selling this stuff if only to answer the question: are Juggalos good or bad eBay buyers?

In the weird card world, I picked up a 12 card lot of numbered inserts which mostly feature subjects who killed people — murderers, dictators, and for some reason there’s an Andrew Carnegie card mixed in there. These are from the 2020 Chaos set manufactured by the Historic Autographs company, pride of Pottstown, PA, and in my opinion one of the best modern makers of weird, unlicensed cards. It’s iffy whether or not I can send these to my consignment port because of the consignment company’s inconsistent “family-friendly” policy, so if not the best ones will go in my eBay store. I’ll double my money just on the BTK and Zodiac Killer cards, and no I did not have that on my bingo card for sentences I thought I’d write about my reselling business this year!

What did you find this week?

[Sharyn]

@Craig-Rex – Jay once purchased a big collection of Insane Clown Posse hats and shirts. He and Ryanne have done very well with many of them being over $100 sales. I think you will do well!

[ChristineR]

https://imgur.com/gallery/4Tz5mqc

we made it to the goodwill bins in Boston.  Had just 30 minutes before closing but it was a small bins location.  Delighted to rescue this guy.  He has some damage and his head is kind of floating off the shoulders but the face is nicely done.  Found a Wedgewood creamer and small leather bag.   I found a valuable but heavy antique German lobster serving dish that was an almost.  So fun.

We will go back another time, but earlier in the day.  Interestingly, their bins are priced per item based on type and not by the pound.  We paid about $1 per item.

[Retro Treasures WV]

I actually wanted to try the bins in Columbus this weekend but they must have closed their bins location. I didn’t see it anymore in google maps.

It is obvious which Goodwills in bigger cities have a better ecommerce program as those goodwills will consistently have next to nothing in their stores worth sourcing. Fortunately, not all Goodwills are the same! One of the Goodwills I tried this time I’ve checked my last 3 trips and I bought nothing all three times. It is “off the list” now.

There’s a couple Goodwills I like hitting every time I’m there. I avoid al the other chains as they are way too high priced. Goodwill is CHEAP compared to the other two big local chains – Ohio Thrift Store & Volunteers of America.

Anyways, I didn’t get to go to the one I refer to as the “ghetto goodwill” this time. It’s not really in the ghetto but inside the workers are rude, it is messy, cluttered, and AMAZING. They put everything out at low prices. Definitely no ecommerce presence there. It’s a great place to scavenge ( My wife HATES this Goodwill though, so it is difficult to make time to go to it). When I went to get directions to this Goodwill I noticed that the reviews over the last 6 months kept mentioning that there was a short pudgy dude who stays there all day every day and treats each new cart like the “bins” and grabs all the good stuff. I sooo wanted to go and meet this guy.

The “good” goodwill I did get go to go to this time is also my wife’s favorite. Not quite as ghetto, but close. I even found a Nintendo DS on one of their new inventory carts once for $5 – that’s UNHEARD of for a thrift store anymore. This Goodwill gets alot of immigrants shopping there that don’t speak much English. This time it was much more of an issue. I couldn’t even find a cart initially as there were close to 10 of these folks who had 1-2 carts each sitting over by where they bring out new carts of stuff. Every time a new cart comes out they would swarm it then go back to their spots with their carts. They stay there all day long just hanging out.

Now do I care that they are doing this? Nope. I was just annoyed that I had to shop without a cart for a while. Why doesn’t it bother me?

1. There’s soooo much stuff they can’t get it all.
2. They are mainly looking for stuff to take to swap meets.
3. I’m confident that my general sourcing knowledge is higher than theirs.

For instance, one of them put back a pair of boots. They were Danner womens casual booties in like new condition that will sell for $100 on ebay. For a swap meet those will never do well. But for my legitimate, tax paying ebay business they are great!

 

The Danner boots were the scavenge of the week. I was hoping the scavenge of the week was the Oxygen concentrator I picked up for $6 there, but it has a “needs service” error once I tested it at home. I lived with one of these concentrators for 6+ months when I got really sick in 2021, so I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. I can’t really sell it, but I’ve been wanting to have one “just in case” ever since I turned mine back in to the rental company. If I could figure out a way to sell it, it is worth several thousand dollars. I’ll check with a local rental company to see if this one can be serviced since it only has 4500 hours, but I’m not holding out much hope.

[ChristineR]

https://www.instagram.com/p/DHtJgLOM9KN/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

My cute little Boston vacation hall.  Boston was awesome.  Goodwill prices were lower than here but not really cheap.  The Goodwill bins we only got to at the end of the day and a lot of this came from there.  It was a small one and not crowded but I got an arm workout with their super deep bins full of large junky items.  Not pictured is a few vintage rosewood frames I picked up.  I tagged the sailor painting on imgur and it turns out it’s a listed artist.  https://imgur.com/gallery/rescued-from-boston-goodwill-bins-4Tz5mqc  You can see people’s comments here – they had fun with it.

Someone mentioned this site devoted to bad art – so funny https://museumofbadart.org/collections/

[ChristineR]

@Retro for some reason Google maps doesn’t do a good job with finding outlets.  I went on the local goodwill site, which was quite in needing of updating, to find the outlet location in Boston.  I have also found that Google doesn’t always distinguish between donation centers and stores.

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