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I’m very happy with a strong week of scavenging. The most interesting items, by far, were a number of authenticated signed full-size jerseys, almost all under $20 hammer price because the high shipping charge $25 scared away bidders who don’t buy in volume. But this consignment company knows my buying ID well enough that one of their CSRs responds to my eBay message about combined shipping with my name (after I send a second message to bypass the automated response filter) and a thanks for my business. It’s nice to receive this kind of treatment which is why I continue to check this company’s auctions every single week. This week I received an invoice with $25 shipping for my entire order.
This puts my COGS on these signed jerseys around $20 for basketball Hall of Famer Walt Frazier and baseball Hall of Famer Tom Glavine, $15 for current Cleveland Guardians pitcher Shane Bieber, $10 for 1970s Minnesota Vikings Ron Yary and 1990s Milwaukee Brewer Pat Listach, and $6 to $7 for my two favorites, Bob McAdoo ABA Buffalo Braves jersey and the only unsigned jersey of the bunch, Clark Griswold Christmas Vacation Chicago Blackhawks jersey. The jerseys are not the best quality in most cases, but the signatures are all authenticated and these prices are outstanding. I should make a few hundred dollars on the haul without much trouble, and this was a large enough haul that I am going to make a little extra effort to pick up appropriate sized shipping boxes and use USPS Ground Advantage instead of using the long thin medium flat rates out of convenience and paying priority rates.
I don’t think I’ve ever purchased uncut sheets of trading cards before, but I couldn’t pass up Michael Jordan in his North Carolina uniform for under $20 and I picked up two of them. Terapeak solds were lower than I would think, so I will try and send these to the consignment company I use. Hopefully they accept them!
Similarly, I don’t really sell ticket stubs very often, and when I have it’s been for things like presidential inaugurations and not sporting events. But I won a handful of auctions for graded Penn State football tickets under $10. I’m not sure what I’ll do with these quite yet, definitely not something I can send to consignment, but Penn State has a really strong fanbase and I think I’ll do well with them once I figure out my plan.
Finally, an enormous pile of modern low serial number Star Wars cards for about $70 total, or roughly $0.50 each. I’ve been really trying to educate myself on non-sports cards this year, modern and vintage, and it’s led to nice one-off sales of things like sketch cards, but this was my best bulk buy. All of these will go to consignment, pushing my total cost to around $1.00 each, but I’m confident the average sales prices will be $3 to $5 with some above $10. My max bid was almost $40 higher and I think I would have made a nice profit at my max, too.
What did you find this week?
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To comment now on the scavenge of the week, I bought some items in a MaxSold online auction this week. This person was a collector of many type of china, ceramics, and pottery that were really high quality and different. I was outbid on many lots (which I expected), but I did pick up some nice things.
However, I found one surprise just a few minutes ago. I bought what was labeled as Sheet Music & Magazines. I bought the lot at just under $5 mostly for the old Sears catalog, which ended up being a 1968 reproduction of a 1897 catalog. Pretty cool, actually. However, the surprise was menus from a 1962 cruise of South America/Brazil. I don’t know if it is worth all that much, but I just think these will be a cool thing to research and list.
https://maxsold.com/auction/90550/bidgallery/item/6106787
I also bought a camel saddle stool, some china from Brazil, some artist made clay figures, and a regular but cool ceramic set. I won’t have time to list these items until next month, but I’m looking forward to it.
One of the MaxSold reps said that there will be a part two, but I have a conflict and won’t be able to bid. I’ll be watching just to see what else this lady collected.
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My user id is a Princeton reference!!! The first place I ever scavenged at besides eBay. There are a few nice library sales in Princeton as well.
I seem to remember past posts about valuable cruise ship menus. Were they yours? Was it from an old episode of the podcast? Something @ChristineR sold? Somewhere else? I don’t remember. But I feel like you’ll do well with these.
And that’s on top of a great haul. What a neat mix of stuff! I’m going to have to follow this auction too. It will be educational if nothing else.
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Yes, I do recall something on SL about cruise ship memorabilia but maybe years ago. Sometimes that happens; I recognize a thing based on a vague memory that someone made money on a similar item.
The MaxSold lady said that the previous owner was a teacher but didn’t know where. Maybe a professor at the university?
Very cool that the record exchange is able to have a viable business there!
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https://www.ebay.com/b/Matson-Menu/14053/bn_7023279657?_sop=16&mag=1&rt=nc
These are the menus I have for sale. I wonder if there are Carnival collectors. I would think so.
Paper can be so interesting to find. I am terrible about getting it listed for some reason.
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https://www.ebay.com/itm/334905752489 Ps I also have these travel prints listed. I often look for big white envelopes with sets of prints. I feel like these aren’t done justice online and might take them to my vintage market booth if I can find suitable covers.
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I got a couple neat things at yard sales this weekend. I didn’t do my full loop though due to time constraints.
at a church yard sale I got a small box full of Thomas the Train engines. These can be big money for the older wooden ones. I’ve done an initial run through and there are 5 worth $15-20 each. Then a lot of lesser value wooden ones. Then a pile of trackmaster and minis.
At the same sale I got the old pager system from their nursery. It sells for $250 on ebay. Paid $5.
At another yard sale I got a box full of transformers toys for $1 each. Google lens makes identifying these soooo much easier! At the same sale I picked up a nice vintage Silver dinnerware collection for $20. Sold comps were in the $200-300 range. I’ve sold silver sets before – they can take a while to get the big bucks.
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At lunch I went through more of the transformers. I hit MAJOR paydirt with one of them:
This one is very nice and has the missile so I’ll be pricing at $200.
Another one I pulled out but isn’t worth a ton is a G1 Scattershot. Anytime you find a G1 in the wild is a great day! He…uhhh….well…. he has a “special” transforming feature that he was setting in when I pulled him out of the box.
Bonus – there is a button you can press where that “part” explodes open. Oh boy…
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https://www.ebay.com/itm/335377656021
No shopping this week but I did scavenge this listing of mine out of the entirely wrong category. It wasn’t in the canning supplies at all for a couple of years. I’m really going to try to check out my ending listings and make fixes and price adjustments.
In case you missed my earlier mention, I watched a lot of this person while sick. https://www.youtube.com/@tuitionaintcheap/videos She picks up a lot of really common things people overlook and her videos are quick and dirty with comps. A new thing I learned is vintage hair accessories – like Goody combs. Definitely a super star trash elf.
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PS. I don’t regret trying out District platforms because it’s nice to escape the Ebay algorithm and competition. However, BIN sales are slow, and it seems to be working out as more of a live platform mostly. It’s not great for sourcing because higher than Mercari prices. The first Youtuber to launch made the mistake of letting way to many types of products and sellers in. I’m on two other platforms with limited sellers and applied to one more.
The nice part is the time is quick to list or cross-post from Ebay and you can switch listings easily to stores inside the District “mall”. Also the later Youtubers and Facebook groups have way better ratios of sellers to buyers and each has a different flavor – kitsch or 70s groovy, Disney, etc. I’m probably going to try some more cross-posting of lower dollar items.
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