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I’m not really a shoe guy, but won this pair of Stan Smith Adidas size 10.5s for a whopping $7.50 with shipping. Terapeak says these are an easy $20 profit, but they happen to be my size, so I think I’m going to keep them. I’ve never been great about buying stuff for myself, but it’s something I want to work on in 2025.
Another full-size bat to add to the stack in the corner, this signed Johnny Estrada bat set me back $15 with shipping. Estrada was a journeyman catcher who’s been retired for a few years and who knows if I’m reading the resale market of backup catcher’s bats correctly. But it’s a sharp looking bat.
In another “what am I going to do with this” buy, how about 21 copies of this Danny Darwin autograph each xx/44 for a whopping $6 total. Darwin was an OKish 80s and 90s pitcher, which means his auto is worth about $1 to $2 all day long. But maybe add a buck to that valuation for this serial numbered copy and another buck or two because he has very few certified autographs. So $6 for 21 of them is a real steal.
My MO when I get a large number of copies of the same autograph and it’s a player with few autos: put one in the eBay store at $19.99 or best offer, minimum offer $12, and scan another as a backup for if/when the first copy sells. Set aside a few copies for my sorted team lots, in this case for the Houston Astros. Send one or two for consignment auction over the next few months. Send a few more to the consignment port at the cheap processing level, at which point they might end up in my account six months from now and I can price them at $5/$10/$15 and fiddle with sales and prices until they move. These small, seemingly silly bulk buys are really a core part of my business, a solid and reliable chunk of my sales every week.
Finally, a rare scavenge direct from the manufacturer: Panini was offering a 40% code off select items in their Instant line, which is a print on demand set that can often capture players who have few other cards. I scoured through the available inventory and grabbed the max 5 cards of this auto of Denver Broncos rookie receiver Devaughn Vele, a true underdog player as a 7th round draft pick and 26 (!) year old rookie who served a two year Mormon mission between high school and college. My buy-in was about $12 each after shipping and taxes. I’d love to flip all five of these before the end of the season, but sometimes Panini can drag their feet on shipping. Denver Broncos are on the fringes of making the playoffs this year, so let’s hope against hope that Panini’s shipping team is on the ball with my order.
What did you find this week?
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Possibly my scavenge of the year – 5 Hermes scarves for $1.50 each! I didn’t get even remotely excited when I found them because these things are often counterfeited which I assumed must be the case but at $1.50 a piece it was worth the chance. I found them in my husband’s working class home town at a nice thrift store that was having a Black Friday sale. I thought surely they would know what they had and must’ve known they were fake hence the price but my husband and in laws all agreed that people in that neck of the woods probably wouldn’t know the brand. So far all indications are the scarves are real! I’ve listed the first one for $299.99 obo.
I also visited that town’s Goodwill. In the past the place has always been a dud but I was finding amazing NWT brands all over the place. They must not have the crazy amount of resellers that my town has.
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Congrats @Julie. I hope you are well and getting a lot done! BTW I know you listen to podcasts so lmk who you like. Thanks!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/235843981322 Lots of bread and butter going on these days but this was a little surprise on the value. It’s a Russian painted egg. Mine has no stand and a chip of paint flaked off, or it would go for $40-50. Paid $3 for this life size one. The larger ones can go for much more.
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My mom went to Moscow when she was a teenager and had a set of matryoshka dolls that I didn’t realize until this moment that I don’t know what ever happened to them. So this egg really brings back so good memories. I wonder how much longer this kind of stuff will hold value. I don’t think Americans in their 30s and younger will want Russian anything when they’re older.
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Must have been back in 2012 when I was talking with a British stallholder at the Newark Lincolnshire Antiques Fair. He had some Soviet posters and memorabilia, which he’d picked up in Crimea. He told me he’d bought property there, and was going to move there with his wife.
Two years later…
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