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I do most of my scavenging online, and every day that I run my searches I find deals which shock me in terms of how low the final bid price was compared to what I would have been willing to pay. Sometimes this is because a listing is not well done. Other times, it’s simply because auctions are weird and the right buyer for that item is not checking eBay that week. I love using my knowledge to grow my business.
I get a different kind of satisfaction when I stroll into a crowded scavenger’s mecca and find bargains that everyone else overlooked. This past week, it was my local library sale. While all the hand scanner robots fought over the same dumb FBA books, I loaded up on a bunch of books without barcodes from my favorite niches. I only spent $29 total but ended up with two armloads of media items, including a dozen or so vintage books by the French writer Robert Pinget. I should clear $100 profit on those if Terapeak results are accurate.
What did you find this week?
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I still use the Amazon Seller app for books, although more so for books without barcodes. You can use it to scan the front cover of a book. While I don’t sell on Amazon anymore, seeing how many copies of a given book are on Amazon and the asking price is pretty handy. It’s much quicker than searching eBay sold listings. I can quickly discard titles that have dozens or even hundreds of copies on Amazon. If it doesn’t show up on Amazon (or they don’t have any copies available), then it’s probably something fairly rare and then I search eBay prices.
As for my scavenging week, yesterday I attended some estate sales on the final day (75% off). These were at estate sale companies I typically do not attend because they have way too high of prices. Turns out, though, that I was able to find some deals. At one estate sale, they had boxes of stuff in a very poorly lit area of the unfinished basement. I turned on my flashlight and found a box with a vintage 70s stereo receiver. It looks it good shape and worth at least $100. They also had some brand new CD cartridges that you use in certain CD players. I negotiated on these unpriced items and paid $7 for all of it.
At another estate sale, I found all sorts of deals in the office section. They had ridiculously high initial prices on these items, which blew up in their face this time. I spent a little over $60 after the discount and picked up a prime 400mm lens that will work with modern Canon DSLRs, a Sony Mini-DV camcorder, a small red 1980s Magnavox cassette boombox in really good condition, and a higher-end Canon photo and negative scanner (possibly never used) made in 2018.
Earlier this week, I went to my favorite estate sale company (they price things very reasonably) and picked up a Luxman CD player and a BIC cassette deck. They let me test each of them before buying and they each had problems (CD tray would not open on the Luxman and BIC would rewind and Fast Forward but would not play), but they gave me a great discount because of that. Spent $100 on the BIC and $50 on the Luxman. I might be able to fix the tray issue on the Luxman, but I’ll leave the BIC as is. I should be able to sell these for parts or repair and at least 3x my investment.
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@zach – Electronics a good business to be in. I have some electronics I need to test now so that I can get them listed and hopefully out of my inventory quickly. I’m just a bit lazy on that front.
I didn’t bring over as much this week from my neighbor’s house. We worked on some kitchenware and a closet. He had some wedding gifts that he had never used, so decided to sell. In there were several high quality/heavy crystal pieces including one from Baccarat and a Lladro bud vase.
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My find of the week, now two weeks ago, was a Franklin Mint Star Trek Enterprise 25th anniversary desk model. I paid $20 at auction for it and see it has sold for as much as $400 in the past year, usually selling for $150+. I was surprised to get it so cheap as Star Trek collectibles are usually a battle at auctions.
@Zach – Great finds on the stereo equipment. -
https://www.ebay.com/itm/334625135845 This coffee mug was hanging out in my office when I worked the day job. I have too many mugs and so listed it. Was very happy to see what they go for. I love, love, love this pattern and occasionally find one or two pieces in the wild.
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Nothing bought or found last week so I’m going back a couple weeks for a great find that I haven’t mentioned here yet. I found this Autocourse annual book on mostly European auto racing (grands prix, sports cars, rallies, etc) for the 1971 season at a yard sale in my neighborhood put on by a young couple. The sale seemed like all baby stuff and I wouldn’t have even gotten out of the car when we happened to be driving by except that my wife was with me and she saw a cheap lamp or something for the house that caught her eye. The book was $1 and sold quickly for $215 plus shipping to France. https://www.ebay.com/itm/275516339515
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I’ve been off the site for a bit but still selling, although everything is slowwwww selling on ebay.
I did have a couple nice finds recently. I hit an estate sale of some folks that owned a bicycling shop. They had a closet full of brand new cycling and triathlon clothing and gear. I spent about $140.00 and got over 40 brand new items including 3 full triathlon wet suits! Already sold one of the wet suits for $120! Just need to sell one more item to turn a profit.
also bid on some new old stock camera equipment at an online auction. Spent $16 total on 7 things and have already sold two of those items for a total of $80!
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Not a scavenge I actually got, but one I missed out on. I have a soft spot for selling polaroid cameras. Finding one of the uncommon themed ones is on my grail list.
Polaroid 600 EMS PhotoSystem Fluorescent Orange Instant Film Camera
One of these showed up on one of the local independent thrift shop’s facebook auction page. This is I believe the rarest of the themed polaroids. This thrift shop in particular has a Buy it now option if no bids and someone immediately used BIN….for $6. I reached out to the buyer to see if they would be interested in selling but no dice.
3 have sold in the last year on ebay for between $800 and $1000.
Oh well, it was cool to see it was at least a possibility for me.
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