Finds of the week

Pickings are a little slim this first week back but I did only source on two days. Picked up the 4 CDs houdini magic deck, On The Dot, Oyo Sports lego knockoff figure, and the Donald hat for a total of $12 on Sunday. The bare minimum I'll make on the CDs is $5 profit each, but I expect it'll be more if I don't impatiently drop the prices. The toy isle is one of my favorite sections to scour through as everything is typically very reasonably priced if not dirt cheap. I guess it's a combination of a large supply, all toys generally looking the same to an adult, and the employees not wanting to overcharge children. The Oyo Sports Football champions figure, On The Dot game and Houdini deck were all in a $2 bag. The figure is sealed and should go for at least $10 on ebay, paying for the bag. The houdini deck is probably worthless, and I might make a buck and a positive feedback on the Dot game. The Hat was $2 and judging by similar listings, I should make at least $5 on it. 

The rest of the haul was from a different Savers, one I hadn't been to before. It was a little farther away than I would normally consider driving, but someone told me they had a lot of CDs and that they were cheaper. Made my way through a couple of shelves of CDs before I accidentally unpaired my scanner and found it wouldn't reconnect. Looking around I found a $2 bag with the two decks of playing cards. The only similar listing for the Crown deck is in green and is listed for $40. Threw mine up for $25 and we'll see how it goes. I think I could pull in $10 at the very least. The Spaniel deck doesn't seem to be worth anything.

The best finds were when I was getting ready to check out with nothing but a vintage deck of cards and decided to give the display case a closer look. The camera lenses were $15 and $6. Not wanting to look them up in front of the clerk, I decided to take a risk on them as they felt like quality lenses. I might make $5 on the smaller one and $10-15 on the larger. In a bin full of gameboy games for a buck a piece I picked out Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, Spider Man, and Tom and Jerry. Considering the Savers I usually frequent prices these at $3+ each, this was an exciting find. I picked these up for my collection, but I could easily make $10 on Kid Icarus. Haven't been able to get Spider Man to boot up, but Kid Icarus makes up for it. That's all for this week.

Time is Money

When first starting out flipping, especially if funds are limited, it's hard to justify any purchase that isn't directly flippable, but the sooner you fork over the cash for certain tools, the faster you'll make more money. The first thing you'll want is a decent scale. USPS gives discounts for printing your own postage, and you'll save time and gas money on top of that. I use the American Weigh Scales Table Top Postal Scale which has a capacity of 55lbs, more than enough for most anything. In addition, you'll want an efficient printer to print your postage on, and some adhesive labels to save time and tape. I've currently using an old office printer with these labels but I'm going to be switching over to a compact thermal printer that won't take up as much space in my RV. Once you have everything you need to print your own postage, you can schedule pickups during your normal mail deliveries on the USPS website and have it all taken care of for you.

While not as essential as a good scale and printer, anyone looking to flip DVDs, CDs or any other media should absolutely pick up a barcode scanner. The CT-20 bluetooth scanner is the cheapest on the market and works perfectly. I use it in conjunction with a prepaid Android Tracfone which costs a minimum of $20 every 3 months (though the best value for your dollar is the $10/mo plan) while the phone itself can easily be found for less than $30. The barcode scanner has already paid for itself many times over. Without it, I wouldn't be able to look up the prices of the hundreds of CDs at thrift stores. The Savers I frequent is a little stingy at $2 per CD so I don't pick them up unless they're going for more than $10. I've found many that go for $20+, and even a signed copy of Bobby Rock's "Out of Body." The money in CDs is usually in foreign, classical, or any type of spiritual/religious stuff, but there's plenty of money to be made outside of those genres, so the sooner you get a scanner, the better. 

Believe it or not, there are even VHS tapes worth money. Anything that wasn't transferred to a later medium will hold its value. Exercise and wrestling videos often fall into this category. My best find in the VHS section, which I wouldn't have bothered to look in without a scanner, wasn't a movie but a VHS to VHS-C adapter which I paid $1 for and sold for $30. 

More Keyboards

Sometime in December I stopped by the flea market where I'd found the previous stash of vintage keyboards. Turns out I missed quite a few. All but one of the seven keyboards pictured above are mechanical, and I decided to take a chance on the non-mechanical (third down on the right) as it looked unique. I've since sold it, as well as two or three others for $30-40 each. While not anywhere near as valuable as some of the previous pickups, I'm still making profit. The jewels of this lot are the two DELLs, which are easily $50+ a piece. I've already sold one, though I don't remember for how much. 

I think I've just about cleaned that place out when it comes to valuable vintage keyboards. I might look into some of the other non-mechanicals that are left but I'm trying to avoid bigger items like this if the margins aren't high enough as I'm not going to have the space for them all. I've still got six boards left to sell. If anyone's interested, I'm willing to negotiate on prices. You can find them at ebay.com/usr/portableplatypus