Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Leftovers before Thanksgiving

We are a little more than two weeks away from Thanksgiving, and already I got to enjoy some leftovers that certainly weren’t turkey.

Just past 9 a.m. on Sunday, Ella and I attended day three (half price day) of a local estate sale that had been heavily advertised. Even that early, the sale was crowded with bargain shoppers, and the house pretty much had been stripped of all apparent value by the time we got there. I say “apparent value” because while all the pretty stuff had been grabbed, more mundane, yet still valuable, items lay untouched in several rooms.
 
Of course, I am talking about books. On a wraparound shelf in a back bedroom, I found a lot of U.S. Air Force memorabilia, apparent souvenirs of the former owner’s military career. Included on the shelf were two copies of this book:

Listed on Amazon for close to $75
Obviously, I grabbed both.
 
I also found bags of Air Force patches, lapel pins, and stickers, which I am still sorting.
 
In the living room, I found this coffee table book:

Listed on Amazon for an amazing $382
I usually ignore coffee table books, but I scanned it just on a whim, and was glad that I did.
 
On Saturday, we visited a local church that was having a fall festival that included yard, book, and bake sales. In the book room, I found a bunch of train books that I thought were worth more than they actually turned out to be. So, I listed them as a lot, and hope an enthusiast will find them irresistible.

At $36.99, I hope these books roll off the shelf

I also found six vintage Foxfire books for $5. I have them listed fairly high because the books have a good sell through rate, and with Christmas right around the corner, they will make an excellent gift.  Tip of the day: Always pick up the Foxfire books.

I'm setting the bar high ($75.00) for these books since we are close to Christmas

Also in the book room, I showed my ignorance by scanning a box of CDs, finding some good ones, and then noticing that all the cases were empty. Upon inquiring, I was embarrassed when they showed me the sign, “Empty Cases, 1 cent each,” which was right in front of me. Red faced, but undaunted, I decided that a box of empty CD cases would come in handy, and splurged 58 cents on the box.
 
On the yard sale side of the festival, it was pretty slim until I saw a box of three new hard-plastic pistol cases. Excited, I grabbed the box, and didn’t check prices online and gladly paid $5 each. Unfortunately, they really aren’t worth all that much, and I will be lucky to make any money on them. Oh, well, you win some, you lose some.

As for sales, Amazon has been fairly steady, but Ebay has been slow, other than the thermal underwear.  I'm still kicking myself for not buying all of it.

Xena finally sold, much to my dismay

Callisto -
Centerfold material
I did finally sell my Xena Princess Warrior magazine that has been in my inventory forever. I sort of hated to see it go because the centerfold of the magazine featured Callisto, the best part of the Xena/Hercules series, in my humble opinion.

Looking ahead, obviously my focus needs to be on getting items listed. After all, Christmas is only a little over six weeks away.

Have a productive week, everyone.






5 comments:

  1. Love your book selling passion :) Need to get more knowledgable on them, they can be found aplenty around these parts!

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  2. I went to a church rummage sale. They had boxes and boxes of nice hardcover books with popular authors like Grisham, Clancy and Koontz. I figured the market was probably saturated by those guys, so I just walked by. Are they worth anything?

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    1. No. Books by popular authors, unless brand new, rarely are worth anything. If you have some, though, that you need to get rid of, grouping them into lots and selling them for one money might bring a buck or two.

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    2. Ok, so my hunch was right. Last month I picked up some Time Life series books (Great Ages on Man). Also worth pennies. My mom had lots of TL series books and I know they cost a lot of money. It's so sad to see them sell for so little (or not at all).

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    3. The Time Life Series books are pretty, but that's about all you can say about them. People who are trying to sell these books have an overinflated sense of what they are worth today because they paid so much for them.

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