So with that said, I have decided to start a new weekly update about 1 item that I find each week thanks to the help of Pocket Auctions and the ability to be able to look it up on the spot. So I guess there is some pressure on me now to find a unique item each week, but I will now let myself or my readers down...
I would also like some reader feedback from now on. I sometimes feel like I am talking to myself here. So for those that send me e-mails about my blog THANK YOU. Start commenting so we can have a nice little Vitamin eBay following. I think I post some good tips here... not just a bunch of affiliate links to products like most of the blogs I see out there.
How about sending me some of your finds on items that you have never heard of that you hit big with on eBay. Maybe something you found at a garage sale, a thrift store, or maybe up in your attic.
Here is my first Cell Phone Find:
Vintage Viyella Wool Shirt; purchased for $2.50 at the Salvation Army (1/2 price day) Nice profit. If I can average at least a $10.00 profit after fees, I think it was a successful thrift store find....
I just knew this shirt was old and unique when I saw the label. So that is my first rare find posted here. Starting Monday 3/22 I will post a new find for the previous week...
Good Luck
John Paul
And send me some suggestions for a new title to this segment. I am not digging Cell Phone Find of the Week
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6 comments:
My focus, until just recently, has been books and the winter months in New England is a tough time for book hunting.
Going back to last summer I had a few good book finds, which made for a nice beginning of my early retirement.
Here is one book, my first find of the summer. It was the THE COMPLEAT GOGGLER by Guy Gilpatric 1957.
It sold for $215.95. It actually goes for much more, if sold fixed price. After listing it fixed at $500 for a month, I then listed as a auction. I paid $1.00 for it so, still no complaints.
There is a bit of interesting history behind the book, thus it's value. It was one of the most influencial early books on diving, if not the most influencial. The author is quite a story himself. John Guy Gilpatric was born in 1896, and died by his own hand in 1950 after shooting his beloved but terminally ill wife.
Gilpatric grew up in New York. He became famous at sixteen when he flew to new heights with a record breaking solo effort of 4,665 feet. He became a test pilot until at 21 he joined the American Expeditionary Forces and went to war in France, surviving eighteen months in the Air Service.
Two years after the end of the Great War, he was back in France, living on the French Riviera. In 1929 he took to the Mediterranean with a spear and determination, returning with food and exhilaration. Wearing misaligned airmen's goggles gummed up to keep out the water, a nose-clip and, ear plugs, he dove into the Mediterranean in search of the largest merou, a cod-like species. In 1938, Gilpatric wrote his classic The Compleat Goggler. While Gilpatric was living and spearfishing in the French Riviera, he influenced diving pioneers like Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Hans Hass to begin spearfishing
In 1943, his book "Action in the North Atlantic" was made in to a film starring Humphrey Bogart, and which was nominated for an Academy Award for best story in 1943
Here is the image of the book:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v97/cotie/a-goggler-blak-1.jpg
Thanks for doing this! I enjoy seeing new things to look for when you post new finds. Trust me, you are not alone here! Love it!!!
Hi Cotie,
Wow. That's a great return on a $1.00 purchase. Where do you look for books?
I scan the selection quickly at the thrift store, but there are so many books I know I am missing out on some good finds.
JP
I love your blog John Paul. I like reading about your great finds. However, what is your average profit on any random clothing item you buy at the thrift store?
Vinh,
Looking over my records, I see a lot of profts in the $10-$12.00 range per item, so I would say that is my average for a regular item.. My goal when I purchase a thrift store item is $10.00 proft after all fees.
I have been having great success lately with finding excellent sellers like LL Bean Boots, True Religion Jeans etc. which have brought my overall average up a lot higher.
JP
Hi John Paul,
Sorry for not answering you sooner.
I get my books at Thrift Stores, yard and garage sales, library book sales, ongoing library sales, church sales, and the take it and leave it shed at the town dump.
Library sales and ongoing library sales get be found at:
http://www.booksalefinder.com/index.html
Most books found at library sales and thrift stores are not ebayable books but more Amazon.Com books.
The books recent enough to have an ISBN number tend to sale better on Amazon.com (with exceptions)
There are so many low ballers and penny sellers on Amazon that you almost must have a cell phone program such as from scoutpal.com.
Scoutpal cost $9.95 a month and some of their competition is cheaper. I use scoutpal, because they were the first to come along and I just stuck with them. The owners have been super helpful people.
The competition in books is brutal. Both online and offline at the sales. To give myself an edge I've spent time learning the values of paperbacks and children's books. Two areas where I have less competition.
For instance, last summer I went to a well known summer booksale in this area and it was so crowded I could hardly move. Everyone was grabbing books at warp speed and I like to take my time and kinda get into a zone.
So, after an hour of finding nothing, I went over to the children's books and had the area all to myself. I then found
Golden Book THE ANIMAL KINGDOM by Charles Harper which sold for $212 and I paid .25 cents for it. Also I found The Giraffe That Walked To Paris which sold for $65 and I paid .25. The Giraffe book is part of the FIAR or Five In A Row series, which all sell well.
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