The Ebay Goldmine Thread

tsharp

I thought this might be a useful thread to start:

List all the things you have sold at a profit on ebay or elsewhere that have proved to be a great find. For example, items that you are likely to come across at car boot sales and charity shops that 'always' sell for good prices on ebay. If we list them here, then other MSEers can grab them when they come across them , like a pooling of knowledge and experience.

Many times i've been in charity shops and auctions and mulled over whether an item is valuable or not and had absolutely no idea, so left it, only to discover it's real 'value' on ebay when it's too late.

If there are items that you regularly keep an eye out for in charity shops and car boot sales, list them here, and we can all keep an eye out. Books for example are a mixed bag. There are literally millions out there, and a box full of them will quite often bag you nothing at resale, but an individual book could land you £££s, it's just a matter of knowing what to look for.

My example: New Naturalist nature books. These quite often fetch hundreds on ebay. Here are some completed sales:
Haynes Car Manuals are another good example. The right book could land you £10+. When i sold my peugeot 306, i listed the manual on ebay and got about £8 for it.

I know a little about books and comics (not much), but i know nowt about pottery/clothes/children's toys/ceramics etc. But with some examples here, we could help each other.

C'mon, share the knowledge (and potential wealth)

Contains_Mild_Peril

tsharp wrote:

Many times i've been in charity shops and auctions and mulled over whether an item is valuable or not and had absolutely no idea, so left it, only to discover it's real 'value' on ebay when it's too late.

it's stangely reassuring to know it's not just me then!

Haynes Car Manuals are another good example. The right book could land you £10+. When i sold my peugeot 306, i listed the manual on ebay and got about £8 for it.

There are some which tend to sell well, but plenty that don't: I think there's a lot of pot luck involved with car manuals.

I know a little about books and comics (not much), but i know nowt about pottery/clothes/children's toys/ceramics etc. But with some examples here, we could help each other.

C'mon, share the knowledge (and potential wealth)

1970s Fisher Price toys seem to be doing well these days. I wish I'd kept all my childhood toys until I discovered ebay!
Vintage leather bags are something I look out for, since I can sometimes buy them for about 50p and sell them for a few pounds (42.20 in one case!)

soolin

Don't forget to factor in trends though, I've bought items that previous sales how shown to be popular, then been completely unable to shift them.

For example, I have never yet managed to make a profit on a Haynes car manual, I actually dumped mine via a charity shop a while back.

Soo

gk1_2

& I used to sell for a charity via Ebay & we ended up dumping the haynes manuals too, hopeless & heavy to post.

tsharp

That's weird, I thought the Haynes Manual's were a good thing to sell. I saw one the other day, for what i thought was a Triumph Herald, so a classic 70's car, checked ebay, saw they were going for £10+, went back, only to discover it was a Triumph Acclaim, which of course has no interest on ebay!

smartie1976

I got hold of a box of educational and text books just before term start.
Have made profit over £110.
At other times of the year these may not have sold as well, so you need to make sure you time things correctly too, to maximise your profit.

soolin

tsharp wrote:

That's weird, I thought the Haynes Manual's were a good thing to sell. I saw one the other day, for what i thought was a Triumph Herald, so a classic 70's car, checked ebay, saw they were going for £10+, went back, only to discover it was a Triumph Acclaim, which of course has no interest on ebay!

:rotfl:

That's probably my problem as well, I've never got past the 'It's a car' so wouldn't know a rare one from a common one. It did sell a book (not a Haynes) on a very rare Citroen once but think I sold it too cheaply on a BIN as the buyers feedback mentioned it was an absolute steal at the price.

culpepper

I did a swap with someone on another site.
I sent them a large amount of dishwasher tablets which cost me £15 to send and they sent me their broken kenwood chef with the part to fix it.
It turned out the part to fix it was not the part that needed fixing. So I had a broken kenwood chef for about £30 worth of postage and goods.
I dismantled it and sold it as parts on ebay .The plastic bowl alone went for £7. I think I made about £40 of profit once I had sold all but the chasis and the burnt out motor. I often see parts of electrical items for sale .

HouseHunter_2

Old argos catalogues sometimes go for really good money. My OH used to work at head office and when moving offices he had a few from the eighties in a cupboard that he needed to throw out. He put them on ebay for £12.95 BIN and they all went straight away. One of them had a specific mark on the cover which we mentioned in the auction, so when it was re-listed soon after, we knew it was the same one as the mark was mentioned again. It went for more than £40. :eek:

Moglex

That definitely belongs in the "Things that make you go: Hmmmm" catagory.

Why on earth would anyone pay £40 for an old Argos catalogue?

HouseHunter_2

Moglex wrote:

That definitely belongs in the "Things that make you go: Hmmmm" catagory.

Why on earth would anyone pay £40 for an old Argos catalogue?

I KNOW! Who would have thunk it? The listing mentioned that the catalogue is invaluable for set designers wanting that period feel for theitre/fil/tv productions: I don't know if that's the reason though.