One Last Awesome Sale

Linking up with Yard Sale Mommy. Her blog rocks!

Daisy & her sniffer... investigating items that were in someone's basement for awhile!

The last sale we hit on Friday was the best sale I've been to in awhile. There was so much stuff there and it all brought me back to my childhood! Immediately I noticed something called Dolly Pops. It was old and something I'd never played with, so I knew it was early '80s or older. A quick eBay search on my phone showed some completed listings for $20+. I grabbed it. Had a $5 tag on it but asked if they'd take $4 and they did. I saw some Barbie accessories that I had as a child. Got geeked over, a quick bit of nostalgia, but passed on 'em. There was a boatload of older board games, priced at only .25. I had Carlos check some on eBay as I looked around at more stuff. In the mean time, I grabbed 3 VHS tapes still in wrap (.25 each), 3 oversized NKOTB buttons , .50 each, figured I could capitalize on the NKOTBSB tour and make some cash off these, and then I saw a Caboodle. I had one of these and it was so cool. I even had mini Caboodles that were like lip gloss holders. No price, but the guy there saw me eyeing it and asked his wife (?) how much it was. She said $1. I grabbed it because I thought it would be a good container for make-up and such. Those things are durable. A search at home shows these sell well so I will resell it! Carlos told me that the NKOTB board game sells well, so we grabbed that and 4 other board games. Thanks to I Can Sell This, I knew I could make a profit from the complete set of Big Bird Dictionaries. I got them, all 8 volumes, for $4. Finally my eyes gravitated to this huge box of McDonald's toys. I saw a bunch I had as a kid so I knew these were late '80s and early '90s. It said 5 toys for $1.00 on the box but I knew I couldn't just pick 5. So I bravely asked what kind of offer they'd do for the whole box. They said $8. Thinking of my fellow eBay blog friends, I courageously countered, "will you do $6?". They said sure. Everything together came to $18.50.

At this point two things happened. #1 I reached into my pocket and panicked. No $20 bill. CRAP! I searched around, and WHEW! It was on the ground. Close call. My potential eBay earnings were almost shot. #2, one of the people hosting the sale showed her sister (?) something on her phone. I knew they were looking at the value of something on eBay. They had caught onto us. Carlos is not very sly at using his phone. I can do it kneeling on the floor pretending to be searching through boxes, but he's super obvious. I could tell they were kind of irritated. But oh well. I walked away with my huge collection of loot. Later on it was great fun going through that box of McDonald's toys. There were over a hundred pieces. I will be working on getting these goodies listed and will report back about how I did!

How do you feel if you get outed as a reseller? I feel kind of dirty or like I'm cheating. Similar to the way I feel when I coupon and get things for FREE. But in terms of the garage sale, this is what I have to say about it...

Anyone with even a small amount of computer literacy can search things on eBay... even my dad can do it, and that's saying something LOL! They should have considered that "vintage" things might sell well and look it up BEFORE the sale. Also, it's going to be a decent amount of work to get these things listed. Especially the board games, as I have to see if there are pieces missing and figure out what condition they're in, and then figure out how to ship them. So for the people who try to deter us eBayers... yeah, it's work. Fun work, but still...