As a holiday gift and follow up to my previous post, I’ve made the Holiday Collectibles page of the Thrifter’s Field Guide temporarily public. This will give you an idea of what that part of the website looks like (and, as usual, your feedback is appreciated and questions welcome). Below is some additional information to help you in your treasure hunt based on my favorite finds and past research. Please share your find and tips!
COLLECTIBLE SANTAS House of Hatten / Vaillancourt Carved wooden figures, occasionally chalkware. Folk art appeal. Detailed and high quality. HoH = House of Hatten. Belsnickle style Santas usually. I have found these for $3-10. Clothtique Possible Dreams Mixed media, high-quality clothing and accessories, nicely carved. “PD” on bottom of foot (not sure if that is included on all; if anyone knows, please comment). I usually find these for $3-5 Heartwood Creek / Jim Shore Santas, snowmen, angels. Crafty/folk art appearance. The larger are more valuable and typically the only ones I look up. They have names on the bottom, and some are in higher demand. MR. CHRISTMAS WORLD'S FAIR There are Mr Christmas items that are not from the World’s Fair series. Some of these are good to resell, others not as much. The World’s Fair animated miniatures are great for resale. I usually get those for between $5-15. The boxes are recognizable by their color and appearance. TREE ACCESSORIES Vintage tree toppers that light up, and especially those that spin, can be quite valuable. On the Guide page, a color-changing star is shown – sold for $65 paid around $5. However, I recently sold a brand new in package, vintage light up spinning tree topper for over $210. I paid $2.50 for it (in my blog I said $5, but forgot I had gotten it half off). Certain sets of vintage lights, rotating tree stands, and talking Christmas tree kits (e.g. Douglas Fir) can be good buys. Also vintage aluminum tinsel trees. DISHWARE Complete sets of Christmas themed dinnerware are popular, particular 12 days of Christmas. Certain other serving pieces based on brand. NATIVITY SETS These vary greatly both in resale value and thrift store pricing. Look them up. Don’t pass up the Italian putz figures. These tend to get priced high at the thrift stores and are often broken, incomplete. Certain individual figures and partial sets are valuable. GERMAN Christmas ornaments, postcards, figurines Most of the stores I go into put ornaments in clear plastic bags, regardless if they are glass or not. There are mercury glass and other valuable glass ornaments, but I don’t look for them as I expect them to be broken in the bags. Other ORNAMENTS Certain Hallmark ornaments are good to resell. The stores near me sell individually boxed ornaments for $3-$10 apiece. There are limited ornaments valuable for resale on eBay. Click the link on the page to review the characters that bring in the most money. Since the stores tend to go over these looking for what they think is valuable and most are not, I only look at these occasionally. Also, large vintage jingle bells, which I have never found, bring in big bucks.
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I use a printed spreadsheet to track measurements when I list clothing. I have uploaded a PDF in the Clothing section of Links and Resources.
A new section has been added to walk you through getting started becoming a seller on eBay. The following explanation of what the membership area is about is included:
The Thrifter's Field Guide is set up to help you learn what to buy to make money. There are items you might not even think to buy because they don't look like much of anything often or don't realize people are willing to buy used or flawed. It is categorized by type of item, because that is how the thrift stores organize things. So, if you'd like to learn more about selling dishware, for example, you can navigate to the dishware page to get an idea of the types of things that sell, with a visual reference of photos of items we have sold to help you recognize them, and a list of actual sales we have made. Some pages include additional tips about buying and selling categories of items and/or pre-formatted research links to help you get even more familiar with the category (e.g. on the Cameras page: Click here to view recent sales of film cameras sold for parts. If you cannot test cameras, you can still research what cameras might be worth buying to sell as-is). You can research one area at a time or look through the sales photos and amounts to see which categories we frequently sell in and items that sell for the most money. If you're getting ready to walk into a store, you can pull up the page for the area you are shopping in and take a quick look to refresh what brands to look at or what the high dollar items look like. The biggest part of making money on eBay, in our opinion, is just buying the right stuff. We are sharing our years of experience with you to shorten the amount of time it will take for you to become a full-time seller too.
In the last couple months, over 300 sales and 150 new photos have been added to The Thrifter's Field Guide database of items to sell. There are now over 2,800 sales and 1,550 photos included for reference for what to sell on eBay. Other links, resources, and information has also continued to be added to both the Thrifter's Field Guide (members only) and Links and Resources (free) sections of the website.
We've been busy buying and selling but are always available to answer questions! Yesterday I sold a Christmas decoration for over $210. I paid $5 for it and it sold within five days, originally listed for $68. This is a GREAT time to sell holiday decor. Some of our favorite items to sell are included in the Guide on the Holiday and Seasonal page. Certain items are worth quite alot. I have copied research links from the Holiday page of the Thrifter's Field Guide to give you a head start on some things to look for. The route planner link has been updated due to changes in MapQuest's website.
Several weeks ago several hundred sales were added to the Guide. Also, some links and information have been added on various pages in Links and Resources as well as within The Thrifter's Guide. I've also added a page for shopping online that will be updated occasionally. Sometimes the subject and post will give clues about things to be looking for as a seller. Sometimes it will just be cool stuff I've discovered while shopping in thrift stores or researching on eBay. I also will accept special requests for items people are looking for - just send an e-mail More updates coming soon. As always, questions are welcome! A couple weeks ago I posted about what I expected to be about $1000 worth of stuff purchased for $81: Here's the status so far: J Crew shoes - paid $8 - expect $50-70 - currently posted Free People sandals - paid $4 - expect $35-50 - not posted yet Lycra dive suit - paid $4 - expected $20-30 - this probably will not sell for more than $10 after further investigation - just recently posted. Starbucks Barista - paid $20 - expected $70-100 - sold for $150 on Amazon Elie Tahari dress - paid $5 - expect $25 - not posted yet Paintball pants - paid $6 - expected $40-50 - upon further inspection, the cuff ends of the pants were damaged, so I sold for $18 Electronic game - paid $3 - expect $30 - not getting alot of interest Sewing machine - paid $20 - expected $150-200 - sold for $100 Printer/scanner - paid $25 - expected $500-1000 - sold for $634 So far, just off that particular day, I have sales totaling $902 with more expected sales. Total profit from that one day so far: $821 Today's sales are going to be great too... The final rush to Halloween is beginning. The thrift stores have racks of costumes and shelves of decor. As always, look things up before buying so you don't end up with a lot of crap to unload later, but following are some hot items to look for in the thrift stores:
Today I visited a few stores off by themselves that don't often produce a lot of inventory and I only had a few hours to shop. Today was an exception! Following is a breakdown of my three-hour workday with the items I purchased and how much I expect to make: Store #1 Had to return a scale that would have sold for about $60-70 - didn't work. Goodwill takes returns on electronics, and even gives store credit for returned clothing in some places. Found a pair of shoes.
Store #2 Stopped here first expecting to be in and out. I don't think I've ever bought anything from this store before. Maybe once. They overprice anything that looks good to them. Since I didn't have high expectations for today's treasure hunt, I went ahead and purchased these items:
As I was leaving I saw a pair of Ray Bans in the case. They had been marked down from $200 to $150, and agreed to discount an additional $20. I wasn't feeling confident about spending that much, so I said I'd be back if the husband gave the okay. While I was waiting for him to look up (he was shopping elsewhere today) I went to the store in the next building. Store #3 This place is hit or miss. I've found a few really good things in here. Worth checking out once a month or so.
Then, 'round to the overpriced counter items... many marked-up items but they missed...
Back to Store #2 By this time, the husband had said get the Ray Bans (expected sale price $300-500). As I was walking into the store again, I saw a printer in the furniture section I had not visited (as I don't sell furniture... except once). !!! It is one of the holy grails of printers, apparently. so...
I didn't end up getting the Ray Bans. They were prescription lenses and I have no idea how that would affect the value. But I was happier with the printer. Store #4 A Goodwill Boutique. Donated clothing is pre-screened for this store and tends to be better quality and not out-of-date styles. A couple times I did very well in this store, such as one time they had a rack full of brand new gauze palazzo pants and other gauze items from the same brand. I bought 8 or so of those for $10 apiece and sold for $50-70 apiece, plus a cool jacket off the same rack that I paid $15 for and sold for $150 within a couple hours of posting it. And the time I found a rare and desirable DVF dress, another designer dress, and a designer suit - paid about $25 at the most for all three and sold for over $200. Today I didn't find anything to buy In summary... spent $81 today and expect to make $920-1555. Not bad for a few hours' work.
Links were missing on the Kitchen, Dining, and Bar landing page - these have been added.
One of the great things about working for ourselves is the ability to plan our time off as we wish. Since neither of us have to get approved to take vacation days, we can also plan last-minute fun as finances allow. We have been busy catching up from a little three-day vacation off in the mountains. We tend to work throughout the day when we are home (and not out shopping) and just needed to get completely away.
One of the things we needed catch up on upon return were a couple insurance claims for items damaged in transit. A page has been added with links and information about tracking packages and filing insurance claims. |