Road Trip Goodies, Batch #3

I've had a super-busy week this week, and I am really tired, but I forced myself to get another box of goodies ready to list this week. Here's what we've got:

My Little Sandbox Play Set (Big Builder)

 When I bought this, I couldn't decide whether I wanted to sell it or keep it for my 4 year old. And then I pictured him playing with sand in his bedroom and decided to sell it. The sand and rocks are still sealed in the original bags. One of the rocks had a hole broken in it, so I'll have to sell it as New (Other) if that is an option in this category. Doesn't look like I'll get much for it, but I can hopefully double my investment. I paid $4.90 and will try for $14.99.

Beach Party Funshine Care Bear

 This was actually a Facebook purchase, not a road trip purchase. It looked bigger in the photo, but it's just one of the little 7-8" ones. The only other Beach Party Care Bear that is currently listed or in completeds is a Bedtime Bear.  It is also not showing up on Terapeak. I just googled it and found it on Amazon for $49.99! So I just quickly listed mine on Amazon, but I will also list it on eBay this week - probably higher than that with Best Offer.

Big Screen Poker

One of the stores I went to had several baskets full of handheld electronic games. I pulled a bunch that looked interesting and looked them all up. This one is a good seller! Hopefully it's also a fast seller. I'll probably be listing it for $69.99OBO.

Camping Journal

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this. This was given to me as a gift. We enjoy camping, but we don't get to go nearly often enough to warrant an entire journal about it. I'll have to research it, but I'll probably aim for around $10.

Littlest Pet Shop Igloo

I wouldn't have bothered buying this, but it was half-off, and I remembered that Becky recently sold one for decent money. I only paid $2.25 for it. If it ends up not selling, my 5 year old likes LPS stuff, so I'll just give it to her. I don't think those are the animals that originally came with the set, but that doesn't really seem to matter. I'll try for $15-20.

Clairol Kindness 24 Hot Rollers

As you may know, I am a big fan of selling hot rollers. I have sold several different styles of Clairol Kindness rollers. These are old and in a cool case, so I got them. Actually, I recently sold this same set for my hairdresser. I combined it with another similar set and sold both as a lot, because she only had one power cord between the two of them. I'm hoping for $50ish, but that might be optimistic.

Little People Noah's Ark

I recently sold a LP Noah's Ark set that belonged to my kids. It only went for $9.99 + shipping, but I was okay with that because it was just laying around the house. It sold pretty quickly, so I suspect I could have gotten more for it. I wouldn't have bothered picking this one up, but I noticed that it had all different animals than the other one I sold. AND the animals have cool hair. So for $1.90, I took a chance. I'll be aiming higher on this one though. Will probably price it somewhere around $35-40.

Vintage Lincoln Logs

I'm never sure about these. I sold an incomplete set once before for $17.50 + shipping. They also went quickly. I guess I will price these a little higher - maybe $20.

Mauve Chuck Taylor Converse High-Tops - men's size 13

Okay. Seriously. It takes a very confident man to wear these. No idea how I'm going to price them. I think they are hideous, which COULD make them go pretty high. I'll have to sleep on this one...

Kids' size 12 Converse

I actually bought 2 pairs of these at a thrift store (donated by twins, I guess?). One pair has loose eyelets and mis-matched laces. I'll price them at just $15. The other pair I'll do $20.

Bloch jazz tap shoes

I haven't found any tap shoes for awhile. Now that summer is winding down, all these extra-curricular activities are probably starting to pick back up again. I'll put $25 on these for awhile and see how they do. They are size 8, which is a pretty common size, so they should sell fairly quickly.

Sunflower Sun Tea Jar

This wasn't a road trip find. This was in the back of my cupboard. We had a yard sale this weekend, so I pulled this out to sell for $3. But then I vaguely recalled some discussion on these on eBay Underground, so I looked it up. Geez Louise, I'm glad I did. I scraped my $3 price sticker off of it and put it in my eBay room. Have you looked these things up?? I fully intend to get $35 + shipping on this.

Road Trip Goodies, Batch #1

Ok, I've got all of my stuff unpacked and stashed in bins and baskets so that it is all out of the middle of the living room. I will just fill a box each day or so and get them listed. As I get the photos ready to go, I will blog here about what was in that day's pile.

Here is what I'm listing tonight:

New in shrink wrap Nightmare III VHS game

I don't know anything at all about this game, but I looked it up because it was new in the wrapper. I paid $3 for it. There was a "very good condition" one that recently sold for $29.99. Because mine is still in the wrapper, I'll aim for $39.99

Full set of 10 Roswell books + trivia book

Something else I know nothing about, but the full set was on the shelf altogether, so I looked them up. The set of 10 recently sold for $59.95 + shipping. Because I have the extra trivia book, I'll probably price at $69.99 + shipping and see what happens. If it doesn't sell after a month, I'll add a Best Offer option.

Vintage Peter Pan Colorforms set - complete

Colorforms are hit or miss. I recently picked up a whole stack of them at a yard sale for 50 cents each. They've done ok. Not through the roof sales, but $14.99 on a 50 cent purchase isn't too bad. I bought this without looking it up. One set recently sold for $18.49 + shipping. There is currently only one other set listed. It is at auction with several bids. I will get this listed tonight so that the underbidder on that auction will be able to buy it as soon as that auction ends, if they want it.

Lot of 10 Cam Jansen books

I've been working on this set for a couple months. I buy them for around 25 cents apiece. I don't find them too often. I finally got 10 and have decided to go ahead and list them. Not sure how they'll do, but I'd like to aim for a minimum of $1 per book to quadruple my investment.

Lot of 8 vintage wooden puzzles

I read somewhere that these do well, so when I found a huge stack of them yesterday, I went through them and pulled all the half-price ones. I paid $1 each for these and hope to sell them in a lot for about $4 per puzzle, so $32ish for the lot.

25th Anniversary Love-a-Lot Care Bear

This wasn't from my road trip, but it somehow ended up in tonight's box. I got it off my Facebook group for $4. I'll try to get $20-25 for it, but I'm not holding my breath.

Golden Book - Old Friends, New Friends

There is a gal on my Facebook group who recently bought a few Golden books from me. She says she wants to collect the whole set (??) for her son, so if I find anymore, to let her know. I kept that in the back of my mind during my trip. The ones she bought from me last week, she paid 50 cents each for, so I didn't want to spend more than a quarter each. Most of the stores had them priced at LEAST 50 cents, many had them for $1 each. This store had a whole shelf of them priced at 50 cents apiece, so I went through and pulled all the half-price ones. I paid a quarter each for them, intending to sell them to her for 50 cents each. Quick double. But I decided to look them all up individually first. I was surprised to see that this one recently sold for $39.95. I think it was a fluke, so I'll just list it for a month and see what happens.

Golden Book - The Three Bears

This was another surprise. This one recently sold for $19.88 + shipping, for a copy in much worse condition than mine. I'll try for $20 on mine.

Set of 19 Joy Berry Survival Series for Kids

This set was altogether on the shelf, and it was the half-price sticker, so I decided to look them up. A set of 27 recently sold for $50 + shipping. I will probably price mine at $59.99 or best offer.

Set of 24 flower shower curtain rods

It wasn't until about an hour ago that I realized these are Walmart. But nice pictures (and no mention of Walmart) should help me get a decent price for these. 23 of them match. There's an oddball to the far right. I decided to leave it in. I'll probably aim for $20-25 on these.

LeapPad lot

I've had the unit laying around for quite some time now, but I haven't had any books/cartridges. Any time I find any, they are priced too high for resale. I couldn't believe my eyes when I found 13 books and cartridges in a bag at Goodwill for only $2.97!! I scarfed them up after quickly flipping through them. At first glance, it looked like all the cartridges and books matched, and for only $2.97, I decided it was worth the risk. There did end up being one double, which I will hang on to until I luck into another lot like this. I have sold 2 similar-sized lots in the past, one for around $60, the other for around $100. The $100 one had a case to go with it. I'll probably go for $80 on these. Might even price at $99.99 or best offer.


So there you have it. Box #1.  I won't be able to do a full box each night, but as I get pics ready, I'll post about them here.

To Buy Or Not To Buy

A week or so ago, a woman posted on my local Facebook selling group that she had a mountain of original Care Bears and Cabbage Patch dolls, all still in their original boxes. Originally, she had said she would accept almost any offer just to be rid of them. But then some helpful idiot replied that she should sell them on eBay, because she would get more for them. Ugh. So there went my chance of getting them cheap.

I contacted her anyway. After several back-and-forths, she came back with an appalling number. She obviously had done her research on eBay, and then doubled that number or something. It was ridiculous. So I wrote her back with my top dollar, which was somewhere around a fourth of her number. I told her that she was asking significantly more than I could afford, but that if she ever decided she was willing to sell them for my number, to please feel free to contact me.

My theory was that she would try to sell them on eBay herself. Clearly she does not have a store, or she'd have done that already. Just as clearly, she doesn't sell on eBay regularly, which tells me she probably would try to auction them, rather than do fixed price and wait for the right buyer. These particular items are going to require just the right buyer, and most of them will probably have to sit for quite some time. So my hope was that she would try to sell them herself, fail, and come back to me and accept my offer.

A day or so later, she wrote me that these things technically belonged to her mom, and that "her mom" was willing to negotiate. (I don't think her mom had anything to do with it. I think she's using her mom as a scapegoat - someone to blame for these crazy price jumps all over the place). "Her mom" was willing to come down to $200 more than my offer. Yes, that was a significant drop from her original out-of-her-mind price, but it was still $200 more than I was willing to pay. I wrote her back and told her that, again, knowing she would probably be back in a month or so.

I was wrong. She was back in 3 days. Again, "her mom" would be willing to come down to my price, but she wanted to keep the 5 best dolls out and try to sell them for more. Sigh. I have to give her credit. She is driving a very hard bargain. She knows what she's doing with the negotiation.

I actually pulled out an old-fashioned piece of paper and a pen, and I wrote down all the facts, including how much I think I can expect to sell these things for. I wrote down my primary concerns:

• I am trying to save up for a storage building. That amount cuts significantly into my savings.
• Since I don't have the storage building yet, where on earth would I put 50 Cabbage Patch Kids and 15 Care Bears, all in their original boxes??
• How long will this amount of money be tied up in this inventory, while I'm waiting for it to sell?
• There are VERY few original Care Bears in their boxes on eBay, so it's really hard to get an accurate picture of how much they will sell for. Similarly, there are a gazillion different variations of Cabbage Patch Kids. They are also next to impossible to research. Without having them in my hands, it's REALLY hard to get a good idea of what I can make from them.

I was able to refute all of those concerns:

• I'm not getting the storage building until mid-May. I will easily be able to save up the rest of the money by then, even without the amount I would pay for this stuff.
• My mother-in-law has a spare bedroom that she offered up for me to store them in. I will keep 3/4 of them at her house and 1/4 of them here. I'll only list the ones that are here, so I don't have to trek to her house every time one sells.
• How long will my money be tied up in ANYTHING that I buy for resale? That's part of the risk of this business, and I can't let that be a primary consideration in business decisions.
• Research ... there's nothing to be done about that. I am positive I can at least double my money, reasonably sure that I can triple it, and hopeful that I can quadruple it (if I can get top dollar for everything). The research will take time, but with those odds, I'm not terribly worried about it.

So! I'm going to contact her tomorrow and set up a meet time. I'd like to look at them. I will go with a little extra cash in hand and offer her more if she'll give me all of them. Originally, her price for all of it was $200 above my max price. I'll offer her $100 above my max price, meeting her in the middle. If she accepts, great. If not, I'll still take the rest for my max price. Assuming they are in great condition, of course.

I'm excited! It's a big investment, but I think they are great items and should make me some great money. I'll keep you posted!