Live Auction

My esteemed friend and I are headed off to check out a new Auction company today. The action will be going down at the Nashville Fair Grounds. Stay tuned for picture updates as the day progresses....

Item of the Day: Phillips DVR

Last week I took a friend of mind with me on Friday morning to hit a few estate sales. It wasnt a banner day by any means but we were able to pick up several nice items. One of which came from a church sale in Nashville.

There were around 15 electronic items sitting on a table. We were one of the first people there and items were still being brought out as we were scoping out the sale. Nothing had been priced yet, very annoying, so every item I was interested in I had to ask someone.

After being questioned several times the lady in charge told me everything at the table (electronics) was $5. We wound up picking up this very nice Phillips DVR System. It has all the original books and controllers and cables included. It still had the plastic wrappring around the unit.

So here goes...

WE PAYED: $5




You can see everything at our store HERE

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Item of the Day: Augusta National

As I was going through some boxes of miscellaneous items that I won at auctin last week. I had been through the box 3 or 4 times already and each time I found a few more items that were selling in the $20 range.

I had decided I was going to through the box away, as it was taking up too much room around the apartment. For some reason though I looked through it one more time.....and I found the gem below.

It is a Golf Bag Tag from the 2006 Masters in Augusta, GA. This just happens to be the first Masters that Phil Mickelson won, making the item a little more valuable.

Check it:




You can see everything at our store HERE

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Item of the Day: EICO Sound System

Today's item is what started it all...for us at least. We moved to Nashville in May 2009. I had an idea for a business and we started that business up in September 2009. Things were going well and business was beginning to pickup and ..... well.... to make a long story short we closed. The City of Nashville decided they didn't want us doing what we were doing. So, after several $1000 dollars and several hundred hours of hard work we were Out of Business. They even posted a cool sign, that I still have, that says that we were to "Cease and Assist" all business activity.

So, I really didn't have a backup plan. That WAS the plan. I still plan on revisiting that business one day. For the time being though God wanted me to go a different direction. I had no idea what that direction was or what it looked like but I knew he had something.

I had always heard stories of people doing stuff on eBay and I have always been involved with computers since I was very young. I always thought I would always be a programmer growing up. Somewhere along the line though I lost my desire for that and didn't want to be inside at a desk all day.

I have always loved business and have for most of my young life run some type of business or organization. And now, thanks to the city of Nashville, my opportunities were WIDE open. That idea is pretty nice to think about in theory but once you are there it is a little bit intimidating.

I kept thinking about the eBay idea. I heard a story on the radio about a man that bought and resold old used golf clubs several months earlier. The story I heard was that he grossed over a million dollars last year. I figured if some retired old guy could do something than I sure could as well.

So within a week or two of the failed business Stacy and I decided we would go to a few yard sales. In the mean time I did a lot of reading, online and in the bookstore, about people that did similar things. I had all the two questions everyone else has, "What do I buy?" and "Where do I by it?".

I found a few reputable authors online and read everything they had written. Some were good and some were just trash. One of the authors mentioned Vintage Electronics as one of the items that he looked for. Old 8 Track player, Record Player & anything with a Tube in it. He gave a few brand names and gave me a pretty good idea what to look for.

Now, I don't remember if it was the first or second sale weekend we were out going to yard sales but we happened upon one sale. And we found this item:



ITEM: VINTAGE SOUND SYSTEM

WE PAID: $5

SOLD FOR: $350

It cost us $5. It is a EICO Tuner, AMP & Multiplexer. It was made back in the 60's and was a kit. You bought the kit, brought it home & put it together.

I plugged it in and a few of the power lights came on, so I figured I might have something and boy was I right!

After some quick eBay research I found this was a fairly rare piece.

After a 5 day auction it sold for right at $350!

And that was the beginning...



(Unfortunately eBay only keeps a record of items up to 90days old. So, I cant link you to the auction)

And I was sold!

Item of the Day: Old School Fan

I though I would start doing an "Item of the Day" post. One of the questions I get the most is "What do I sell? & Where do I find it?". That is a rather difficult questions to answer because you literally can sell ANYTHING on eBay. It is not "What you sell" but rather "What you BUY, what you sell for". Make sense?

Here is an example.

I picked up this Antique 1920's Brass fan the other day.

I can do a quick eBay completed listings search for the model number and find that these fans sell for between $100-$200 dollars. The average is $145. So, if I have an opportunity to buy a fan identical or similar to this one I know that I need to pay LESS than $100.

I like to at least double my money on most everything I buy. The higher the dollar amount the less strict I am on this rule. In the case of this fan I paid $45. I knew that I would at least double my money on the low end and possbily triple my money if it went toward the higher end of the average price.

The auction ends in just a few hours. Check it our below.


ITEM: VINTAGE FAN
WE PAID: $45



You can see everything at our store HERE

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The Finds: Live Auction Version (BHAG)

A fews days ago I was telling you about going to a live auction last week. I have been wanting to go to one for a while but just have never made it a priority. Last week though I finally got around to it. I had researched each lot that I was interested in ahead of time and was really looking forward to it. There were around 12 different lots that I wanted.

I had a ceiling that I put on each lot, the most I would spend on it. I have always heard of stories of people that would go to these types of things and wind up spending MUCH more than they should have because they get caught up in the "bidding frenzy." I was going to be intentional about that not happening to me though.

So, each lot had a maximum, and if I wound up winning nothing then that was fine too. After all this was my first time and it was probably smarter to not bid on anything the first time through.

So, how did I do?

Best buy I have ever had! I bought too much stuff to list everything here. But I will tell you about one particular auction that went very well.

If you have followed this blog long at all you know that one item that I try to find is vintage motorcycle helmets. When I saw this particular lot on the preview day I paid close attention to it. It was a Porsche Design Romar helmet.

I did a little research and saw that a very similar helmet with a different color pattern had sold recently for around $100 with shipping. There where several other items in this lot as well. There were a lot of motorcycle related items: Old Motorcycle Pictures, Boots, Old Belt Buckles, Figurines and some other random items.

This lot was out of an estate of a man that was a long time motorcycle enthusiast and rode back in the 50's and 60's. This lot was for everything related to that genre.

I wasn't sure what I could get for all of the other random things but I knew the helmet was pretty rare and valuable so I placed my max at $80. I thought, "If I could pay for the auction with the money I made off the helmet then hopefully everything else could get close to doubling my money."

So the bidding commenced and I wound up paying $95. That was obviously more than I had planned which is funny because I purposefully set out not to do that, but I just felt good about.

So after a long day of bidding and talking and collecting all the stuff I won, we set out on Saturday to list it all. There was ALOT of it. The auction items along with all of our weekend yardsale items completely covered our living room.

The fun began shortly after I posted a few of these items. Within 2 hours of posting I started receiving questions on several of the items. One of which was a pair of SIDI Sport Full Bore Leather motorcycle riding boots.

I got a message that asked if I would entertain a BIN (Buy it Now) Price for the item. I said yes, thinking I wouldn't take anything less than $100 for them. Within 5 minutes I got a reply back that asked if i would consider and offer for $200! I nearly fainted...but being the person I am i figured if they offered $200 they would definitely pay $250. So I wrote her back and told her that I would do $250 + shipping.

She was ecstatic....and she paid within 30 minutes.

We completed the transaction through PayPal (which is technically against the rules). I canceled my eBay auction once she paid, so the auction doesnt show the final paid amount.

This is one of my best single eBay transaction I've ever had. What is better is that within a few minutes I received another message about some of the old pictures that I has posted offering me $275 for them! I quickly responded like I did with the boots, thinking if they were offering $275 they would probably pay more. I told him that I would take $350. He agreed and we completed that transaction through eBay this time (see that one below).

So with just those two items I grossed $625 on an auction that I paid $95 for. Whats even better is that I still have over 10 items that are still live on eBay as well that came out of that same lot!

BHAG: This was our first step in our BHAG. We spend $1130 of our $1150 at the auction last week. I will update next week with our gross profit.

Here is a list of the other items that are live right now. (Keep in mind that the total cost of all these was $95)























You can see everything at our store HERE

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BHAG: The New Car

About 10 days ago our 2002 Nissan Sentra blew a motor. That car had been one problem after another. We had just spent $400 one a new Radiator, Water Pump & Thermostat just 3 weeks previous. 2 months before that we spent over $150 on new tires and had our oil changed just 4 days before. So, when it blew the motor it was bitter sweet.

Bitter: Well, the expense of fixing or buying another car is never something you welcome. We our currently working through Baby Step #2 in Financial Peace University and any big expense like this is rather detracting.

Sweet: I hated that car! It broke down seemingly all the time. Every month there was something else going wrong with it. So the prospect of not having to deal with that stupid thing anymore was great.

The Mission: If you are familiar with FPU then you know our savings account is at the $1000 mark and that we wont exactly be buying a new car with that. We called around and got quote ranging from $2000 - $6000 to fix the car. That was way more than the car was even worth so we really didn't know what to do.

So last Monday I decided I would put it on craigslist and see what I could get for it AS-IS. I posted it and fully described it and put, what i thought was, a crazy price on it just to see if I could get any bites.

After posting it went and got a shower and then when I returned to my desk I saw I had missed 10 phone calls, all of which were about the car! I called them all back and arranged for 2 of them to meet me within the hour. They arrived and the high bidder got the car for $1150. That was $1150 for a broken down, blown motor piece of junk (aptly described to them).

I thanked God for helping us and proceeded back to the house. After talking with Stacy we thought it would make for a pretty cool story (and a much better car) if we took that money from the sale of the car and "eBaid it" for a few weeks/months and see how nice of a car we could get.

BHAG: So, that will be a new subject of our blog for the next several weeks. We will use the moeny from the sale of our broken down car as 'seed money' to buy and sell items from aucitons, yardsale & thrift stores. My goal is to take the $1150 we got from the car and within 60 days from Today be able to buy a $10,000 car.

I don't have any idea if we will make it or not, but that's the goal.

Happy Following!

The Finds: Goodwill Version

Sorry for the lack of post the last few days. Last week was nuts. In some very god and some, a little -less- good ways. I went to a live auction last Thursday and picked up some awesome deals! I'll post about that later. As for now here is a short story I wrote last week but never got around to posting.

Have you ever heard of the Goodwill Outlet Store? If not you should find one in your area. It is the craziest thing you have ever seen (see picture to the left). They have a roughly 15,000 sqft. open room with around 40 huge plastic bins on wheels. Every hour or so they bring out new bins of items. Inside the bins are everything from roller skates to tea kettle. They aren't sorted, priced or organized at all. They are just thrown in, its pretty wild.

Everybody huddles around the bins as the bring them out and frantically searches through the bin trying to find...whatever it is they are there to find. Once you are ready to checkout you then proceed to the front.

You don't pay by the piece, nothing is labeled. Rather, you pay by the tonnage. $1.58 per lb. The more you get the cheaper it is. Its a pretty novel concept actually.

Well a few days ago I was on my way back from a local auction (more on that later) so I decided to stop by and see what they had. This was only my second time to visit but I picked up a few sweet items.

Check them out below:


ITEM: OLD SKI
WE PAYED: $3




ITEM: VINTAGE ROUND LUGGAGE
WE PAYED: $3




ITEM: GOLF BAG
WE PAYED: $4




ITEM: GOLF CLUBS
WE PAYED: $2



You can see everything at our store HERE

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FREE Stuff: You never know

A quick post this morning. This last weekend we picked up several free items. Its amazing sometimes what people will just give you once they are ready to packup the yardsale. Usually after 12pm all the good stuff you would normally buy is already sold. At that point everyone is ready to go and they have switched from "sales mode" to "give it away so we don't have to take it to Goodwill" mode. This can be great time to focus on if your looking for some cool pickups.

This probably wont ever be a time when you pickup a diamond in the rough or some fantastic deal, but free is free. Here are a few things we picked up this weekend for free.

Picked up at one of our quazi-Community sales from this weekend:



Picked up by our friends Mike & Angie:

Update: "Craigslist + Lunch Break"

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I wrote a few days ago about a deal that I found on Craigslist. It included 4 Golf bags for $100 ($25 ea.). The last auction just closed and the results are in. I predicted that I would Gross $400 on the 4 bags. It looks like I was right on the money with that prediction.

Here is how it broke down


Ben Hogan Personalized Bag:

Paid - $25
Sold for - $89 + ($29 s&h)

Ben Hogan 80's Staff Bag:

Paid - $25
Sold for - $53 + ($29 s&h)

Titleist Bob Vokey Bag

Paid - $25
Sold for - $100 + ($29 s&h)

Titleist Vintage Staff Bag

Paid - $25
Sold for - $49.99 + ($29 s&h)

Total Gross = $407.99

Obviously that includes shipping cost and eBay/PayPal fees. Subtract out $15 for shipping per bag, our $100 we spent and 10% for fees and that leave us with a total:

NET gain of $207.19

The Finds: The Picture Version (4/10/10)

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Sometimes when the yard sales aren't turning up the items you normally look for you have to get outside your comfort zone. That's what we did this weekend. It looked to be a stellar weekend but as the day rolled along the quality of items was just not there. However, at the end of the day I think we wound up with some pretty cool items and we should make some good money off of them.

After our record 7 golf bags last weekend. We turned up a big ZERO in the golf bag department this weekend. We did find some Antique Baseball cleats and some Vintage 1950's leather luggage though!


Check out some of those below.


ITEM: OLD CLEATS
WE PAYED: $1.00




ITEM: PAINTBALL GEAR
WE PAYED: $35.00




ITEM: 35mm Camera
WE PAYED: $10.00




ITEM: Basket
WE PAYED: $1.00




You can see everything at our store HERE

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The Finds: Yard Sale Saturday (4/10/10)

The weather in middle Tennessee is finnaly turning to spring. No more snow. no more sleet and ice! That means everybody is starting to clean out their house and all the stuff they dont want anymore is going in the "Yard Sale" pile. This was the first really good weekend for garage/yard/estate sales in Nashville. There were over 100 scattered all through the city. Stacy layed out our route and at 7:00am we where at our first sale. Here is how it went:


1st Stop (7:00am):
Neighborhood Sale: Nothing

2nd Stop (7:15am)
Yard Sale: Had a lot of overprices stuff
Stacy pickd up a New in Box Salad sponner for $3

3rd Stop (7:30am)
Yard Sale: Very well organized but nothing we wanted

4th Stop (7:50am)
Yard Sale: A whole lot of nothing again

5th Stop: (8:00am)
Yard Sale: They had free donuts! I got a pretty sweet deal on some paintball gear and Stacy picked up a pretty nice Bill Organizer.

6th Stop: (8:30am)
Estate Sale: This was an Estate Sale put on by Patterson Estate Sale, we really like their sales. The house they were hosting this in was the strangest house. The floor plan just kept going and going. We didnt buy much here. They had some really nice golf equipment but they were wanting a little to much for it. I would up picking two old Doctors Reference books for $1.

7th Stop: (9:30am)
Community Sale: We got to this supposed community sale alittle later than we would have liked. But, it wasnt exactly a community sale anyhow. There were 3 house with sale going. However, we did pick up a few items. Stacy for some shoes and a dress for $3 as well as an old Cadillac Hood Ornament for $.25. I got a old Harley Davidson Mirror for $1, a speed reading tape course for $1 and a FREE 50 Disc CD Changer that may or may not work.

8th Stop: (10:50am)
Yard Sale: I picked up three Pampered Chef Stoneware dished for $10. I think this will be one of my better buys of the day.

9th Stop: (11:15pm)
Community Sale: Nice 5pc set of Vintage Leather Luggage for $8, 2 Baseball Helmets for $5 and a Baby Harness Carrier for $3.

10th Stop: (12:30pm)
Yard Sale: By this point it is getting pretty late to expect to find much at a Yard Sale but we managed to get a few smaller thing. I pickedup a Texas Holdem Video game for $1 and Stacy got a cool vintage metal box organizer for $.25.

11th Stop: (1:25pm)
Estate Sale: Our final stop of the of day was at an Estate Sale. I picked up an old Western electric Rotary phone for $5 and a 1940's pair of baseball cleats for $1.

Our friends that went with us again got a Really nice set of Sunroom furniture for their new house for $375. It retails at some of the department store for over $1200.

We followed up our yardsale day by hosting a Parents Night Out for the parents at church. Needless to say we didnt get our items listed yesterday and will be posting this morning. Ill update with some of the items you mught be interesed in watching as soon as I get them listed.



Ill be messing around with the formatt of these post for a while untile I find something that works

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Craigslist + Lunch Break = $300

Today on my lunch break I thought I would do a quick search of Craigslist for one of my favorite Yardsale Items, golf bags. It produced quite a few results. One of which is the following.



So, I met the guy and 30min later I picked up 4 bags for $100. Normally I try to stay within the $5-$15 range when purchasing golf bags but these appeared to be in very good condition and were good name brand bags.

After doing some quick research it looks like I made a pretty good buy.

Judging from some of the completeed listings the lot of 4 bags will go for around $400. Thats $300 in profits for about an hours worth of work!

Ill update you with the final prices in 5 days.


Track them below: We Payed ($25 ea.)










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Yard Sale Saturday: (4/03/10)

Twas the night before Saturday and all through the house. The maps were printed and courses plotted out. But the weather would soon make all those plans obsolete and I would arise in the morning with a severe lack of sleep....

We covered some serious ground today. From Murfreesboro to Franklin, Brentwood and up to Hendersonville. Many of the scheduled yard sales today where cancelled and rescheduled due to the severe rain. But we persevered and came away with some decent items. Here are the highlights:


ITEM: PING GOLF BAG
WE PAYED: $5.00




ITEM: MOTORCYCLE HELMET
WE PAYED: $3.00




ITEM: SLIDE EDITOR
WE PAYED: $5.00




ITEM: SANYO AMPLIFIER
WE PAYED: $7.00




http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250606397789&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMESOX%3AIT

Rainy Saturday Morning

Its going to be nasty today. We've shortened the list and picked out only Inside sales. There should be a few good ones. Expectations are low though.


View Yard Sale (4/3/10) in a larger map

Saturday Roundup (3/27/10)

"Saturday Roundup" will be a weekly article that compliments "Yard Sale Saturday". This article will show the items that we bought the previous week and give an update on how they are selling, what they have sold for and how much total profit we made on that weeks items.

Keep in mind that every product does not sell within the first 5 days, but for us we try to sell everything we buy as quick as we can. We do this by listing all of our items that we buy on Saturday of each week and putting them on 5 day auctions. This puts them ending on the following Thursday and allows us to use the profit from the week prior to purchase items at the coming weeks sales. Clear as mud? OK!

On with the numbers. This past week we spent a total of $53.50 on a number of items.

Some of these were really good buys and a few were duds. Once we got home and researched each item we put the duds to the side. No sense in listing something that we know will not sell for enough to cover our cost.

So after 5 days the items sold for:



Check out the actual auctions here.

We spent somewhere around 8 hours total shopping, listing and shipping the items. Not too bad for a part time weekend job.

Till next time....

The Littlest and Oddest

When I talk to people about selling stuff on eBay or hitting up Yard Sales or Thrift Stores I get this response alot. "I dont know what to buy" or "I dont have any money to do that with."

The below is an example that you can buy nearly ANYTHING with ANY ammount of money and turn a profit. The two items below where bought this weekend for a total of $1.50. They are both currently selling for a total of $12.98 +shipping. That many not sound like a lot of money but if you look at my previous post you can see the types of things you can buy for $12.98. You could buy the PING Golf Bag that is going for nearly $60 or the ARTHUR FULMER Helmet that is at $50+.

Anyone with a functional car, a halfway working brain and a few dimes can get out there and do this

Here are the two auctions:

ITEM: A RUSTY OLD HAND SAW
WE PAYED: $1.00




ITEM: XBOX CONTROLELR
WE PAYED: $0.50