Yardsale Finds: The $4000 yard sale find!

I have gone through quite a few different categories of products over the last few months. Everything from Golf Bags to Motorcycle Helmets and Restaurant Equipment. Just last weekend Stacy and I went yard selling and it was a really lousy day of yard selling. Maybe the worse we have ever had. I finally broke down and picked up a few items just to break the monotony of the day.

I didn't buy anything major at all, just a few $5 items. However, at one of the church sales we went to I ran across an item that really caught my interest. It was a very large Sound Mixing machine. If you don't know what that is think of that big board with all the slides and knobs on it that you see in a recording studio (or just scroll down and look at the picture).

The guy at the church sale had a pretty hefty price tag of $3,500 on it. Being that the most expensive item I have ever purchased was less than $1000, I was a little turned off by the price tag. After all I didn't want to have that much money tide up in anyone thing. But, after sleeping on it and doing some eBay research I decided I would buy it.

So, I hunted it down on Craigslist and negotiated the price down to $2,650. That is $850 lower than his asking price. After all, the old saying is true, "You make your money when you buy, not when you sell." So, I still somewhat hesitantly turned over the $2,650 and headed home to list it.

After my research I determined that I probably could get between $4-6000 for the board. It sells new for $11,000 and usually a used item goes for 35-50% of the original retail price. My strategy was to list it at a 7 day auction on eBay at a lower price and if it didn't sell the first time through I would relist it in my store at a higher price with a OBO (or best offer) option.

So, now that you have all the back story on it, check out the board and its current status below:

Paid: $2,650
Current Bid: $4,000
Current Margin: 34%