Issue #25

Welcome back to another Issue of Flip Weekly, we’re officially a quarter of a way to the century mark! This week we struck out at garage sales due to wet Sydney weather however we cleaned up in the thrift including a one-off $125 purchase (what have I done) and an item that should result in a 4,000% ROI! Plus I take a trip to A Secret Second Hand Store (literally the name of it) despite this comment on their page “helppp we saw the sign and went upstairs and got scared and turned back“.

All that and more, but first!

In This Issue

• What I’ve Bought

• What I Sold

• A Secret Second Hand Store

• Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

What I’ve Bought

Do you see what I see?

Out of sheer curiosity I looked up every other book pictured to see if there were any that I missed. Nope. Average selling price of all of the others is $10.76. The book that I picked up was 28 Days Later Omnibus. Did it stand out to you?

I’ve talked numerous times about looking out for graphic novels with the term ‘omnibus‘ in them so as soon as I saw this I knew to pick it up. 28 Days Later is a “post-apocalyptic survival horror film” (basically zombies) that came out in 2002 and this graphic novel came just over a decade later in 2014. Right now it’s selling on Amazon for $230.00 and of the 4 copies listed on eBay the cheapest is $234.65 with sold comps ranging from $149.84 all the way up to $488.84! If I undercut the cheapest on eBay I should be able to achieve a ~3,000% ROI.

This next item came out before I was even born but when I spotted it I did an immediate double take. These are Women’s Weekly magazine recipe cards from the 1970’s for only $4.00!

The Salvos store that I was in has always had terrible reception so I didn’t look these up but something about them spoke to me. They were sticky taped shut so all I could really make out was Women’s Weekly 1978 on the back of one of the recipe cards and that was enough to pull the trigger, especially at only $4.00. The strangest thing though… I called up my mum later that night and showed her some photos and she was adamant that she never owned these. She thought maybe her mum did (Grandma) but she wasn’t 100% sure. I think in hindsight I saw something old, with lots of individual items, neatly separated by alphabetical order and to the naked eye it was complete that it was worth picking up.

We have a nice sell through rate for these too… 21 active listings for 36 sold. Thanks to Flip Weekly’s eBay Sell Through Rate Calculator so that I don’t have to do maths, that’s a 171.43% sell through rate. Unfortunately you wont be able to make an offer on eBay as it will be gifted to a family member who mum is adamant remembers them.

It’s been a while, but I finally found a t-shirt in the thrift that wasn’t an overpriced Anko branded product.

Criss Angel was one of the most popular magician on the planet back in the early 2000’s. He reportedly signed a deal to perform in Las Vegas for 10 years worth around $100 million. Whilst I wont be able to perform a magic trick and turn this $8 into millions, it should still make a profit at around the $50 mark.

We’re still in Items I Bought so I just wanted to quickly talk about this 1968 Snoopy that I picked up in the thrift for $2 on the 19th.

I didn’t write about him as it wasn’t going to be a huge return. I bought him for $2 on the 19th and sold him for $20 on the 26th. I knew that there were people that collected Snoopy but it wasn’t until the buyer picked it up that I got a better sense of scale. She told me she was a genuine collector, that there’s diehard collectors that are buying anything and everything Snoopy and you can’t half tell based off of her Marketplace profile photo.

So when I found a 1958 Snoopy tennis racket cover this week I wanted to put those claims to the test.

I have to admit, I severely over paid. If you found this at a garage sale, it’s easily $1-$2. It was attached to a tennis racket in-store and had an $18(!) price tag. As a teenager I played tennis almost everyday so I knew that the racket was virtually worthless to resell (decent for a young beginner) so I left it behind for the store to resell and just kept the cover. In terms of similar comps I couldn’t find many solds but there were a few listed on eBay with people watching (I think I’ll stick with Marketplace first).

The last item I bought that I want to showcase is a category I haven’t done much in: watches.

I saw this in a display cabinet in a Salvos with a $125 price tag. I immediately thought it was a bit rich and went on searching the store before bringing out the eBay app and taking a look through sold comps. I saw 3 listings with varying prices. $68 on bid… $150 on BIN… $200 on bid…

When there’s this much fluctuation it really intrigues me so I had a look at active listings of which there were only 2 and the prices really surprised me.

$385 and $980 for the 2 active listings. I could see that combined the two watches had 19 people watching which is a good sign so I decided to take a bit of a gamble and pick it up for $125. It’s a lot of money to spend on 1 item in 1 thrift store however I think I should be able to double my money by listing at the $300 mark. It’s impossible to know whether people will pay this much for the watch considering the most its ever sold for (as far as I can tell) was just under $200 but we’ll see.

What I Sold

On Saturday night I decided to list up the VHS player that I bought last week. I picked it up along with 13 Sailor Moon tapes for $150.00 cash. I listed the tapes for $500 (crazy, I know) and the VHS player for $99.95. It didn’t take long for the VHS player to sell, I received a best offer of $90.00 just 1 hour and 11 minutes after listing which I accepted.

These types of players are something you should keep an eye out for at garage sales - in most cases people don’t value them and you can get away with buying it for $5 - $10. Remember to always ask if 1) it works and 2) if they have the remotes and cables.

I picked up this vintage ‘Space 1999’ toy vehicle alongside a ‘Thunderbird 2’ back in Issue #23 for just $15 total. The Thunderbird vehicle sold almost instantly for $100 and just a few days ago this one sold on eBay for $149.95. That’s $15 into $249.95 in approximately 16 days.

This next item went on to sell in 19 days despite being partially broken. I found it in the thrift for $4 and it could easily be mistaken for a Funko pop if you judged it based on its head.

It’s an action figure based on a video game called Overwatch. I’ve never played the game but I know people that do so I was pretty disappointed when I went to put it together and noticed a wing was broken. If it was brand new in box it would be around $130.00 and I’m guessing if it was loose and not broken, maybe around $80. Nevertheless, $40 for a broken action figure is really good. Always check your grab bags and don’t be dissuaded if something is partially broken, you could still make money!

I can’t stress enough how happy I am that somebody bought this next item.

I bought 2 of these 1994 The Mask popcorn buckets back in Issue #21 for just $2 and today 1 has sold for an even $20.

They’re honestly so cool looking and I’m tempted to keep one for myself, especially as I’ve already made my money back. Honestly, who would have guessed that these old popcorn buckets would be worth anything - people were eating out of them!

It got me thinking… I wonder what other popcorn buckets have sold recently. This led me down a bit of a rabbit hole and I’ve discovered that a lot of people are collecting popcorn buckets, especially Disney.

Here are some of the most expensive and unique looking ones I’ve found on eBay:

To be completely honest with you, some of these I don’t even know where the popcorn goes and what the experience would be like eating out of them. I think I’m a bit old school… give me a regular cardboard bucket that I can easily disperse of to hide the shame of eating tremendous amounts of buttery goodness.

A Secret Second Hand Store

It was a complete accident that I came across this place. I was on Google Maps checking on opening and closing times for a few places and saw something a bit mysterious…

I had literally never seen that before and it was so close to a Vinnies and Save The Children Op Shop that I was perplexed… what is this place? Without looking into it any further, I went for a visit and now I can see why this Tiktok user had the initial reaction.

Let’s take a look.

Knowing the afterlife was moments away I went on and came across the entrance.

It does exist, it isn’t some sort of trap to lure in unsuspecting flippers. It’s quite small, it’s literally just 1 room however they make good use of the space. The prices are fair and they seem to run a lot of deals. They have a clothing section where items are $2 each or you can fill a plastic bag for $10.

I have to admit I didn’t spend too much time at A Secret Second Hand Store, I was still slightly nervous I was going to end up in a bathtub missing a kidney. That said, I’ll definitely be back, they’re doing something different and it’s important to support local small business and not give everything to Salvos or Vinnies.

If you want to check out more of the shop before visiting for yourself, hit up there socials on either Instagram or Tiktok. There you can see that they’re friendly and definitely not scary.

A Secret Second Hand Store is located at 3/10 W Parade, West Ryde NSW 2114, Australia.

Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

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