Issue #97

I’ve got a massive Issue of Flip Weekly ready for you including sales, finds and giveaways but before we get into that I wanted to take a moment.

Sydney experienced a terrorist attack on Sunday and it felt wrong to not say something.

The sort of violence we saw over the weekend has no place in our society and my heart goes out to all those affected in the Sydney and Jewish community.

Ordinary citizens, police officers and emergency service workers should be recognized as the heroes that they are. It’s easy to assign blame and direct hate. Mourn and grieve without anger and retribution. When we come together as one that’s where the strength is in our community. Their goal is division. We cannot and will not be divided by the selfish acts of cowards and pathetic men.

In This Issue

• What I Bought

• What I Sold

• Thriftmas

• Official Flip Weekly Podcast

• Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

• Flip Weekly on Social Media

• 100% Free Resources to Help You

What I Bought

We’re starting off this week with some absurd luck. Luck and timing. It’s the basic foundation for succeeding on Facebook Marketplace. That, and an internet connection and Facebook account. Plus some general knowledge on what sells.

Look, you get it, it’s straightforward and it doesn’t take much. That’s why I don’t brag about Marketplace finds. Anyone can click that “Hi, is this available“ button and you best believe everyone does. However, this week we pressed the button and got a response for an amazing deal.

Nintendo 64 games, 20 minutes away, priced at $5 each. My friend sent me this listing 8 minutes after it went live and I immediately sent through a message offering to buy them all and pick ‘em up that night. In most situations 8 minutes after listing is too slow, but my offer to buy them all and not pick and choose the best ones got me the deal. After all, if you’re getting rid of N64 games for $5 each you just want them out of the house.

The outlay was $65 and I knew immediately that this was going to be profitable. Why? It was only a few weeks ago I picked up a Nintendo 64 bundle that included Pokemon Stadium 1 and when doing my comp research I saw that #2 sells for a lot of money. How much?

It’s essentially a $200 game with a really, really quick sell through rate. I’m guessing it will be the first to sell and when it does, it’s all profit. Don’t get me wrong, not every single cartridge is a banger, we do have the low value ones like Star Wars Episode 1 Racer and WCW/NWO but the overall total listed value is around $750. That doesn’t include 5 games that were kept aside and not listed up as they’re worth sub $30. They’ll most likely be lotted up with a console.

I don’t have any secrets when it comes to finding these deals, in most cases they just find me. I broke down my entire Facebook Marketplace strategy earlier this year and it hasn’t changed. Every single weekend is a genuine opportunity to make a lot of money and that statement will be backed up when you see sales and additional pick ups from this week.

Before we get into that, let’s take a look at some op shop finds.

First, at Savers.

Any time you see an old school flip clock you need to get excited, people pay big money for them. I don’t know why, it’s just a clock. I can hear the argument now… “it’s the aesthetic.“ Like the aesthetic of a clock tells the time better. I saw this in Savers for $5.99 and immediately thought it was priced so low because it wasn’t going to work. After all, it’s a Karlsson which is highly sought after.

I picked it up and brought it back. Chucked a couple of AA batteries in and waited for the numbers to flip. The analog clock was set at 11:57pm so I only needed to wait for 3 minutes. I was doing a bit of work in the office and realized 20 minutes later that time had stood still. The minute hand was getting caught on the hour hand. Easy fix, take off the plastic covering, give it a stiff straightening and it’s good as new.

So the clock is reset to 11:57pm and I wait the 3 minutes. Nothing happens. I imagine if somebody bought this for New Years, they count down, 3, 2, 1 and then nothing. Instant negative feedback.

So with motor on, I spin the analog clock to see if they’re going to be triggered. They do, but it’s not at midnight. It’s at 5am… that’s right, the date and the day is triggered at 5am in the morning. It’s a bit weird but after looking around online it seems to be quite normal. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea, but as long as it’s noted in the description we’re good to go. So what sort of return are looking at? First, let’s look at the brand.

Desirable is an understatement. We have 16 Active Listings, 16 Sold Listings. 100% sell through rate. People want this brand so badly they’d pay close to $1,000 for the above wall clock. Insanity. What about the pill shape we have? We don’t have any Sold Listings and I’m guessing it’s because it’s quite old. We do have a single Active Listing and it’s promising.

$340 including postage plus 12 watchers. It’s the only one available within Australia and the exact same model as mine, minus the color. We legit have a chance to turn $5.99 into over $300… on a clock. I’ve talked about wall clocks before and I know what you’re thinking, I ain’t going to read or listen to somebody talk about wall clocks. However, we did turn $10 into $100 in a short amount of time and this $5.99 into $300 might convince you to learn a bit more about the category. Don’t sleep on these boring categories.

As I’m making my way through Savers I come to a section that is often overlooked, folders and stationary. A lot of items get lumped together in this aisle and you can sometimes spot some cool stuff.

Slipknot is a heavy metal band that I just could not get into as a kid. I respect the talent but I just didn’t hate my parents enough. Nevertheless, I’m very much familiar with them so when I saw this old school CD wallet for $1.99 I thought it might be something worthwhile.

I did some basic comp research and nothing came up except for a bunch of retail websites that had this case listed as OUT OF STOCK. It’s a green flag, it shows that it sold out when it was first on sale and no further runs were produced. So we look on eBay and find just 2 Active Listings but they’re a tad different.

$100?! $200?! For a CD wallet?! Before listing up, I decide to see just how much people like this thing, so I jump onto Reddit and post on the Slipknot subreddit.

7,500 views, 300 upvotes and a bunch of “I want this“ comments later show there’s a demand.

I list this $1.99 CD wallet up on eBay for $100.

Let’s see how it goes.

A few items I left behind this week, for one reason or another, but are worth buying if you see them:

These bags sell for a lot of money. I left it behind because I couldn’t be bothered dealing with the shipping.

That said, could easily flip this from $15 into $75 on Marketplace.

I can’t with Thomas. Even if it means a decent profit.

I’ve been trying to reconcile why I despite Thomas & Friends so much. I think I’ve figured it and I’m going to use an obscure analogy but bare with me.

Years and years ago I was dating this girl who had a controlling mother. Everyone tried to appease her, she was seemingly never told no. She had this go-to dish she would cook for family dinners on a Sunday night that was a really basic pork belly and sides. I’m a huge meat guy, I love cooking, watching, eating.

Towards the end of every week the invite would come. At first I would always accept. I mean, it’s a free meal and I don’t have to cook. Over time, I started to see that this dish, this basic pork belly wasn’t anything special. We’re not smoking this thing, it’s (barely) scored, seasoned and then put in the oven where it would overcook. She might as well have put it in a meat dehydrator. Yet when that invite came and I turned it down, the response by others in the family was “Haha, you’re going to miss out on pork belly, it’s your loss“ and I’m thinking… it’s like $25 per kilo from your local butchers, the way you cook it isn’t that great. If I wanted it, I’d buy it and cook it properly.

To tie it back, thrift stores are so used to putting out absolute junk (and resellers buying that junk) that when something as common as Thomas & Friends appears, they treat it like it’s solid Gold. Actually, it’s not. It can be bought from pretty much any retail store. And guess what? Most of it isn’t worth anything. Yeah, it can be worth money but that doesn’t make up for your dull, heart-rendering, blow my brains out cooking.

Does that resonate? Did it make sense?

Anyway, let’s hit some nostalgia and unlock memories.

This is a 1983 brand new and sealed Crayola Designer Kit. Specifically, for interiors. This kit was designed to helps kids draw and design their very own rooms and houses using a variety of tools including protractors, mechanical pencils, rulers and more. Basically everything we were forced to bring to school in the early 2000’s that we’ve since never picked up.

On first glance it’s obvious this thing is old, just look at the girl. It screams 80’s kid. I’m surprised it was priced at $5 however it didn’t have an age on the box so volunteers and employers musn’’t have given it much thought. I did and I’m glad I did because if we look at comps we see some insane prices and a sell through rate of over 200% for brand new and sealed versions.

Oops I did it again.

I can’t believe I was forced to buy this. I specifically said, PLEASE STEAL THIS CATEGORY.

I didn’t even message until an hour or two after it had been live. Why is it still available?!

Ladies and gentleman, we secured a vintage Polly Pocket bundle for $300 that is going to piece out to thousands and thousands of dollars.

I’m being 100% honest with you. When I opened Marketplace and saw this listing, I saw it was hours old and I hoped when I sent through the first “Hi, is this available“ it would come back as being sold or pending. It’s $300 just before Christmas and whilst I know I’d see a return, it would be drawn out over a few weeks or months.

A few minutes after sending the message I got the reply. It’s available.

I tried to talk myself out of it and maybe even subconsciously delay the inevitable by asking about condition of the individual items and if the light up Polly Pocket’s worked.

When the bundle was still available after all of this I said screw it, let’s go.

I paid $300 for what turned out to be 21 individual Polly Pocket listings. The photo that convinced me to take the shot was the very last one, a trinket box full of the mini figures. We know that the more complete these playsets, the more money we can make.

I was right. The average listing price of these 21 playsets is $96.65.

People pay a lot of money for vintage Polly Pockets and owners sell them cheap because they can’t be bothered to sort them out. Spend an hour or two sorting them out and you can make big money. It’s not even hard, it’s 2025 and we have technology, it just takes some time.

Honestly, people harp on about video games, but this category is just as popular.

$300 was spent, read on to see how much has sold in just a few hours including a single 2cm figure that was listed up (and sold) for more than Mario Kart and Golden Eye on Nintendo 64 combined.

I say this with love, start buying out Polly Pocket collections. I still enjoy the category but I want you to have some success with it. I get more joy out of seeing you succeed in a category that I’ve talked about before than I do making money with it.

A few other things I bought this week:

I’ve noticed Vinnies has been laying out toys in separate tables in their stores lately. Most of it… junk. I was surprised to see these two 1998 Batman figures.

I’m immediately thinking what’s the catch? They appear to be fully sealed. The card and bubble are in good condition. Priced at $15, they musn’t be worth much.

Wrong.

This is where knowing how to properly do comp research gives us an advantage.

For example, when you search for “1998 Batman Knight Force Ninjas Tailwhip Killer Croc” on eBay you’re presented with loose figures and a few sealed.

The only issue is that these are all in the United States. When I narrowed the search down to just Australia, we have 0 results. Literally 0. So if somebody from within the country wants to buy this action figure, they’re going to have to get it shipped from the US and nobody wants to do that.

What we do is we sort by lowest first, work out how much it would cost to get it to Sydney, factor in desirability and the time of the year, add on our Australia tax and we’ve got a listed value. That listed value is $99.95 per figure. $30 for both, should hopefully sell for $200.

I almost had a heart attack finding this.

This is a 1989 South Sydney Rabbitohs jersey but it’s not an original, it’s a retro reproduction. I saw the colours, I saw the NSW RL logo and my heart skipped a beat. For good reason, the 1990 jersey sells for around $300, you could probably ask for $400-$500. Unfortunately for us it’s a reproduction but it’s still new with tags. Brand new it sells for $120 so we can ask for $100 on eBay. I’m just going to put it out there now, I chucked it up on Marketplace for $50 and it sold the very next day.

Next is a jersey that wasn’t a reproduction and it took a bit of research to really narrow down exactly what we have - and it’s amazing.

This appears to be a standard Wellington Lions (New Zealand rugby union) jersey, even mistaken for a training jersey. Priced at $15 it sort of stumped me. Usually it’s easy to date. Whether it’s fan websites, jersey websites, eBay or Facebook groups you can narrow it down. When those fails I start to get a bit concerned but we then move onto Worthpoint, Avaluer, even stock photo websites like Getty Images. Nothing.

It has a GPS pouch so it has to be match or player issued but I mean, who wore it and wear? That’s when I receive a Facebook message from a Rugby Union fan.

I felt so dumb. I took another look at the jersey and you know what I saw? Initials.

We now have confirmation this is a player issued jersey. We have the GPS tag, initials, that’s enough. I listed the jersey up before I could guarantee the player issue at $99.95 and I thought it was only fair to keep the price the same and add the additional information. If someone snaps it up, more power to ‘em.

What I Sold

This is why the eBay seller from last week got angry.

It’s because he knew digital cameras sell for a lot of money, and they sell quickly. This Canon PowerShot S200 felt very shmick, it felt high quality and it had barely been used. I really don’t know much about cameras, except a few of the brands. I’m always seeing Nikon Coolpix, Canon PowerShot on Facebook Marketplace and if they’re anything less than $100 you can usually make money on them.

Something that looks like it could be bought off Temu for $3.50 has just sold for $79.95.

This is an old school Tetris handheld gaming device. I remember playing with one of these as a kid so when I spotted it in a Save The Children Op Shop I had to grab it. There isn’t too much information available online about this specific unit, but it was made by a company called e-Star who went on to create a few different variations of these brick games. It came out in the early 90’s to, I assume, capitalize on the popularity of the newly released Game Boy. The difference of course being this only had 1 built in game and the Game Boy is a cartridge system.

After selling a whole bunch of this E-23 unit, they went on to manufacturer a version which had hundreds, and then thousands of games in 1. Those devices can be found on eBay for as little as $10. My advice to you if you find something similar out in the wild, is that the less built-in games, the more money you’ll be able to get.

Lord of the Rings is usually a quick seller, but this item purchased back in 2024 took longer than expected.

The Lord of the Rings audiobook that came in a really cool ring shaped metal container. The Lord of the Rings audiobook market on eBay looks quite barren on eBay yet the sell through rate for “lord of the rings audiobook“ sits at 48%. Data suggests it should have sold quicker - maybe it’s just one of those things where I should have taken it down and relisted a bit cheaper. Would I still buy something like this in the future? Yeah, I think so.

I don’t remember buying this DVD but after taking another look at it, I bet I was really embarrassed checking out.

What you don’t see is the back of the DVD cover which was covering in scantily clad figures and suggestive positions. You can imagine the $3 price tag, given my luck, would be on the back of the DVD. With most Vinnies volunteers being elderly, you best believe they would have squinted hard to read the number. Instead of the number, they would have seen what would appear to be… something rude and embarrassing. I’ll leave it at that.

Actually no, if I had to see it you have to see it.

Just imagine the Vinnies volunteer searching for the price tag, seeing everything above and then looking up at me.

This next item was bought in a bundle of 5 for $50 total, $10 each.

First ever time finding GameCube games on Marketplace and they’ll dripping out, around 1 per week. I’ll make money from the deal, not a huge amount, but enough to keep me wanting more.

An easy set of book titles you’ll remember if you want to turn a few bucks into $100.

Asterix is always going to sell. The small pocket books, the full size hardcovers, they’re all still highly desirable. I only found 8 of the pocket books for $2 each yet they sold on eBay for $100 and in less than a month. Buy Asterix.

It’s quite rare for me to find a valuable concert t-shirt at a thrift store.

I see concert t-shirts all the time, especially in the 2010’s era yet so few are worth buying. Sell through rates and average sale price is sub $100 but we buck the trend with a 2014 Kanye West Yeezus tee.

When video games at a garage sale are priced down to the dollar they sell for on eBay, yet the DVD’s are not. That’s the situation Sam and I found ourselves in at this years Garage Sale Trail.

$5 for the entire collection of Ultimate Spider-Man on DVD which has sold for $100. The box set is quite rare and it’s a reminder to not sleep on physical media.

Despite a sale price that was under $100, this item still made me smile.

I don’t know if I talked about this on Flip Weekly, but this parking garage toy was something I owned as a kid. I spotted it in Salvos on the last day of October for just $3. The box was beat up and it was missing parts, but I knew somebody would want this. As far as I could tell it wasn’t branded, but it was made for Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. It’s a playset of a parking garage where kids can bring their cars into the elevator, wind it up and drop the cars into an individual parking slot.

The elevator mechanism still worked and due to the box still being (somewhat) displayable I took a $3 gamble. It didn’t take long to sell and the buyer paid $50 + I made them pay post.

It turns out the very first Polly Pocket sale wasn’t for a house or a compact, but for a loose figure.

When you Google Lens search this doll she appears as a Polly Pocket Pop Up Seashell doll. No Sold Listings, but the Active are insane.

Don’t quote me but they appear to be lipstick containers but when pushed up they show a Polly Pocket doll. The loose doll I sold was the one that appeared in the $800 listing. It’s one of the most expensive loose Polly Pocket’s I’ve ever seen. I probably accepted the $50 offer too quickly, but still. We have 3 more Polly sales upcoming and then 2 N64, strap in.

The next sale was almost lost.

When it comes to selling bulk games on Marketplace you can really only upload 1 photo per game and it’s usually the front. This buyer asked to see more photos (totally valid) and when I showed him that the cartridge had writing on the top he was turned off. He wasn’t interested.

Usually I’d do a bit of cleaning on items I pick up but Nintendo 64 games slip by just because they’re so popular. That said, when this guy turned down the cartridge because of the writing it sparked a cleaning frenzy. At first I got the nail polish remover and a cotton bud. It worked very slowly. It wasn’t doing enough. So I switched to The Pink Stuff. Basically gumption with better marketing. It worked perfectly, that writing was gone in 30 seconds. Not a paid promo - if you have writing on your N64 games, remove it right now.

The dude immediately came and picked it up. Cleaning does matter.

Thriftmas

Thanks for joining me down here. It’s time for Thriftmas.

Last week I gave you the opportunity to win a really cool 1995 factory sealed Polly Pocket to do with as you please. We received a lot of entries on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram and it’s time to announce the winner.

The winner is… from Facebook… Aisha Cross! Congratulations, please get in touch with us and we’ll have that shipped out to you.

Now for this weeks giveaway.

We’ve had a look of success with video games this year… even this week. I’m not going to give away any of the old games or consoles that haven’t sold, instead we’ll be giving away a brand new, factory sealed LEGO Game Boy. LEGO #72046. Keep it, gift it, sell it, it doesn’t matter.

All you have to do to enter is follow Flip Weekly on social media and like or comment on the giveaway post.

That’s it. The winner will be announced in next weeks Issue of Flip Weekly as well as the podcast. The date for that is the 25th of December so this will be the last Thriftmas giveaway, I hope you’ve had fun.

That’s all I’ve got for you, make sure you listen to the podcast and I’ll see you again next week.

Mat.

Flip Weekly Podcast

The Flip Weekly podcast is for people who want even more reseller content. You can find the podcast on all major podcast streaming platforms or you can listen directly on the Flip Weekly website here.

Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

What’s this? Click here for more information on how you can score a whole bunch of free prizes including a $200 Mystery Box!

Flip Weekly on Social Media

If you want more Flip Weekly content, don’t forget to follow us on social media.

• Flip Weekly on Facebook.

• Flip Weekly on Instagram.

• Flip Weekly on YouTube.

• Flip Weekly on TikTok.

100% Free Resources to Help You

Flip Weekly have created the following resources to help you become a better reseller.

• Ultimate List of YouTube Reseller Channels

• Google Sheets Reseller Spreadsheet

• Memorize Video Game Prices with Flip Vidya

• eBay Sell Through Rate Calculator

• How To Tell If A Book Is 1st Edition

• 100+ Nostalgic 90s Kids Shows Ranked by eBay Value

• Reseller Terms and Acronyms You Should Know