Issue #107

Welcome to another Issue of Flip Weekly, Mat here and what an exciting week. We had the United States Supreme Court ruling that the governments implementation of tariffs was illegal. A sigh of relief for us resellers who stopped shipping to the US, the end is near, we can open up the shipping channels again to the worlds largest market.

Not quite yet, don’t count out the US government. Tariffs immediately slapped back on at 10%, then a social media statement saying it’s jumping to 15% but because we aren’t in the worst timeline just yet, social media statements aren’t official policy. 10% it is, for now.

Pretty much every single time I’ve visited my local post office and I ship something overseas I’m recommend to sign up to Zonos and resume shipping to the States. Honestly, I’d rather wait it out. Everything the US is doing has felt temporary, spontaneous and poorly thought out so in the risk of having to eat my words later on, I’m just going to hold out. Normalcy should hopefully resume soon enough… he says with little hope.

We then had the news of eBay buying Depop. If the younger generation that popularized it with trendy fashion and accessories thought it was cool before, just wait until a bunch of baby boomers join the site. Will you be signing up to Depop? Me, I feel to old. I don’t want a bunch of Gen Z’s laughing at my listings.

Anyway, enough chatter. Let’s get into this weeks finds.

Mat.

In This Issue

• What I Bought

• What I Sold

• Official Flip Weekly Podcast

• Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

• Flip Weekly on Social Media

• 100% Free Resources to Help You

What I Bought

I find a lot of jerseys. All of varying sports, teams, quality and value. I don’t think I’ve ever come across one that I love more than this weeks. I walked into Savers with the same pessimistic attitude. I ignore the entire downstairs department and go straight up to Men’s Activewear where I know for the next 5 minutes I’ll be scrubbing between bicycle shirts, knock-off Nike active wear and stretched out singlets.

Conservatively, I find a worthwhile jersey once every five or six trips. If you’re here in Australia the jerseys you’re going to come across the most are your local suburbs team which aren’t worth anything, and then the professional leagues. The big money lies in one-off designs, vintage and extinct teams (that’s right, teams that no longer exist). The jersey quality is a huge factor and I’ve found the more detailed the work, the more desirable it is. For example, the below is a Sydney Roosters team jersey from around the year 2000.

Somewhat valuable, but you can see the patches are printed. The money is in actual embroidery.

Enter, the coolest jersey I’ve ever found.

This is a Newcastle Knights NRL jersey from 2005-2006. I like to think of myself as a bit of sleuth when it comes to finding things on the internet. I spent a solid hour looking for any information on it, and I came up empty. Not a single thing. Most NRL jerseys are short sleeve so to find something with long sleeves I didn’t hesitate to pick it up.

I grew up about 30 minutes from Newcastle. For a while the Knights were my favourite team. Sam used to live walking distance away from the stadium and so we went to games all the time. This was the period when they were the worst team in the entire competition. Some would argue they still are. I have really fond memories of going to the games, not so much the poor attempts of fielding a competent team, but more so testing the limits of how many watered down, overpriced beers we could carry back to our seats. We came to realize you couldn’t order more than 4 at once.

Finding Newcastle team merch in Sydney hasn’t been common for me. I can count the finds on one hand, but when I see something in an op shop that reminds me of Newcastle it fills me with joy.

With no exact eBay comps to go off, we rely on our own knowledge and similar sort of listings on eBay. I look for vintage long sleeve NRL jerseys. I don’t find many… this design style is rare.

I take a gamble. $249.95 on eBay and $200 on Marketplace. The NRL season is just around the corner, the opening round is scheduled for March 1st in Las Vegas. Ironically, the very first game is between Newcastle Knights and the North Queensland Cowboys. With this major event coming up, I’m not surprised to see what happened with this pick up.

My message to you:

1. Head to Savers.

2. Go straight to Men’s Activewear

3. Look for sports jerseys.

4. You want big name sponsors, large cities, major sports.

5. Tag me if you find anything.

You have to love Facebook Marketplace. Somebody has the smallest item laying around their house and doesn’t want to sell it? Give it away for free. Put in effort to respond to messages, arrange a meetup, receive no money and the end result is you get the tiniest bit of space back in your home.

Oh well, let’s profit from that.

This is a Sony Walkman WM-FX10, not a FC10 as the title incorrectly states. I wasn’t the first to this listing but after the first person fell through, I guess I was next in line. I originally loved the color of the Walkman, the fact the radio still works and that the owner said the old belt was broken. This means that if replacing the belt doesn’t work, it can still be sold for a decent amount of money.

Let’s see what a working version sells for:

A belt will cost us $20 so we’re essentially turning $20 into $180 but given there’s few in this color, we might just aim for an even $200. I have confidence it would sell considering the sell through rate for this model.

We have 226 Active Listings and 620 Sold Listings. That’s a 274% sell through rate. These things sell.

If the belt doesn’t fix the player, maybe we’ll do $50 + post, I’m sure somebody will snatch it up. If the belt is the problem, they’re very easy to fix. As I’ve said before, it’s like playing Operation. The “Ankle Bone Connected to the Knee Bone” is represented by an elastic band that needs to be inserted, stretched and wrapped around 2 pegs on the dudes leg. It’s basically that. I might make a video once the belt arrives, it’s slated to arrive in Australia by March 9.

Last week I talked about continuing my journey to find signed books by prominent celebrities and entertainers. Some of those that can fetch the most money are dead people. Sure, it’s morbid and doesn’t sound morally okay to be profiting off signatures of people who have passed away, but that’s reality. I don’t feel bad.

I’ve found Olivia Newton-John’s signature before and it sold in less than 24 hours for what I think was around $250. Even though she’s an Aussie, past experience has told me it’s quite hard to find her signature, so whenever I see her book in op shops I’ll always double check. This week there were 2 of her cookbooks titled LivWise. It’s a pretty standard celebrity licensed healthy eating cookbook. The only difference is that it’s signed by Olivia, in her shorthand signature and includes a cute little love heart.

The three most recent signed book sales:

I’ve listed my copy up for $150 which should be a cheeky $6 into $150.

A few other Marketplace pickups:

These VR units go crazy on both Marketplace and eBay. I previously bought the Meta Quest 1 for $50 and it sold very quickly on eBay for what was I think $250. This was the Meta Quest 2 for $125. We’re slowly buying more modern tech. Unfortunately, whilst I got to test out the Meta Quest 1 which was both trippy and fun, this Meta Quest 2 was brand new and sealed. Bittersweet, but it means we’ll get more money for it. Pre-owned, they sell for around $300 but brand new these things sell on eBay for a bit more with an insane sell through rate.

Considering there aren’t many that are brand new and sealed, I listed it up for $425.00 on eBay and $300 on Marketplace. As I’ve said a million times ideally we want to buy something for $1 and sell it for $100, but I’m also okay with spending $125 to turn it into $425/$300 considering the sell through rate.

I usually can’t stand these sort of listings. The buyer is essentially wanting the highest price without doing any of the leg work. They’ll get low balled and harassed and in most cases it isn’t worth the time. It must have been a slow week because in the 1st week of November last year I offered $50 which was quickly accepted. This camera has then sit on my table for the past 4 months collecting dust. I was going to keep it, maybe gift it, but eventually came to the conclusion I want it gone.

It came with a dead battery and no charger. Fun. We now needed to either buy a new battery or we can get a battery charger and hope the old one just needed a bit of a charge. I opted for the latter, aka the cheapest option. The battery charger arrives, probably about a month ago and what do you know… the old battery is dead. Great. Finally this month I bought a new battery, charged it all up and it worked fine.

We can get some decent money for this thing, especially with the new battery and charger so it’s up no eBay for $250. A lesson: don’t buy things and have them sit around for months. Don’t be lazy like me. If it needs a new battery, buy it straight away otherwise you’re just wasting your own time.

I got home on Monday after being out most of the day. Tired, hungry, exhausted I slumped on the couch and rotted there until 7pm. I jumped onto Facebook Marketplace to see what was around. It’s purely insane logic, I obviously don’t want to go out again yet the only reason to open up Marketplace is to find something to go out and buy. It must be habit by now.

I couldn’t pass up this 1994 Manly Sea Eagles NRL jersey for $75. Don’t be put off by the fade, I think I can flip this quickly on Marketplace for $200 or eBay for $300.

What I Sold

Let’s get the ball rolling with something that younger Mat would have loved.

In the 2nd week of January I came across a $5 Facebook Marketplace listing for this 1998 Small Soldiers Chip Hazard action figure. The original owner said they didn’t know if the talking feature actually worked or not, but I was still happy to go out and pick it up for $5.

I brought him home and inspected the battery compartment. The original batteries were still inside, not a good sign. After removing them the corrosion was heavy and deep, I didn’t think we would be able to salvage it.

I did what I always do in this situation. Remove the batteries, give it a general clean with damp paper towels and see what happens. No luck. We go a bit deeper. Q-tips and nail polish remover. I’m rubbing the solution all over the battery compartment trying to clean the contact points. The thing is, and I’ve experienced this before with 90’s toys, is that if the corrosion goes deeper than the battery compartment it can literally melt the the wires. And from there? For someone like me, it’s game over.

No luck after the contact points are hit with nail polish remover. So what’s next? Basically we’re at the “spray the thing with as much WD-40 as possible“ point. I do exactly that. I let it dry. I put the batteries in again. I press the button. He talks. It worked.

Check out a video here of all the phrases he says.

Small Soldiers is ultra collectible so if you find anything related to it in a thrift store, garage sale or Facebook Marketplace make sure you pick it up.

I thought this next thrift store pick-up was so bad that I didn’t bother telling you about it.

In the middle of January I was walking out of Savers empty handed and did my usual glass cabinet walk-through. I know virtually nothing about jewelry so the back shelf is where my eyes go. I saw this Napolean Total War Emperor’s Edition collectors item for $30 and decided to be the annoying customer who takes it all out to see the condition. I went through it all, everything appeared to be new. I wasn’t the even more annoying customer who searches eBay right in front of the staff so instead I decided to buy it.

After getting home and looking up comps there were Active Listings for legit $30-$50. Albeit used and not in the best condition, but it appeared Savers did their research. However, the fact this item was essentially brand new gave us an edge. I chucked it up for $150 hoping that some sort of “pure collector“ who only buys brand new collectibles would snatch it up and I think that’s what has happened. Not only did they pay $150 for the item, but postage and VAT was an additional $126.16 meaning the total order value was $275.90!

What actually is it? When video games are released nowadays they come in tiers. You can buy the base game at the lowest price, or you can pay extra for additional collectibles. This fell into that category so the pack included the video game, a satchel and a statue. That’s literally it. People pay good money for this sort of stuff.

This next sale took all of 10 minutes and there’s a golden rule you need to follow with this sort of stuff.

Within minutes of listing this for sale on Facebook Marketplace I got an offer of $150. I told the guy I could’t do that as it had just been listed. He immediately responds saying okay, fine and let’s do $200. I’ve had similar experiences on eBay too, and the golden rule is that if you post an item online and receive a low-ball offer within minutes, even within 30 minutes, always wait it out, a full offer is coming.

$20 into $200 in virtually 10 minutes. Crazy.

Out the door in less than 48 hours! I picked this up in the middle of the day and by the time I listed it that night the eventual buyer had already gotten in touch. It just took them 1 failed pick-up to come and get it. I love asking buyers if they’re 100% certain they’ll be coming out, hearing an enthusiastic “yes!“ so I mark as pending and take it down from eBay only to have them cancel.

Fortunately the dude came out the next day but not before I asked him if he was 110% certain he was coming out. This was an easy flip, $125 into $300, no eBay fees, just pure profit. P.S. this sale was so quick I had it resold before the dude that I bought it from had taken down the listing.

Finally, you might have heard recently that I’ve been meaning to do another cull of old inventory. I’m talking stuff from 2024. Well, I guess the universe heard me and instead of waiting for me to get rid of it, it decided to purchase it all from me. I should be grateful considering it’s a bit of money instead of a Savers voucher, but it’s going to ruin my average sale price.

“It can’t be that bad?“

Check it out. I’m not even going to bother with editing the images. They’ve wasted enough time as it is. All bought in 2024.

So with these tiny sales what is our average sale price looking like towards the end of February? I’m scared to check. It is sitting at.. $146.88. Eek, we’re still 51% up from last year but I’d much prefer that to be closer to $200 than to $100. Oh well.

If you listened to last weeks podcast you might have entered our $50 op shop gift card contest. All you had to do was wait for the code word which was… disappointed. Thanks to everyone that entered, the winner has been announced on the pod and I’ll get in touch soon.

Thanks again for reading, that’s all I’ve got for you I’ll see you again next week.

Mat.

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