I'm Giving Away A Mystery Box Filled with $200 in Resellable Items

This may be the most valuable issue of Flip Weekly yet. Besides giving you the chance to earn a whole host of prizes including a mystery box full of hundreds of dollars worth of items we also have the beginning of a 100% custom website made specifically for readers of Flip Weekly that will teach you the value of video games and save you time and money. Plus, vintage tees that sell in only a few hours, signed copies of an item that were bought for $8 and listed for $200 and a hell of a lot more. But first!

Table of Contents

• What I’ve Bought

• What I Sold

• Resources & Friends

• User Submissions & My Challenge

• I'm Giving Away A Mystery Box Filled with $200 in …

• What’s To Come

What I’ve Bought

It is always a good day when you come across a vintage, single stitched t-shirt in the thrift. I was lucky enough to spot it and I’m going to show you how I did.

When I’m furiously flicking through the t-shirts on the rack I’m looking for one of two things. The first is anything sports related. The second is anything old with graphics on the front or back. This particular item marked both checkboxes. This shirt features the NSW Rugby League logo, a trophy with the markings “Winfield Cup“. Winfield is a brand of Australian cigarettes and they used to be the main sponsor of the Rugby League between 1982-1994 before Australia’s tobacco advertising rules came into play. I’m a big sports fan so I recognized the logo and after inspecting the shirt I could see it was single stitch which confirmed the shirt was old.

Here’s a comparison between this shirts single stitch and my other modern shirt.

When you start to notice these little things it’s impossible not to pay attention when you’re looking at clothing in the thrift. You might spot an AC/DC t-shirt with a full on graphic on the front and think it’s old only to see that it’s double stitched and modern. It’s the difference between a $300 shirt and a $20 shirt so these are things you need to know.

The next type of item is often overlooked and I’ve done quite well with in the past. I found it in the thrift, take a look:

What we have here is an old school 1997 flip watch from the movie Anastasia. These watches were popular back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and turns out there are a lot of collectors as they look pretty dope when they’re fully carded like this. I’ve actually found other watches like this in the past, the one below was from a garage sale back in January that I rocked up to late in the afternoon.

Anastasia I bought for $5 and the Surf’s Up watch was only $2 from the yard sale. Both watches were made by a company called Playworks and I sold the Surf’s Up watch within 24 hours on Gumtree for $20 plus post. It was back when I was sort of new to this and I think I really underpriced it however Anastasia was listed on eBay 4 days ago for $50 + post and has already had a bunch of views and 3 people watching. Keep an eye out for carded watches like this, especially if they have Playworks on the front or back.

Here is something I’d never seen before and I was able to snag a bargain thanks to old price tags misleading the Salvo volunteers:

I got really lucky with this purchase. What we have are 3 brand new and sealed World War 2 figures. They’re by a company named Esci and looking on eBay, they not only sell every day of the week but their prices for these sort of boxes start from $30 and go all the way up to $300+. It seems that they produce these figures for all different types of historical battles and battalions and if you have a battle like D-Day ($290+) or Okinawa ($315) they sell for a premium. The ones I found were:

1. U.S. Paratroopers 82a "Screaming Eagles" WW2

2. British Soldiers WW2

3. Afrika Corps Soldiers WW2

By the way, this is an example of of what they look like inside the box:

So if you ever come across these figures in the wild, even if they’re outside of the box and off the sheet, I’d say buy them because of the sell through rate and potential profit. I have mine listed for a conservative $120.00 and I should be able to turn my initial $6 investment into a ~$100 profit.

Sidenote: they had their original, old pricetags still on them which were marked at £2.99 which is why I think the Salvos volunteer chucked a $2 price tag on them. Love that for me.

I don’t mean to be The Clothing Guy™️ but what are the chances of finding 2 great t-shirts almost right next to each other in the thrift?

The full front graphic caught my eye and the unusual tag made me stop and look. It wasn’t a single stitch shirt so I was close to moving on but I had a closer look at the graphic and I could see a 1996 copyright hidden away. I took it off the rack and kept looking and came across this next piece which was even better:

This is a Flight of the Conchords graphic t-shirt. It caught my eye just because of the graphic and I’ve heard of them before so I checked out the back.

Okay, so it’s an Australian Tour 2012 t-shirt. I wouldn’t usually pick this up, 2012 is only 12 years ago and in most cases this would probably sell for around $25-$30. However… I took another look at the front. Did you spot it?

In the grunge texture of the shirt, I saw 2 signatures and a drawing of what looks to be a funky electric guitar. This is signed?! For $8, I took a chance, bought it and brought it home. I looked up the two people behind the band and they’re named Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. I looked up their autographs and they’re an exact match. The next step was to see if other tour t-shirts featured autographs to see if perhaps they’re printed on.

I looked on eBay and couldn’t find any Aussie tour shirts but I did find multiple New Zealand ones that featured the same graphic but no signature. I’m now confident that not only is this an authentic shirt from the 2012 tour but the autographs are also authentic. We don’t have any exact comps on eBay so I can really ask for whatever I think it will sell for. We have a signed microphone for $665, a 2016 signed poster for $450 and a couple of those 6×4 photos for like $50-$100. I decided to list mine for $199.95 and we’ll see how it goes.

What I Sold

Back to my single stitch shirt from earlier, I looked up comps on eBay and because of the rarity I could only find 1 which was listed on eBay for $94.23 (with free shipping) and 10 people watching. I wanted to see how fast I could sell it so I listed mine for $69.95 with $10.60 postage (total of $80.55.) on eBay and I also listed it for sale on a local NRL Facebook group for $50.00 - both listings well under the 1 comp price. The Facebook listing went up at 8:04pm, a guy messaged me at 10:11pm.

I received full payment by 10:22pm.

The shirt is now off to Austria of all places and was an extremely quick flip, tripling my money within 2 hours.

You should remember from last weeks issue that I picked up this really cool looking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles graphic novel for only $5 in the thrift.

It has gone on to sell within a week for $54.95 plus $18.25 post, total of $70.45. I should net around $40 profit just from that 1 graphic novel which is double what I paid for my thrift store haul that day which included 6 other items.

A few other items I sold this week include:

Resources & Friends

This resource is going to make some people roll their eyes, however it’s something that I personally avoided for no good reason until I knew the full benefits so I think it may be helpful. If you’re within Australia, you’ve started reselling and are shipping off packages, you will want to sign up to Aus Post’s MyPost Business.

Ignore the word Business in the title, anyone can use it and there are no eligibility requirements. But the benefits? They can save you both time and money. After you sign up, you basically go into an Australia Post the same way you always do and upon handing over your parcels you pull up your QR code, it’s scanned and the amount you pay for your post is logged. You start on Band 0 and if you end up spending over $50 in the last 4 weeks you move up to Band 1. You then progress through the Band’s the more you spend. Makes sense, still following?

Let’s say you don’t set up this free account and go and post something domestically. It’s in a small box and going within Australia. Your rate is $10.60. Now let’s say you need to post the exact same item but you’ve been scanning your QR code and you’ve spent over $50 in the last 4 weeks on post so you’re now on Band 1. That rate is now $9.54. Yes it’s only a dollar but when you’re first starting out every dollar counts. Now let’s say you keep posting and posting and you end up on Band 5. That original $10.60 cost is now just $6.36. You’re immediately saving (and also making) $4.00 in shipping and it hasn’t cost you a thing. View the entire PDF rate guide here.

I’m currently on Band 3 which means I’ve spent up to $1,000 in the past 4 weeks in post. I do a lot of international post and the savings there are even greater than domestic. I use eBay Calculated Shipping on all of my listings so I don’t have any nasty surprises so let’s see what the savings would be if the buyer bought an item from me that weighed less than 250 grams and was going to the USA and they wanted Express Post. The fee for somebody that wasn’t a MyPost Business user would be $36.00. My rate as a Band 3 user is $29.70. I immediately make $6.30 on postage. This is extremely helpful to us resellers as we often don’t take into account the price of bubble wrap, tape, butchers paper and things of that nature. If you haven’t already, sign up! For people outside Australia, do your local couriers offer anything similar? Let me know!

User Submissions & My Challenge

In Issue #12 I issued a challenge to find Manga in your thrift store and we have a successful completion of that challenge. Well done to Brett who reached out on Sunday and was able to find 12 books at just 50 cents each, totaling $6.00. He’s now gone on to list them for over 10 times what he paid. Here’s what he had to say:

Massive props to Brett for taking on the challenge and for potentially turning his $6 into $78.

Note: as of Tuesday Brett has successfully sold his 4 Naruto books for full price. Here’s what he said:

This weeks challenge is related to the segment immediately below. Read on to see what I’ve got in store for you.

I'm Giving Away A Mystery Box Filled with $200 in Resellable Items

I’m excited to share that Flip Weekly’s referral program is now live! The newsletter is growing at an incredible rate and we’re now almost at 500 readers! The goal for the year is to hit 1,000 which is why I’m launching this referral program. The program is simple: refer people to Flip Weekly and receive 100% free prizes.

Here’s how it works and what prizes we have for grabs at the moment.

Refer 3 People

If you share Flip Weekly and 3 people join the newsletter, you’ll receive a shout out in the newsletter. You’ll also be on your way to the next prize.

Refer 10 People

At tier 2, you’ve now had 10 of your referrals join the newsletter and you'll receive a pack of Flip Weekly’s reseller stickers 100% free. Take a look at the stickers below.

Each sticker is die cut, 100% weather proof, scratch resistant and printed on a premium monomeric vinyl and laminated with a protective film that will last years either indoors or outdoors.

Refer 25 People

25 is no easy feat which is why for anyone that reaches this number we’re going to give you a $50 gift voucher to Vinnies that you can use to turn into even more money. Note: if you’re outside Australia this will be a gift voucher to a US based thrift chain.

Refer 50 People

For the hardcore referrers, this is for you. When you successfully reach 50 referrals you’ll receive a 24cm×19cm×12cm mystery box filled with items you can resell for a profit. This will include my own personal thrift store and yard sale finds and will be shipped to you 100% free. I have the first box ready to go and the estimated resell amount exceeds $200.00AUD. Let’s see how sustainable this can be!

Below you will find your unique referral link and Click to Share button. If you click on the button you will see a breakdown of your current referral count and progress. Share on your Facebook page, your Twitter, your emails, anything you want! Your stats will be included in each further issue of Flip Weekly. If you have any questions about the referral program or if you have any suggestions on future prizes, or even other sticker ideas, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email.

What’s To Come

Right now we’re in the middle of development of Flip Weekly’s video game flash card… game. The idea behind it is to help you guys determine whether or not a video game you find in the wild is worth any money. Let’s say you rock up to a yard sale and they have a box full of video games and they’re charging $5 each. You don’t know what the video games inside the box are worth but suspect 1 or 2 are valuable. Do you make a huge offer for the entire box? Do you take a gamble by cherry picking a few? Both options are bad. Ideally, you pick out the EXACT games that you know are valuable. That’s what I’m going to teach you with this flash card game.

The way it works is simple:

1. You’ll select the platform - let’s say Nintendo Wii.

2. Select the condition - either complete (CIB) or loose (game only).

3. Choose the currency - we’ll select AUD.

Once you choose your settings, the game starts and you’ll be presented with 3 video game titles. Your job is to choose which one is worth the most money.

On this screen you click on whichever game you think is worth the most. You’ll either be right or wrong with the prices shown after making a selection.

The entire idea is to help you remember which video games are valuable and which ones you should avoid. For me personally, this sort of gameification helps me remember so it may help you too. I mean, “Flashcards support active recall by creating neural pathways, which make it easier to call up information at a future date.” Sounds like a thing, yeah?

Now in terms of how we get the values… we’re basically utilising PriceCharting’s API. It isn’t cheap, they charge $49USD/mo for access to their data but you guys are going to get it 100% free. You can expect a BETA hopefully in the next issue providing we don’t run into any road blocks. Thanks again for reading.

Mat