Issue #76

What’s up guys, Mat here and it’s another Issue of Flip Weekly where the bargains were hiding about as well as a cheating couple at a Coldplay concert. That’s right, your boy was able to walk away with a huge haul of goodies this week that included a 1990’s Polly Pocket bundle that is going to overload the nostalgia part of your brain. You know it’s a good deal when you hear “I received so many messages“ and “I probably priced it too low“ when you’re picking things up.

There’s a lot to get through this week so I wont keep you (including a section on why I’m now hunting pottery), so don’t forget you can listen to the extended audio version of this newsletter as a podcast here - extra hints and tips and tricks are shared on the podcast that can’t feature in the written newsletter.

In This Issue

• What I Bought

• What I Sold

• Secondhand Opinions

• Why I’m Now Hunting Pottery at Every Thrift Store

• Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

• Podcast

• Social Media

• 100% Free Resources to Help You

What I Bought

I don’t want to jump the gun, but I’m fully embracing Facebook Marketplace, especially early on the weekend. If you have no time to visit the thrift stores during the week, or drive around your city for garage sales on a Saturday morning, you can 100% find great deals from your couch with Facebook Marketplace. The weekends are usually the best time to browse as people are home from work, de-cluttering and looking to offload items fast.

When the stars align, that’s when we snag a deal that’s going to make us some money, or in this case… a lot of money. I acted quick and scored a killer deal on something you might recognize from the early 90’s. You can see I paid up, but trust me, it’s worth it.

This is an absolutely insane collection of Polly Pocket toys from the late 80’s, early 90’s. The collection included 4 compacts, 9 buildings, 2 vehicles, the playmat and approximately 30 mini figures. When you find sets like this out in the wild, the majority will be missing pieces. It’s not surprising, the mini figures are so small that they can easily be lost, misplaced or even eaten. When I saw the little container of dolls and accessories I immediately sent a message through to the Buyer saying I wanted it.

As I’m waiting on a response I look up 1 of the compacts via Google Lens to see what sort of prices we’re working with. From past experience I know that there’s a huge price difference between a set that’s just the compact and a set that is fully complete with the dolls.

This is the Polly Pocket Fairylight Wonderland from 1993 and I think one of the most recognizable in it’s original star shape. When you open up this compact there’s a series of lamp posts that light up and in the dark it looks really cool. We know now that we can get about $60 + post for just the compact, but what about if we have the mini figures that go with it?

Double what the compact alone sells for and that isn’t even complete, that’s just with 1 doll. With this information on hand and seeing the full container of accessories, I’m 100% on board. I’m committing and spending $200 on the lot. It might be seen as a gamble, but I’m an odds man. I just need a few of these mini figures to go with some of these sets and I should be able to easily make my money back. Heck, if I get lucky enough everything will be fully complete, I mean it looks like its been taken care of well enough.

I head on out and meet up with the guy. I ask your standard Marketplace questions.

“Get many messages?“

“So many, I think I priced it too low.“

“What’s the story behind them?“

“They belonged to my sister, she offered them to her kids but they didn’t want them.“

As is the case for most old toys, kids today aren’t interested. That’s fine with us, those kids loss is our gain. I spent $200 on the lot and came home to go through it all and boy did we do well. Please enjoy this animated GIF below. If the animated GIF doesn’t do it for you, check out our social media, I’ll be posting a video showing it all off.

What I ended up working out, after painstakingly going through each set, looking up the original figures and accessories that go with it, is that we got pretty lucky. Out of the 15 playsets, not 1 was without a figure. In fact, 5 were fully complete and the others were almost there, maybe missing a doll or a cookie baking tray (for real).

The $200 gamble should pay off. The exciting part, showing what they’re worth. The most valuable was a tie, but the Fairylight Wonderland I showed you above is a part of that tie. It ended up having the lights work and 2 original dolls. The Sold Listing I showed you above for $120 + post was with just 1 doll.

$149.95! Man, this 1 alone could almost bring back our cost of goods and we have 16 other listings! Here’s how it all stacks up:

It all adds up to $1,619.15. That’s right, over $1,500 worth of value from a $200 Facebook Marketplace deal. Despite being prevalent in my childhood and spending the past 18 months travelling to thrift stores and garage sales, this is the first time I’ve ever bought a Polly Pocket to resell so I’m not familiar with the market or sure how this will go. It does appear at first glance that the US market dwarfs the AU market, as is expected, but that can sometimes work in our favor. I know I probably could have flipped this and doubled my money within a few days but listing individually will get us more money. I’ll keep you updated with the results.

LEGO is next to impossible to make a profit from when buying at a thrift store. It’s either priced at eBay Active Listings levels or it’s marked way down and that’s because it’s missing the most important pieces. This week an item fell through the cracks but it’s not your traditional LEGO set.

It’s an unusual piece, it’s a LEGO board game, officially licensed, yet very little information about it can be found online. It cost me $5 and I took a gamble knowing from the photo alone this thing is old. The instruction booklet sheds some light on the game itself and its age:

“The idea of the game is to capture the opponents bricks and keep your own for as long as possible. The player who keeps his own bricks for the longest time wins the game.“

“© 1987 LEGO Group“

We have a manufacturing date but the weird thing is even doing a search online for the title nothing really shows up besides one other eBay listing for $180. You would think with such a huge collectors market there would be something on this game. It sort of makes me think it might be a knockoff… but yeah I don’t know, the instruction manual and everything else looks legit. Perhaps it was some board game manufacturer licensing LEGO and then LEGO never mentioning it again because it was a flop?

Unlike other thrift store LEGO, the game was complete with the individual pieces, instruction manual and weird looking dice.

With nothing to really go on besides the other listing, I decided to price it up at $99.95. LEGO is one of the fastest selling categories I’ve ever come across so if you’re lucky enough to spot some complete sets at garage sales, you know to pick it up.

Just to create some more work for myself, I also found this huge stash of signed Sydney Swans AFL baseball caps in the exact same Vinnies.

You might be able to tell in the photos (if not I’m posting a video on social media later today) but there was around 6 hats on this shelf, all chock full of signatures. Despite there being 6 hats, there were only 2 styles: plain Sydney Swans cap and a 2005 Premier hat with a few badges on top. The former were $6 each, the latter $10.

I decided to buy just 1, the 2005 Premier hat and here’s why. Despite it being the more expensive, the fact it’s tied to a specific date gives it value and a story when it comes to marketing. As it points to a specific year it also gives us an easy job of identifying the signatures. That, plus the pins make it look like an awesome display piece.

Here’s my basic process for identifying the signatures:

1. Get organised. Work out exactly how many signatures are on the item. This one had 5. Label them 1 to 5 on a piece of paper.

2. Bring up the team sheet. We know this is from the 2005 season so we use Google to find a list of all of the players at the time.

3. Identify any numbers. Sports players may write their player number next to their signature. This makes it easier to identify the player, search the internet for their autograph and match it up.

4. If you’re stuck, look for marks in the signature that are usually present despite how awful the signature looks. For example if their name has an “i” in it you’ll usually be able to spot the dot mark. From there, eliminate players without an “i” and narrow it down.

5. No luck? Go through the players on the list 1-by-1 and search Google Images for “player name + autograph“ and compare side by side.

If all else fails, Facebook Groups for the particular sports team can definitely help. Submit a post with a couple of clear photos and ask if anyone can identify the signatures. If not, you can always list the item up with only a few identified signatures, who knows the mystery may even lead to a quicker sale.

At the end of the day you’re really wanting to be able to tell a story with the title and description, that’s the primary reason why the others were left behind and I only bought the 1. If you’re a Sydney Swans fan, who wouldn’t want their 2005 Premiers hat signed by the team who brought them their first premiership since 1933. I listed the hat up on eBay and I’m expecting a quick sale to turn our $10 investment into $100.

After I failed at garage sales with my buddy on Saturday morning, I had a plan. During the week I found a really poorly labelled Marketplace listing for something I knew was going to be guaranteed profit. If we struck out, I had a pick-up ready to go. This is what it was:

“Fish toy“ is what I found. I was able to pick it up for $5 and we know from past experience these sell quickly and they sell for a lot of money.

Yes, these annoying little wall mounted fish go crazy on eBay in Australia.

Ideally you’re looking for the vintage ones made in the late 90’s by the American manufacturer Gemmy Industries. Be wary new ones have been released but they don’t hold the same sort of value. Before buying when you’re testing these out, be aware that from my experience very few are able to turn towards you, that’s pretty normal. All it needs to do to fetch the full price is sing and open its dumb fish mouth.

What I Sold

We all know that auctions on eBay produce a lower average sale price than your standard Buy It Now. I know this, you know this, we want to get the most out of any item and probably shouldn’t utilize the feature… but it’s just so damn fun.

The 2 beat up, caved in Footrot Flats jigsaw puzzle auction has ended with 11 bids and a final sale price of $51. This is significantly lower than the $150 sale price I received for the fully sealed one I sold just last week however in the case of these 2, they’re badly damaged and there’s no guarantee all of the pieces are inside the containers. That said, a buyer has taken the gamble and it leaves our total figures for the the 3 Jigsaws at a total cost of goods of $18 and total sales price of $201. Not too shabby for a bunch of broken baked bean tin looking things.

And we’re off! The first Polly Pocket is out the door for over $100, that leaves us with only 16 to go. I know it’s a quick sale but I sort of thought it would have sold quicker, maybe even in a bundle with combined shipping. I guess it is still a lot of money for a couple of pieces of plastic… might take a few weeks which is great for me, it gives me time to lose the individual pieces.

Turns out storytelling on an eBay listing works very well, the Sydney Swans hat sold in less than 48 hours. It’s weird, my personal hell is sitting at a table with an unfinished jigsaw puzzle yet give me a couple of poorly written signatures and I’ll happily put the pieces together.

Seeing this pillow makes my skin crawl. I would have mentioned this previously, but for those that are new, buying this pillow was so embarrassing. I bought it in a Lifeline for only a few dollars, at the times the comps showed sales of $50 so I thought why not. You can see on the front the Bratz characters name: Jade.

Like at most thrift stores, the staff love to comment on what you’re buying. They see this over-sized ogre like creature put this pillow in front of them and both look up at me.

“This is cute“ one of them says.

“What is it? Is it Disney“ the other chimes in.

An educational moment from me “It’s a Bratz pillow, it’s Jade“

One looks at the other… “Awwwww, he knows her name“

The irony of Lifeline making me want to die from embarrassment.

Secondhand Opinions

The concept is simple, we’ll throw up a controversial, or at least spicy reselling topic, I’ll present my argument whether it’s poorly thought out or not and you’ll provide your own.

Last week I asked you “Do you or have you ever camped out at a retail store for an in-demand item to resell on eBay?” and here are the results:

Wow, not a single person has ever camped out for an item to resell. I’m surprised, maybe this is an opportunity? Anyone fancy a camping trip?

This weeks topic is: Would thrift stores go out of business without resellers?

If you’re reading Flip Weekly, chances are you’re a reseller. But for this one, I want you to approach the question as neutrally as possible.

There’s a constant battle between resellers and thrift stores. They want to get the highest price possible, we want to buy low and flip for a profit. In the US, we’ve even seen Goodwill staff openly admit on camera that they’re trying to cut out resellers entirely. But is that a smart move for a business model built around donations?

Thrift stores get most of their stock for free. Their goal is to process those donations and move them quickly just like us. Prices are usually low, and places like Savers are operating in huge, expensive spaces that require serious volume to justify the rent. If they price out resellers, who’s left? The casual shopper.

But how often does the casual shopper really visit a thrift store? What’s their demographic? While the data isn’t available, we can reasonably assume that most people with disposable income are working 9-5 jobs and can’t hit the op shop at 11am on a Wednesday. So who is shopping during the day? Stay at home parents, seniors, the unemployed, the retired… and resellers.

Of those five groups, who’s actually spending the most money? My guess is resellers.

• Stay at home parents are hunting for cheap kids clothes.

• Seniors are there for the conversation.

• The unemployed may be looking for support, not spending money.

• The retired are picking up bedsheets for their 9th investment property.

• And resellers? We’re buying big hauls, often daily.

I’m not saying resellers are the heroes of thrifting, but I’d wager we make up a massive chunk of their sales volume.

The funniest part of all this? The “resellers ruined thrifting” crowd has no data to back up their claims and doing a deep dive into a category like this just reaffirms how full of crap they are. There’s zero publicly available data on the percentage of thrift shoppers who resell - believe me I checked. These idiots are just guessing and not very well.

Let’s be honest, no thrift store is asking if you’re a reseller at checkout. They’re seeing an item they priced get sold. That’s it. If the same item is priced double the next time it hits the shelf, is that really the reseller’s fault?

Anyway, I’m rambling. Let me know what you think:

What do you think?

You can vote, you can email in, submit a form on the website or even get in touch via social media with your own thoughts.

Why I’m Now Hunting Pottery at Every Thrift Store

I’ve been a bit of a prude in the thrift, anything coffee mug, jug or barrel related, especially if it looks like handmade pottery I’ve ignored. I subconsciously associated the category with low value items not worth my time, but thanks to an out of the blue message on social media I’ve learnt that I couldn’t be more wrong.

A collector from Queensland named Dean reached out earlier this month asking if I could help him out and what followed opened my eyes to something I’m now going to hunt for.

Now, I’ve sold a few Bundaberg Rum items in the past, it’s always out the door pretty quick but I had never heard of the pottery. Curiosity got the better of me and I probed Dean for more information - is this stuff valuable? What does it look like? Are there other people who collect this stuff? With the statement “I’d buy anything you find“ echoing in my brain I figured this is something we should learn more about.

The Bundaberg Rum pottery pieces you’ll find out in the wild were primarily created by 1 of 2 companies in the mid to late 90’s: Port Curtis Pottery and Burrell Creek Pottery. Both wound up shop over 20 years ago but the pieces they created remain highly sought after by collectors. I asked Dean if he would like to share photos of his collection and he sent through the following photos. Take a look at how incredible this collection looks and then read on below to see what some of these pieces sell for.

I think the collection looks tasty amazing, there’s obviously a lot of love here for the brand. With pieces becoming harder and harder to find and being prone to breaking, what can you expect to sell this sort of stuff for if you find it in a thrift store for a couple of bucks?

Dean tells me that the mugs can sell for up to $100 and the larger barrels close to $500. “Op shops and markets you can pick up for $5 in some places“ is exactly what we want to hear and it should have you excited to go out and find some Bundaberg Rum pottery so we can sell it to Dean and line our pockets.

Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

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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

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• Memorize Video Game Prices with Flip Vidya

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