Issue #91

Hey, Mat here and we have a huge fortnight ahead of us. It’s Thursday November 6th which means our Super Bowl is just a few days away. That’s right, 2025’s Garage Sale Trail. Make some noise. If you aren’t attending this year, you aren’t serious about making money with garage sales.

Think of your average garage sale. 5-10 people in the first hour. The 1 unhinged dude sprinting across the road for overpriced video games. Now spread the map out over the entirety of Australia… except Northern Territory, none up there. I swear to God, last year I had huge sales all to myself. How much for these 2 Nintendo Game & Watch’s that are worth at least $400 total? $2 each. KA-CHING. No-one else around.

I’m not saying there’s guaranteed bangers, it’s just the 1 time of the year that the odds are in your favor. Here’s my game plan, feel free to copy:

1. Convince someone to go with you. It’s funner.

2. Decide on the area you’re targeting. Don’t travel cross country day 1. Find an area with 30+ on the first day.

3. Create your map. I plot down all of the sales using Google’s My Map. A bit extra, a bit optional.

Optional hints and tips:

1. Bathroom and food and drink breaks before leaving.

2. Best deals are often found before the sun rises.

3. Make sure you have plenty of fuel.

4. In the lead up, withdraw money. You want small notes and coins. Nothing worse than finding a $1 item and only being able to pay $5.

5. Realize that it’s a numbers game. Strike out at 10 sales? The 11th is your home run.

If you’re hitting up garage sales this weekend, listen to this weeks podcast for a more thorough rundown. It’s the best time of year, last year we turned $150 into $1500+.

Let’s go!

Mat.

In This Issue

• What I Bought

• What I Sold

• Secondhand Opinions

• 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’m always looking for photo frames when I’m in the thrift. Not because I have anything worthy of putting in them but because other people, happier people, more successful people, like to preserve their memories. Strange concept, right?

Capture a memory, save the memory, print the memory, display the memory. It’s a lot of effort. When you think about it, you go to all that effort of capturing, saving, printing, that when it comes to displaying people are going to opt for better quality items. I’m always looking out for quality brands in the photo frame aisle and this week I finally came across a frame that was worth picking up, check it out.

This is a Disney Mickey & Minnie Mouse wedding photo frame. The characters are 3D standing out from the frame, the veil Minnie is wearing can be adjusted across the 4” x 6” photo, the “bells“ can move and make sound and it’s generally a nice looking high quality resin frame.

Granted, it’s a niche within a niche. Not only do you have to find a married couple but they have to be Disney fans. Luckily for us, adult Disney fans are out there, they’re among us. They look just like you and me.

After carrying this around the thrift store for 10 minutes and getting glitter all over me I was about ready to divorce it. That is until I saw comps.

Newlyweds in the US are buying this photo frame anytime it’s listed up. What about Australians? I can’t see any Active or Sold Listings. We’re breaking new ground here. So what do we do? Firstly, we add on our Australia Tax and aim high. I'm thinking $79.95.

After all, we aren’t just selling a 3D resin frame, we’re selling a way to display the happiest day of your life inside a photo frame of something both you and your partner love: Disney. This will be on display for the rest of their life, and with that thinking of ‘forever‘, $80 all of a sudden doesn’t seem that expensive.

Will it actually sell for that or am I just full of crap? I guess we’ll see.

Another Issue, Another Jersey

The jerseys will continue until the sales stop.

I was surprised to see this signed Sydney Swans jersey in the regular clothes rack of a Vinnies. Here we have a 1997 jersey for $30 yet an hour later I saw a beat up cricket bat signed by Michael Hussey for $75 in a different Vinnies. Make it make sense.

I was immediately drawn to this jersey not only because it had its original retail tags but I could tell it was pre-2000 based on the AFL logo and clothing tag. It’s real easy to date this jersey. I type “Sydney Swans jersey year by year“ into Google, click the 1st website which documents the jerseys and scroll until I find what I’m looking at. In this case:

Darting our eyes back and forth we can see it’s from 1997. That makes signature identification real easy, we Google “Sydney Swans Roster 1997“ and go from there. In terms of authenticating the jersey and the signatures, they go hand in hand and actually aide in the process. The jerseys of these older ‘97 players authenticate the jersey and vice versa. Without the other, it would be easy to call “FAKE“.

For me, once I identify the year of the jersey my next task is to see who played on the team and mark the most important players. Just think, you have a vintage Chicago Bulls jersey, ideally you want a Michael Jordan signature, right? Same deal here. From 1997, we want a Tony Lockett signature. Do we get it? Nah, we’re not that lucky. Instead we get a bunch of rookies. I’m guessing the original owner was sitting very close to the bench.

Oh well, it’s still a jersey that’s over 25 years old and that means KA-CHING.

How much exactly?

Unfortunately no exact Active or Sold Listings. That said, I’ve listed it up for $200.

I honestly believe (not really, but sort of) that I’m reaping the rewards of positive karma right now. Let me explain. I saw this Facebook Marketplace listing last Thursday.

I sent my first message 13 minutes after the listing had been live. I’m thinking I was 14 minutes too late yet I got a reply and had the deal. The profile didn’t have a picture. Weird. Is there a catch?

I drove out, paid the $20 and was pleasantly surprised. These newish (yet oldish) consoles didn’t come with a whole bunch of accessories when they were originally sold in stores. I think to keep the packaging light. Once you bought one of these you still needed to get an adapter and an HDMI cable. Really poor form.

Yet once I got the above it came with both. Okay, too good to be true, especially considering I sold one last week within a few hours for $120 and that didn’t come with the box.

I meet up with the dude, he seems nice, a bit younger than me, his name is completely different on Facebook than it is with PayID but I brush it off and I ask the most important question you’ll ever learn with Facebook Marketplace deals.

“Selling anything else like this?“

He pauses for a moment.

“Actually… yeah.“

I’m immediately interested and try to hold back my inner Weasley “I’ll take the lot!“

I play it cool, I mean I’ve just gotten a $200 console for $20 and think that I can score retro games and consoles for a penny on the dollar.

I’ve driven about 30 minutes to get here, 60 with traffic and he’s describing having not 1, but 3 or 4 Nintendo DS’s, XL’s, 3DS XL’s plus games up in his apartment. My ears prick.

“I’m wanting to sell them but you see they’re in a box… a bit too heavy to bring down…“

I’m so keen for the deal I’m about to roll up my sleeves and show this dude my non-existent XXXL biceps and offer to carry both him, the consoles and the games up and down the stairs.

Instead I play it safe. I play it cool.

“No worries, maybe send me through some photos, I’ll let you know what I want and we can make a deal?“

Too easy, I leave with a non-verbal agreement and I’m not expecting much.

I start to head home, I’m cursing and muttering under my breath that Google Maps took me the “quick“ way that involved crossing 4 lanes of traffic in peak hour when I see a message comes in from our new friend.

I see this photo and immediately want to turn around. We have a whole bunch of handheld consoles and games. I don’t see any bangers in the games but the consoles… oh man the consoles. 2 are limited edition Pokemon consoles and there’s 3 other ones? This has to be five hundred bucks plus. Note: he told me the PSP didn’t work.

I’m still driving and use the speech to text function to ask the bloke how much he wanted.

For anyone curious about the amount of questions, the intention is to get this bloke as invested in the transaction as me. The last thing I want to see is this listed up on Marketplace, so I prompt a response with cash or transfer and re-confirm the deal by asking for his phone number. I already had the number but by giving it out again it acts as a commitment. Not 100% needed, but it helps. Same with asking for an item to be marked as pending.

Moving on, I transfer $200 Thursday night. I ask if I can pick up Friday.

“Closer to 4pm would be good.“

That’s fine with me, I’d drive out at midnight for this deal. Annoying that its close to peak hour but fine, the dude’s working. I’m thinking that last time I asked if he was selling other video game stuff, maybe this time I should ask for retro stuff. Old toys, maybe some VHS, what about other collectables? This could be a gold mine.

I rock up at 4:04, pretty much exactly on time.

I’m waiting around about to engage this dude in the most 90’s small talk you could imagine and then he walks out. With a friend. Dressed in what appears to be a uniform.

They get closer. It is. It’s a school uniform. This dude just came from school.

He asked to meet at 4pm because that’s what time he got let out from 6th period. I legit thought this bloke was my age, I was 10 seconds away from reminiscing about Power Rangers and complaining about the cost of fuel.

Jesus Christ Mat. I ask about the PSP Go being the only “non functioning“ console and get some explanation about the kids uncle gifting all of this to him and it being the only one not working but to tell you the truth I wasn’t really paying attention. The school uniforms caught me that off guard. Now I completely understand the whole “I DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE 16” argument. I kid.

Anyway, we’re $200 in the hole and need to get out of it, so what do we even have? Let’s take a look.

None of the handhelds came with chargers so that night I could only test out the Gameboy Color which thankfully worked. It was missing the battery cover but you can get those for like $6 on eBay so it’s not a big deal. I went to EB Games the next day and picked up a charger for the other consoles.

I went through 1 by 1 charging them up for testing and what do you know, all of them work. The PSP requires a dedicated charger which you can’t buy from any franchise retail store so I have to pick it up on eBay and wait for it to arrive before I can troubleshoot it. I’m hoping it just needs a charge. If not, there’s guides online on how to replace the battery and who knows, maybe that can fix it. I’m Mr FixIt remember?

We have over $1,000 in listed value and that doesn’t include the PSP Go or the game Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions which was found inside the handheld and is worth $50.

If the PSP’s only issue is a new battery, we can get that off eBay for $20 and then resell the entire unit for what looks to be $300.

Overall, this was an amazing deal, we have all of the above, plus the Mini Console that I paid $20 and listed for close to $200. So remember: Facebook Marketplace is a gold mine and always ask when you get good deals if the Seller has anything else they’re wanting to get rid of.

A few other items I bought this week:

For whatever reason I have a soft spot for late 90’s, early 2000’s pop culture movie watches. I’m being 100% serious, they’re usually made by Playworks here in Australia. Here we have a fully enclosed plastic 102 Dalmatians wristwatch and it was impossible to leave behind. I looked up comps and there appears to only be 1 instance of this watch online and it’s an eBay listing. That eBay listing is described as:

Not quite. It’s the only one I could find, the most common are 101 Dalmatians, so I figure I might able to offload this onto a local Disney fan. After all, it’s 25 years old and the 2nd last in the world. We’ll aim for $5 into $50.

Moving on, arrest me now because I’m guilty. I’m guilty of thinking that everyone online had the exact same childhood that I did. It's why I pick up random things, it’s why I was baffled at Kirsty (from Kirsty & Matt, Sydney eBay Sellers) not realizing that in her latest 90’s toy haul that she picked up one of my hail grail items of a Fisher Price Great Adventure Castle.

I’m thinking… didn’t you have this as a kid? No Mat. No. Not everyone had your exact childhood. That lends us to today’s find and my question to you, didn’t you have this as a kid?!

I wont waffle on too long, but this is a Shell Parking Garage with a working elevator and it very accurately represents my childhood. I paid $3 and it has no Sold Listings. I’m not too confident in this item but since putting it on eBay for $50 + postage it’s gathered a decent amount of views and watchers.

What I Sold

Back in very early 2024 I was hitting up Pawn Shops looking for items to flip. It was semi-successful and since then I’ve sourced and flipped several cool items. On this day in 2024 I found 3 Pink Panther animation cells and paid $70. Just looking at these cool pieces I knew they’d be worth more than $23 each. I was right, I put in a bit of time to identify the episodes they featured in (and leaned on the internet) and the 1st cell was sold very quickly for $150 and off to Italy.

Since then, the above cell was lingering on eBay. I had (or the internet had) identified the scene but at $150 it just wasn’t getting any bites. I get it, it’s not the most attractive cell from an episode that isn’t that important. I received an offer this week for $60 and decided screw it, I’ll take it. I have 1 cell left and it’s the best looking one in my opinion.

Take a look. 1st and 2nd have sold, it’s down to the 3rd. Stupidly its been unlisted this entire time. Maybe AI has advanced enough from 2024 that I can ask ChatGPT to identify the scene? I’ll let you know.

My recommendation to you, however unlikely it is to come across this sort of thing (animation cells, early sketches, even movie props) is to put in the effort and find them on-screen or where they’re finally used and include screenshots in your listing. People love to see the finished product and be able to point to that exact moment and say I OWN THAT!

I’m not talking out of my ass, I say that as someone who has bought screen used movie props, concept art and sketches at auctions and spent way too much money bidding on original artwork.

If you know which episode the final Pink Panther scene is from me, let me know.

What if I told you I bought a dog leash 2 weeks ago for $4 and sold it this week for $99.95 and it’s off to South Korea? Sounds crazy but that’s the reselling game.

Wallace and Gromit sits in the perfect spot for us resellers. Enough fans to buy items like this, but not enough fans to justify huge manufacturing runs for mass produced items. That all leads to items being worth a lot of money and the results speak for themselves. $100 for a dog leash. Ridiculous.

I have a new title.

“Mat, flipper of junk, “writer” of newsletters, “speaker” of podcasts, talker of shit, seller of the most valuable N64 game“.

That’s right, I’ve successfully sold a $500 Nintendo 64 game. Absolute insanity, and to be honest a bit frightening. Not so much that it’s going to arrive broken, but moreso that the buyer will fake a problem.

The reason being is that I recently sold a 2nd Generation Ring Doorbell. I was gifted this doorbell from my mum a few years back, I opened the box and realized that I couldn’t use it because I was in a rental at the time. That’s fine, I’ll save it for later. Later never came and so I listed it on eBay. It sold this week, arrived at the destination and they filed a dispute saying it didn’t work. I was a bit iffy, I’m thinking… what’s more likely, someone not following instructions or an item being faulty from the get go?

I prompted them in all the right directions but in the end, they wanted it returned for a refund and I really couldn’t do anything. I’m not an ultra pedantic seller, I didn’t take photos of any serial numbers or video myself packing up the order. In most cases I trust in the buyers and the process. Once the item comes back, I’ll either need to test it out myself and deal with it or just give them a full refund. So then I start to think about this N64 order. What if they mark it as missing or not working? What if they can game the system so I’m out $500? Replace the cartridge?

All of a sudden I’m feeling nervous. I shouldn’t be feeling nervous yet I’m thinking that I wish the $500 item was something like an action figure that couldn’t receive a complaint.

It’s on the way there now so I’ll let you know how it goes.

This VHS didn’t sell quickly or for a lot of money but I need to thank it.

I thank it, and I thank the garage sale God’s because picking this up at last years Garage Sale Trail led to a conversation that led to buying a Sega World Sydney t-shirt. $5 for this VHS, $20 for the t-shirt and after this sale, we’ve got $300 for both combined.

Mario Kart continues to be the GOAT of the Nintendo 64.

This wasn’t the cleanest version, I mean it had a discolored front but still sold within 7 days.

Sold overnight and to a repeat buyer. A woman on Facebook Marketplace purchased a Disney handbag from me in the beginning of October and after a brief conversation she said that if I found anything else Disney, shoot through a message. So I did. She loved the frame, had recently gotten married and I cut a deal for $40 after having it listed on eBay for $80 and Marketplace for $50. Too easy.

You know what’s funny? I look at this with fresh eyes and I think to myself, bloody hell Mat brush her hair its horrendous.

We still haven’t sold any of the crazily priced Bratz dolls but I have been getting enquiries about the $1,000 lot. It’s currently sitting on 245 views and 25 watchers. I’ve turned down any offer below $800 on eBay and on Marketplace I’ve been going back and forth with somebody that seems interested at $800 but no commitment just yet.

The jersey that fans absolutely hated has sold in less than a week for full asking price. Not much more I can say about this except that I hope it inspires you to keep an eye out for jerseys.

$370 on eBay, $300 on Marketplace. Listed on Saturday, sold on Sunday. Sold on eBay at 10pm. Unfortunately somebody was scheduled to pick up the 2DS at 1pm on the Sunday but because of that 10pm sale I had to break the news. All I get after apologising and saying it was bought on eBay is the saddest response.

Seems she was in the market for an XL because my offer was immediately turned down. Will I get a negative rating? Let’s wait and see.

One of my most watched items on eBay has finally sold after 8 months… on Marketplace. $15 at Salvos, this 2006 Disney Fairies playset was seemingly in demand with Disney fans but no-one wanted to cough up $199.95 to buy it. 55 people watching on eBay and it took a lowballer on Marketplace to finally get the deal.

Let’s just say I followed some bad advice. Early on, when I was brand new to this industry, I heard that if you bundled up Guinness World Record books you could make some money. I heard that, and if you know anything about me, I committed to it. I collected every book from 1999 until 2024. You can tell I’ve had these for a while because an entire year has passed, enough time for Guinness to release the 2025 book.

Do not collect these. I don’t know what I was thinking. Say you collect them all from this millennium, then what? Australia Post has a 15kg weight limit and 10 of these would surpass that. You’re shit out of luck. You rely on local sales and the best you can get after 12 months of collecting is a lousy $50. That said, I’m happy to get anything, these were very close to being thrown in the bin or donated.

Secondhand Opinions

The concept is simple, we’ll throw up a reselling question, I’ll present my poorly thought out opinion and you’ll provide your own.

Will you be participating in 2025’s Garage Sale Trail?

If you’re morally objecting for whatever reason, write in at [email protected].

That’s all I’ve got for you this week, please enjoy the Garage Sale Trail and I’ll see you again next week.

Mat.

P.S. listen to me talk about Garage Sale Trail on the podcast here.

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100% Free Resources to Help You

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

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

• Reseller Terms and Acronyms You Should Know