Issue #19

Hello everyone and welcome to another issue of Flip Weekly. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been going for 19 weeks straight and have just over 600 readers - that’s incredible. As I mentioned last week, I’m currently in the process of moving so I haven’t had a lot of spare time to snag some bargains but as you’ll see below, the 1 thing I did pick up was a really good purchase.

I’d also like to say thank you to everyone who voted in last weeks poll on whether or not we should send the rare book to auction. The results were unanimous.

Unfortunately, the company wasn’t interested in taking on the item for auction. They responded with the following:

I’m not too sure why I didn’t think of eBay? Anyway, if you have a rare book that you’d like to be auctioned off, Sydney Rare Book Auctions ain’t interested.

In This Issue

• What I’ve Bought

• What I Sold

• What’s To Come

• Your Journey to a Free $200 Mystery Box

What I’ve Bought

I paid a visit to one of my local thrift stores on Friday where kids books are $0.50 and magazines are $0.20. It’s one of my go-to places for picking up old comics and unique and interesting children’s books. This week I saw this on the shelf:

If you look on the left you’ll be able to see a selection of the original Goosebump books. Seeing them in multiple places on the shelf was like a shark reacting to blood in the water. I scoured up and down the aisle looking to add more to the initial collection of 8. I knew that the old classic Goosebump novels did well because I’ve sold them before and of course the bigger the bundle, the higher the price.

I had no luck scouring the aisle, I’d have to stick with a bundle of 8 which still sell well, especially when at $0.50 a piece it’s only costing me $4.00.

However… sometimes you’re just a lucky shark.

An entire tub full of Goosebumps books for only $6.00! As I was walking towards the exit this tub was just sitting on the ground, waiting to be found. I honestly couldn’t believe that not only were there more, but that they weren’t ridiculously priced. I was honestly 50/50 on whether or not to pick these up. On one hand I need to move and this is another full, heavy tub of items to transport and store, but then on the other this is an amazing deal. Screw it, we now have a total of 50 Goosebumps books. If you have the original 62 complete set, you’re in for a massive payday.

If we can find all 62 original Goosebump books we’re in for a $500+ payday. So what are the ones I picked up? I went through them and we have 50 books total, 42 of which are 1st Scholastic Printings. As we don’t have exact comps we have to see what comes close. The below listing sold for $120.00 for 39 books of which 17 were first editions.

Our ratio is higher so we might be able to list for around the $200.00 mark plus a few of the books come with items still attached inside including bookmarks and iron on transfers which is pretty cool.

What I Sold

In Issue #13 you saw that I picked up 3 brand new and sealed World War 2 figures for just $2 each.

I had never heard of this brand before, Esci, but they manufacturer a lot of different little action figure sets from all eras ranging from WW1 and WW2 all the way back to the Roman Empire. The sets are usually highly detailed and sought after by hobbyists. If you search eBay Sold Listings for “esci 1/72“ (1/72 being the scale) you’ll see that some of these sets can fetch hundreds of dollars.

I had my set of 3 on eBay for $119.95 + postage since the 2nd of May and it resulted in 32 views and 1 watcher but no-one pulled the trigger. The person who did pull the trigger was on Facebook Marketplace where it was originally listed for $100.00 and reduced to $75.00. I wouldn’t usually mess around with reducing listings on Marketplace because they’re always under eBay pricing however because I was moving I wanted to get rid of stuff fast. Either way, $6 into $75.00 is nothing to complain about.

I didn’t have to wait long, the Goosebumps books are officially sold! I picked them up on Friday morning 10am, listed them for sale on Marketplace at 4:19pm and by 11:32pm somebody had commited to pick them up next day and unlike other flaky Marketplace buyers, they actually came through! Here are a few more photos of the books to stir some nostalgia plus the dope iron on transfer which I’ve never seen before:

All in all I paid $6 for the books and sold them the next day for $100 cash. If I listed these on eBay I genuinely think they would have sold for over $200.00 however it would have involved more work in terms of photography (some books had names written on the 1st page, some had a few small tears, that would all need to be properly documented) and shipping, plus transporting during a house move.

By the way, in terms of how to tell if the Goosebumps books you find are the valuable, older style:

1) The covers should be in the old design style with the Scholastic logo in the bottom left.

2) The newer book spines have the Goosebumps logo on a red background and don’t feature the book number.

There are a few other ways to tell the difference including the ISBN number and the First Scholastic Printing text inside the book however if you use the above methods and some common sense you should be okay. Ain’t nobody remembering ISBN numbers.

Here’s a DVD for you guys to keep an eye out for, especially in the thrift stores that love their $1 DVD sales:

It’s a cheeky one that can turn your $1 into $20 however it doesn’t scratch my itch. Yes, you could make money constantly buying and reselling media like this but it’s not what I’m after anymore. I want more unique, fun items!

What’s To Come

I finally found a thrift store employee here in Australia who agreed to be interviewed. I had a lot of questions, my intrigue level was off the charts and I wanted to get some insight into what goes on behind the scenes. Stay tuned next week for the interview.

Your Journey to 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!