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Old Newspapers Are Valuable? Here's What Everyone Missed
This is the most amount of money I've ever spent on newspapers.
Issue #96
We have exactly 2 weeks until Christmas. International sales for presents have been and gone (except maybe New Zealand) but we still have a solid week of domestic sales. If you have stuff lying around, get it listed up. We know the period after Christmas is slow so grind and hustle while you can. I imagine with the rush your thrifting trips have slowed down but that doesn’t mean you can’t make use of a Vinnies gift card. Thank you to everyone who entered last weeks Thriftmas Giveaway. I generated the winning entry and that person is…@amymac1704 on Instagram - I’ll be in touch (or you can reach out on Instagram). If you missed out don’t worry, because…
It’s time for this weeks Thriftmas Giveaway. If you’ve been following Flip Weekly for a while, you’ll know that we’ve done extremely well this year with Polly Pockets. We spent something like $450 on Marketplace deals and walked away with close to $5,000 in total listed value. Since those deals we’ve broken even, made a profit with a sale every week. It’s a lucrative category and hopefully not something we buy into in 2026 (hence the please steal this category title in Issue #83).
I think it’s only apropos for this weeks Thristmas Giveaway item to be a Polly Pocket. No, not one I got in a bulk deal that hasn’t sold yet. This is a factory sealed, 1995 Polly Pocket! Loose and 100% complete it sells for $100. Factory sealed? We have a US sale for $250 and Active Listing within Australia for $500.
Go to our social media accounts to be in the chance to win this!
It could be yours to do with what you please; keep it, gift it, sell it - I don’t care. All you have to do to enter is follow Flip Weekly on social media and like or comment on the giveaway post. That’s it. Disappointed it isn’t a succulent, juicy Christmas ham? Wait until next week when I work out the logistics of shipping ham.
$500 Active Listing, $250 Sold Listing.
In This Issue
What I Bought
As the year comes to a close we have less and less time to visit op shops and thrift stores. That doesn’t mean we still can’t make a bucket load of money. Take this first Facebook Marketplace deal, but be aware… it’s not what it seems.
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Advertised as a bundle of Garfield comics for $150. These were comic lift outs from The Sunday Telegraph newspaper dating back to the late 80’s early 90’s. The Seller mentioned that the comic strips also included “Louie The Fly, Flash Gordon, Wizard of ID, Torkan, The Phantom and many more”. None of those interested me.
I looked closer at the first image. Do you see what I see?
Take a closer look.
No?
How about now?
Each and every copy featured an original strip of our beloved Footrot Flats, a comic created in 1976 by New Zealand artist Murray Ball. For a comic that was started so long ago you’d be surprised to see just how passionate the collectors are. Flashback to Issue #74, where I found a Footrot Flats puzzle inside a beaten up baked beans tin can and turned $6 into $150. These sort of sale prices are normal for Footrot Flats.
So when I saw this listing, I completely ignored Garfield. I’ve had some luck with vintage Garfield but it’s much more prevalent, I think we’d have more luck focusing on Footrot Flats. So we have 38 newspapers in pretty much perfect condition all featuring Footrot. You might think $150 is a bit of a gamble. You’d be right, the only Sold Listing for anything similar was an auction in October.
A single lift out sold for a total of $36.20.
We have no idea if the people were bidding because of Garfield, Footrot or Snake. All we know is that people pay a lot of money for Footrot Flats items.
It’s not unusual to see a $1,000 sale price for the full set of Footrot comics.
What am I thinking? It’s pretty simple. Collectors are always looking for something new. Every few weeks a new “Complete Collection“ of Footrot books appears on eBay. It’s highly sought after, but if you’ve already completed the collection you’re wanting more. You’re wanting something others don’t have and you’re willing to flash your cash. Cue these newspapers.
These aren’t newspapers with covers that were highly collectible and kept in pristine condition. You aren’t going to see “DIANA KILLED“ or “AMERICA AT WAR“ on the front page. These were your regular run of the mill Sunday papers that were routinely read and thrown out. To have the original comic strip.. as a collector… that’s something really cool.
Knowing you can get $1,000 for a complete collection of 27 Footrot books, I decide to aim high. $1,000 for 38 newspapers. It seems high but collectors are crazy and if we go off the auction of around $25 per newspaper, we have 38 and that equals $950 so it makes sense. As of listing, its received around 46 views, 6 watchers and a $600 offer which was turned down.
Hard to turn down $600 for a bunch of old newspapers.
Off to Salvos and old school Australian dramas continue to be worth picking up.
The Henerson Kids on DVD for $2 each.
Sells for around $100.
This television show was before my time and only lasted the 2 seasons. Its claim to fame is that it starred both Kylie Minogue and Ben Mendelsohn, both of whom went on to bigger and better things.
What a bunch of cool kids.
The show isn’t available to stream anywhere online so the DVD is highly sought after. We’re not talking thousands, just a cheeky $100 for both seasons. With both DVD’s costing me just $4, we should be able to turn $4 into $100 quite quickly.
Over the weekend we secured one of the better digital camera Facebook Marketplace pick ups.
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I was able to get in quick on this $60 Canon Powershot S200 which is a really high quality, premium point and shoot camera. Being first to message for these sort of deals is really important, you have to be on the ball ready to go. The Seller replied to me 30 minutes after the first message and said that over 50 people had messaged but because I was first it was mine if I wanted it. I said of course, and here’s why:
Untested for $200, tested for $400.
It’s a $400 camera if it works, which it does.
On a quick tangent, see that 2nd listing? I did a “Sell Similar“ and made sure all the details were accurate and wrote out a description. A few minutes after listing I received a message from the dude that originally listed that up.
One of the most pathetic things I’ve ever seen.
I thought the dude was playing around at first. The account appears to be based in Sydney so he obviously saw the Facebook Marketplace listing and got mad he didn’t get it. If you’re one of these people, someone that gets so mad that your listing “got copied“ that you feel the need to send through a message, please re-evaluate your life.
Now, always always always be checking the new racks of clothes that staff bring out at places like Savers.
$11.79 pricetag.
This fleece jumper was just sitting there for $11.79.
Believe it or not, this Wallabies fleece ¾ jumper is quite rare and hard to find. I could only find 1 Active Listing anywhere online and it was going for a lot of money. By the way, what’s with a lot of Australian sports gear coming out of Ukraine? I’ve noticed that over the past few months.
$230 with 16 people watching.
Without any Sold data I’m not going to match the price and add on my Australia tax, instead I’m going to come in with an undercut and see what happens. We’re in the middle of Summer right now so I’m not sure who is going to be rushing out to buy what is a very warm jumper, but we’ll see what happens.
We’re always having great luck with sports jerseys, this week included.
$15 pricetag.
Quite difficult to come across NHL jerseys within Australia. In terms of sports Australians love to watch, Ice Hockey ranks around 10th in popularity, 1 spot below golf of all things. It’s quite niche but it’s growing and the jerseys of the major teams can make you a lot of money.
After verifying the authenticity, I paid $15 for this 2008 Edmonton Oilers full length jersey which still had its original tags. I couldn’t find any Sold Listings so I went off the only Active Listing, a $130 jersey from the US. Given the condition, the fact it has its original tags and the rarity within our country, a listed price of $150 is a strong starting point. A reminder to use as many data points as you can to verify the authenticity of your jerseys. The last thing you want to do is sell a fake.
Another Marketplace score.
I scored this Nintendo 3DS XL after the Seller came back to me and said that they received a ton of messages. He said if I paid an extra $50 it was mine. I said I’m on my way. The 3DS came with Pokemon Moon which is a $50 game and I knew I’d be able to list this up on eBay for around $550. The only issue? The console is modded. That means the console has been altered so it can play any game that’s downloaded from the internet.
I was aiming for a $550 sale price on eBay.
I attempted to list it up twice on eBay. The first not knowing modded consoles weren’t allowed, the second altering my title and description so that whilst I told the buyer it’s modded, I didn’t go into specifics. Didn’t seem to matter. I’m not sure why some listings are still up with modded consoles, so instead I’ve had to list up on Marketplace for $400. The price doesn’t bother me, it’s essentially what I’d get after all eBay fees were taken out.
What I Sold
A month after 2025’s Garage Sale Trail came to a close, it’s still producing the goods.
$10 into $200!
Sam and I found this Nintendo DS game in a shoddy little lunch bag at an overpriced garage sale for $10. Legit the only thing that wasn’t priced identical to eBay. Unfortunately being a good brother has its price and I wasn’t able to keep the profits, they all went back to my little sister. Each year she’s struck gold at the Garage Sale Trail and you best believe she’s keen for next year.
Speaking of scoring expensive games…
$5 into $100
Proof that sometimes thrift stores let out good quality games. Found in a Savers for $5, Hit & Run slipped through the cracks, I’m guessing, because an eBay search shows a sale price that can be as low as $30 but us astute resellers know that the games shown in the image below and the one we found aren’t the same.
What’s the difference?
The sales above were for the later re-release which is the “Xbox Classics” whereas the one we found was the original release, called the black label. Black label version on Xbox is a $100 game. Same thing with the PS2. A lot of people, author included, get confused between The Simpsons games trying to remember which one is the one to pick up. Well, it’s Hit & Run. Not Simpsons Road Rage, not Simpsons Skateboarding, not The Simpsons Game, but Hit & Run. When you think Hit & Run, think Buy & Run. Buy that sucker and get out quick before they realize what they’ve done.
$6 into $50 via Marketplace.
At the end of October I shelled out $550 for one of the most profitable Nintendo 64 deals. The deal included consoles, controllers, accessories and games, including the most expensive Nintendo 64 PAL game. In the bundle was also this game.
Released in 1999, the player controls a character named Rocket in an environment that is famously the first game on a home console to use a realistic physics engine to drive the gameplay. The game is trending upwards in price and with a $200 sale price it would put it within the top 10 most expensive PAL games list (if you want to see the list, go here.)
It only took 35 days to see a return from this next item.
$30 into $200
35 days to turn $30 into $200. I thought the sale might have taken a bit longer because the signatures on this jersey were of players that didn’t have amazing careers but I guess it didn’t matter.
Polly Pocket continues selling for me. I’ll be cashing Polly cheques every day until I die.
Another Polly out the door.
What a time to be buying this next item.
$2 into $70.
This is a 2005 Chris Benoit WWE action figure. I travelled 200km for a whole bunch of wrestling figures that cost $2 each (wasn’t really worth it) and Chris Benoit is the last one to sell. It doesn’t surprise me, the dude literally murdered his entire family. I have no idea who is getting this as a Christmas present but we’ll assume it’s going to be a prank gift.
I thought I hit a home run with this next book.
$5 into $50.
Turns out it was a printed signature. If it was real, we could have asked for around $300. Nevertheless, somebody wanted it for their collection and we got a $50 sale price. Always check your biographies for signatures!
22 days for this next sale.
$200 into $550.
Always be on the lookout for variations of popular items. PS2 usually comes in black, but now its pink? Most likely limited edition and valuable. This applies all across the board to pretty much any category.
$5 into $30.
That’s all I’ve got for you this week, remember to enter this weeks Thriftmas Giveaway to win a factory sealed Polly Pocket from 1995. All you have to do is jump on over to our social media accounts and give the post a like or comment. Super simple. Thanks again for reading, I’ll see you next Thursday.
Mat.
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