Issue #78

Who said you can’t gamble and win? This week I got my hands dirty and dove head first into dirty, old cardboard boxes to pull out some items that you’re not going to believe are worth a fortune. I’m outing this category and you’re going to make a lot of money. I also get my hands on a rare and valuable item from the 80’s that an online commentator refers to as “the stuff of nightmares“ (among other things).

We have plenty of sales, I created a resource for people new to the world of reselling, secondhand opinions, a fake bomb and a whole lot more. A reminder you can always listen to the Flip Weekly podcast here. Let’s get into it.

In This Issue

• What I Bought

• What I Sold

• Secondhand Opinions

• Reseller Glossary: Terms & Acronyms

• Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

• Podcast

• Social Media

• 100% Free Resources to Help You

What I Bought

You know me, I love a gamble. I don’t care if the items are covered in dirt, buried in the ground or completely neglected. If I think I can make decent money I’m going all in. I came across this Facebook Marketplace post and it’s easy to see why many people would overlook it. It’s dirty, there’s a total of 2 photos and we have an expensive $100 sale price.

PASS!

Or… is there money to be made here?

The 1st photo should have pricked your ears, we have a DVD/VCR combo. Minimum sale price for these is around $200, even more if we have the remote and judging by the 3 remotes on top of the box, we’re in luck. But let’s look at the 2nd photo.

This is a huge box of VHS tapes. The description says everything is working but we only have 2 photos to go off and the condition is suspect at best. However… on the far right of the box is a VHS of The Wiggles. We can zoom in and see it’s a copy of “Whoo Hoo! Wiggly Gremlins!” which if we comp sells for between $25 - $40.

Here’s the thing: I see 1 VHS of The Wiggles and I start to think the entire box is filled with them. If not The Wiggles, maybe some other kids television show from the 90’s? To hit a home run we only need a single copy of Brum or Cars.

Heck, if we’re aiming for VHS The Wiggles let’s aim big.

Here I am, thinking we have a giant box of VHS, a couple of media players we can resell, let’s make some money. I pull the trigger. I pay $100, make it out to the pick up location and have the box of players and media put into my car. I get back home and I’m about to go through the box. I’m praying for a home run of The Wiggles. Here’s what I pull out.

Not just one, 12 copies of The Wiggles on VHS. Remember the home run a few minutes ago?

What are the odds? Since when is the universe working in my favor? After processing the home run that’s when I start to come back down to reality. Just last week I had a more modern DVD not work thanks to a giant scratch that toothpaste couldn’t fix - what are we thinking the odds are that these older VHS work and have no mold or chewed up tapes? I mean, they’re not exactly looking like they’ve been kept in a moisture free environment.

Here we go again. I set up the DVD/VCR combo first. It’s covered in dust and God knows what else but you know what… it works. I test out the buttons on the unit, fast forward, rewind, eject… nothing wrong with it. Wow… what about the remote? No issues either. I’m starting to think oh crap, am I about to get really lucky?

I put in the 1st VHS. It works. The 2nd. It works. I go through each and every single VHS tape and besides the masterpiece that is Jim Carrey’s Liar Liar (that unfortunately had its tape chewed up), it all works. I’m in shock, I’ve just sat down and went through 12 copies of The Wiggles on cassette tape and I feel… good?

You’re wanting to know value. Here’s how it’s all broken:

Oh yeah, there was enough tapes to form a solid Jim Carrey bundle and a Hi 5 bundle. There’s really no active or sold comps for the Jim Carrey bundle so we’re trying our luck at $80 and in terms of Hi 5, the market just isn’t there however it is getting around 6 views a day. We’ll see if it sells soon if not we can get rid of it (I donated around 80% of the tapes in the box, plus the DVD player.)

From the box, we also had a lot of individual VHS tapes that wouldn’t be worth listing. Think action movies, bootleg recorded off the TV tapes, that type of thing. At the end of the day though, the value lies squarely with The Wiggles. Every single tape that has been listed has at least 1 watcher already (a couple might have sold, read on) and the views… the views are coming in really fast.

The last thing I’ll say about The Wiggles VHS tapes this week is that this is an Australian group. Back in the 90’s the tapes were being sold primarily within Australia. That means the supply overseas is limited yet the demand is high. Not every eBay seller offers international shipping. I’ve had success turning on international shipping and selling overseas. In fact, in one of Flip Weekly’s Issues I sold a tape for $50 + overseas shipping despite the fact this tape was active on eBay Australia for $10 just without international shipping enabled. Think about that.

Let’s see how it goes.

It’s so very easy to walk past the plush shelves in Savers. They’re stacked high, squished together and if you pull on one, you pull on all. Putting that aside, I’ve learnt in the past 18 months that if I see something resembling a puppet, I should check it out and I’m glad I did.

For just $3.99 I discovered “Skateboard“ from the Rigadoon Gang. A bunch of puppet toys from the late 80’s, early 90’s that looked to be set up to be turned into a television show or a movie, but nope, they remained just as puppet toys. You can check out the original Aussie TV ad on YouTube here which you’ll notice has comments turned off. After looking into these guys, there’s so little chatter, but when people talk about them, they either mention that 1) they look creepy or 2) the hand hole on the back of the head looks a bit NSFW.

Regardless of those (hilarious) comments, nostalgia can make us a lot of money.

Like I said, I always check out any plush that looks like a puppet and if you spot something that looks like a Rigadoon, check out their hand and you can see this marking:

No marking? Don’t worry, from what I’ve read the very first versions didn’t have this mark, version 2 did, but only very small and the later versions had the mark but covering more of the hand. Either way, all are valuable.

On Saturday I did something I really hate to do. I crossed the bridge for a deal. You don’t like going across the Harbour Bridge, Mat? No, definitely not. I’ve done it a million times and I guarantee it’s only a matter of time before I’m one of those people that get into the head on collision on the bridge. I do not want my legacy to be people complaining about getting home 15 minutes late on their commute. It’s not worth it.

The deal was for a Mission Impossible Popcorn Bucket. I know how ridiculous this sounds, but consider I saw it on Marketplace for $10. I messaged within a few minutes and was one of the first but unfortunately someone spilled the beans.

Now when the Buyer says he saw the price on eBay, this is what he was talking about:

To be fair, these are Sold Listings within Australia, he most likely just searched eBay and found Active Listings where there’s only 1 for sale in Australia for $100 + $25 postage. This popcorn bucket has a sell through rate of 2200% within Australia! I legit think I could get $150 for it. It is quite a lot of money for a popcorn bucket, but fans have gone crazy for it just because of it’s functionality.

It’s built to resemble a bomb and features 2 keys (similar to the ones featured in the film) that need to be interlocked and inserted to open it. To get to the keys a hatch on the top of the bomb needs to be twisted and opened. On the bottom of the bucket there’s an on/off switch which lights everything up. It’s gimmicky, but people are paying good money for it so we’re going to take advantage.

With one of the only Active Listings on eBay within Australia, and a crazy high sell through rate, this should sell pretty quick. Imagine filling out the customs form for an international sale. Has anyone ever wrote “fake bomb“?

I’ve been having luck not just with Facebook Marketplace lately, but Savers has been giving me the goods.

To know what this is, we needed to know a bit of history about AFL and its teams, specifically the Western Bulldogs. Prior to being called AFL, it was originally named the VFL. Before the Western Bulldogs were rebranded, they were known as the Footscray Football Club. Putting it all together and seeing this drinks tray in Savers for $7.99 along with a marking dating this piece back to 1976 I knew it was going to be a winner. Vintage sports items are a quick seller and can commend a lot of money.

I wasn’t able to find any Sold Listings which doesn’t surprise me, but I could see 2 Active Listings with a combined 17 watchers and listed price of just over $100.

Even if you’re not a huge sports fan, I think this tray should have stood out to resellers. The graphic on the front, the date putting this back to the 70’s, it’s worth at least a look up. Would you have checked it out?

What I Sold

I’m sorry in advance for inundating you with The Wiggles.

How is the first sale a combined sale going off to the USA without the original artwork and cases? C’mon! The first of The Wiggles tapes sold within 1 day and it was 2 I lotted together that had no artwork. The buyer from the States paid a total of $49.95 + $45.20 in postage. It seems that missing artwork isn’t a dealbreaker for collectors. I’m going to put down $7 as the purchase price as I was able to get 15 listings from this $100 Marketplace deal.

Like I’ve said to you a million times, these VHS/DVD combo players sell for a lot of money, very quickly. My tip when buying these is to include photos of it playing both types of media in your listing, and you can use this opportunity to cross promote your other listings. The buyer is obviously wanting the device, why not try and sell them on some DVD or VHS in your store?

This is the big one. A $200 sale price for Sailing Around the World. When I listed this up, the only Active Listings I could see were in the USA and they were around the $100 mark. Sold Listings I could see a combination of USA and Australia. The previous 2 Australia sales were for $149.95 and $79.95. Given there weren’t any copies available locally, I shot for the moon and asked for $199.95 - crazy price, yet somebody has paid it!

By the way, you can get this exact movie on DVD for literally $6.50 free postage.

Good Lord, when does The Wiggles end? I promise after this Issue I’ll lay off ‘em. Hot Potatoes has sold for full asking price, $49.95. The cover of this tape was probably my favorite of the bunch, mostly because it had the novelty and sparkles of glitter without getting it everywhere.

Oh look, something that isn’t The Wiggles. Big bulk manga novels are usually worth looking into. These were labelled $5 each at an independent thrift store and I bought them back in February. Took a bit to sell, but they’re out the door for $150 total.

Alright, back to The Wiggles. Let’s run through them quickly and by the end you’re going to be convinced (if you aren’t already) that these tapes sell quick and for good money.

It’s funny, I remember talking about The Wiggles on Tiktok, explaining how there’s a huge collectors market and certain tapes and DVD’s can sell for a lot of money, and reading a comment “How do you know it’s not money laundering?“ Yeah, money laundering has become an almost catch-all phrase for markets people don’t understand, I see it all the time. These people throw out the term almost as quickly as those who throw out “He works in mysterious ways“.

Anyway, we spent $100 on the Wiggles box of tapes and players and thus far have made back a total of… $449.90.

I told you previously that any book that features “The Art of“ tends to be worth a lot of money. The Art of Zootopia was picked up for $5 in June and has sold for $150 + $81.23 in fees and post. That’s right, somebody in Netherlands has paid a total of $231.18 and for this $5 book!

I was a bit shocked as to how fast this guy sold, he was out the door within 24 hours having sold on Facebook Marketplace to a puppeteer!

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 “If you had no access to a smartphone, would you still be comfortable reselling?” and here are the results:

“I’d still resell but I’d be more cautious“ wins with just over 60% of the vote - exactly what I was feeling last week so I’m glad we’re all mostly aligned.

This weeks topic is: Do you foresee the physical media category spiking in the upcoming years?

A topic that intersects between my personal life and my reselling life. It seems that every few months I receive a notification from a streaming platform that they’re raising prices. Do they add extra features or cool new shows and movies? Doubt it.

With corporations needing infinite growth it’s literally never going to stop. In a few years time we’ll be back paying basic cable prices, I mean… how long until they all merge and offer a Foxtel like service? Is it already happening? I don’t know about you but I’m getting sick of it and have even thought about sailing the seven seas.

You know a solution to this problem? Physical media. I told you about this weeks media box that I picked up from Marketplace, well included was a Sony Blu-Ray player and so far I’ve kept it and I’m tempted to start getting a physical media collection. The resolution is better than some streaming platforms, it’s with me forever and I never have to pay for it again, if I ever get over it I can sell and make some money and if the internet ever stops working thanks to an inevitable global conflict at least I can go out in glory watching the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings in 4K UltraHD.

With all that said, does that drive physical media prices up? There’s already been reports that some retailers are going to stop selling DVD’s and Blu-Rays so where does that leave us? I know with the cost of living crisis I’m not wanting a subscription to Netflix, Prime, AppleTV, Stan, Binge, Max, Paramount… like c’mon this is getting absurd.

“Just stream it, Mat“ - yeah, when what I want to watch is spread across 8 different platforms each requiring a subscription and an account I really can’t be bothered. Plus, any information I give them, including personal and financial is just going to get hacked and leaked anyway. It’s inevitable. Anyway, I’m ranting. These companies just don’t learn. We went to streaming because it became more convenient than a DVD and piracy, yet now it’s becoming increasingly more inconvenient.

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.

Reseller Glossary: Terms & Acronyms

When writing the newsletter or recording the podcast I’m often using words and phrases that are commonly spoken in the reseller community. It was only recently that a listener wrote in saying “You always say ‘comps’ and I don’t know what you’re talking about”. It hit me that not everyone lives and breathes reselling like I do so I felt it best to explain some of the most commonly used reseller terms and acronyms.

I’ve put together a little glossary if you ever find yourself confused with certain terms, you can find it here on the Flip Weekly website. If I’ve missed something let me know.

Win 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!

Flip Weekly Podcast

Introduced as an accompaniment to the newsletter, the Flip Weekly podcast is for people who want even more reseller content. You can find the podcast on all major podcast streaming platforms or you can listen directly on the Flip Weekly website 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.

• Ultimate List of YouTube Reseller Channels

• Google Sheets Reseller Spreadsheet

• Memorize Video Game Prices with Flip Vidya

• eBay Sell Through Rate Calculator

• How To Tell If A Book Is 1st Edition

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

• Reseller Terms and Acronyms You Should Know