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The $150 DVD That Almost Stayed on the Shelf
A single DVD, a massive flip—but if I knew the full story, I might not have bought it.
Issue #54
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In This Issue
What I Bought
For me to leave a thrift store with a single DVD, it generally has to be a home run. I typically aim for an absurdly high ROI and that’s what I should be getting from this next DVD. However, if I knew what I know now about this television show, I might have been too embarrassed to pick it up.
This is an animated / anime TV show called Neon Genesis Evangelion.
A general rule I have with DVD’s and books is that if it looks like Japanese anime, it has the potential to be valuable. Before I show you the comps for this complete collection of Neon Genesis Evangelion, let me give you the general synopsis and then… the parents guide.
When violent monsters descend upon Earth to destroy humanity, a reluctant young man joins a small squad of pilots under the command of his cold and dictatorial father to drive back the menace using giant machines that seem to have minds of their own.
It sounds pretty standard until I was called out about having it in my home:
You can tell the exact moment I looked it up.
I looked up the parental guide for this DVD on CommonSenseMedia and whilst most say it’s a great show with educational value, they also say it has “too much violence“ and “too much sex“. User JimboOffToWork puts it best:
One of the main characters is openly an alcoholic, and can often be seen ignoring trauma through sex and alcohol. There's absolutely no drugs nor swearing in the series, so there's a plus in regards to family friendliness.
This isn’t the first time I’ve bought anime before and it’s turned out to be raunchy, in July last year I picked up a book fairly cheaply called Takashi Takeuchi Fate Art Works: Return to AVALON and saw that it comped for over $100 on eBay, only to get home, open it up to take photos of the inside and see half naked anime girls inside.
Don’t lie, you saw a photo was loading here and expected half naked anime girls.
Here are the comps for the DVD:
I paid $6 for this DVD.
If Goosebumps books were Batman, this next series is Robin. If Goosebumps were Ian Thorpe, these are Grant Hackett. Coke, Pepsi. Black Caviar, Hay List. A Bug’s Life, Antz. Armageddon, Deep Impact. Australia, New Zealand. PC, Mac. Pokemon, Digimon. Qantas, Jetstar. WWF, WCW. Okay sorry, that’s enough comparisons, take a look.
Pretty dope cover, yeah?
First off, yes, it’s only the single Animorphs book but I have a plan. Animorphs was a book series consisting of 54 books published in 1996-2001 (Goosebumps were around the same time, ‘92-’97). The series centered around 5 teenagers who were able to transform into any animal they touched and then fought some alien invaders. It was quite popular and even spawned a television show although in 2025 it’s not as collectible as Goosebumps hence the comparisons above.
Anyway, back in August I found #1 - #5 of the 3D hologram covered Animorph books in a kids section (3 for $2) and they had been sitting on eBay for $59.99 ever since.
This is an animated GIF, it might take a second to load.
Now this book that I picked up, Visser, was $3 and has some okay comps, it’s around a $20 book:
Pretty decent comps.
However I don’t really want to be selling a $20 book. I figure if I pick this up for $3 and add it to my bundle of Animorphs books, it might just push it over the line. I decide to end the listing, take new photos with the Visser book included, and publish for the exact same price. I’m hoping this $3 addition to the collection will help the $59.99 listing sell quickly.
By the way, just a quick little tidbit. A complete set of Animorphs book, number 1 to number 54, sells on eBay for pretty much the same price as Goosebumps, and Goosebumps have an additional 8 books that you have to source/find and post.
385.71% sell through rate.
360.00% sell through rate.
I paid up for this next find, I spent $40 but I have a feeling it’s going to sell fast and sell for over $150, take a look.
2 sets, left 1 behind that was open. This one was sealed.
This is a 1:24 scale model of a Formula 1 car that you have to build, paint and place stickers on. A step up from a puzzle, but not by much. This is what it looks like if you open the box:
I wouldn’t even attempt to make this. Courtesy of an eBay sold listing.
The one I picked up was fully sealed and had some extras included like the paint containers, brush and glue which doesn’t seem to normally come with these sets. This particular set appeared to be rare, we had no active listings on eBay which I guess makes sense considering it’s from 2011. The appeal, I imagine, is that this car was driven by Lewis Hamilton. I don’t follow this sort of racing but if you asked me to name a few Formula 1 drivers I’d say Michael Schumaker, Daniel Riccardio and Lewis Hamilton. To be completely honest with you, I don’t even know if they’re all F1 drivers, but regardless they’re known people to not-even-casual fans like myself, one of the reasons why I took a gamble on this.
There were 3 sold listings:
Decent-ish comps.
Whilst the comps aren’t exactly home run, exciting material, I am encouraged by the fact the sold price increased as time went on.
November - $59.44
December - $77.84
January - $99.07
I’m also encouraged by the fact that the most recent sold listing, $99.07, was a box that was tattered and open. With no active listings, I’m hoping to continue the rise of sale prices by aiming for $150. I don’t think that’s out of the question, the only other place I could find an In Stock version of this set was a US based hobby website which had it listed for $98.00 USD which is about $154.00 AUD.
Pricing is in American money. Converted to Aussie dollars is approximately $154AUD.
It’s the week of paying up, I spent $40 on the last item, and now $60 on this one.
You spent how much on a tattered box?!
I was in this Lifeline thrift shop for 60 seconds, couldn’t find anything and on the way out I saw this inside a cart getting ready to be put on a shelf. I took note of a few markings and left to do the post for the day. As I’m walking away I check it out on eBay knowing that thrift stores tend to not differentiate between an item that is boxed or sealed and one that is loose (people on eBay do though). If you can’t see the photo, the item is an old school Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld gaming console. If it was $60 just for the console I wouldn’t have even bothered, but because it was boxed, it got my interest.
These were the comps I saw when walking away:
Before you scroll further, what would you list it for assuming the box is complete?
Being in such a tiny market like Australia, I always have to filter these results to just our small island, otherwise comps are skewed. If we do that, you get results like the above and you see 14 active listings and 21 sold listings for PSP Value Pack, indicating an 150% sell through rate which means this will most likely sell quickly.
Taking a lot at the 3 comps above, we have a boxed version selling for $150, a loose for $135 (incl. post) and another boxed value pack selling for $247.90 (incl. post). Here’s the way I look at it when it comes to pricing mine. If a loose PSP can sell for $135, the boxed one at $150 is under priced. The one at $247.90 is basically what I’m offering but I have more accessories but minus 1 game. I now have a decision to make.
Do I find someone local selling a couple of games cheap to bundle with it or do I list as is? There’s pros and cons for each. If I bundle it with games the buyer can instantly start playing. The cons are that if the buyer dislikes the games they’re going to look elsewhere and they start to match you up and compare with other bundle lots. If I list as is without any games, the buyer has to purchase their own games meaning it’ll be 2 purchases which is a barrier. Then again, it gives them the freedom to choose their own game, because at the end of the day they’re going to need the console to play the game they want to play.
I toss up between this and decide I’m not going to compete on a bundle lot, I’m going to stick with just the console, completely boxed with all of the genuine original accessories. I decide on a list price of $200 with free post which would net me almost $100 in profit. Not too bad!
What I Sold
Here’s a secret if you’re new here: old school, giant CRT TV’s are worth a lot of money!
Yes, an old TV just sold for hundreds of dollars.
If you want to know the story behind why these TV’s that are hanging on for dear life are worth picking up at garage sales, go back to Issue #40 when I spent $120 on inventory for a value of over $1,500.
If you want some inspiration, go check out the sold comps - it’s 100% going to inspire you to pick up an old TV next time you’re at a garage sale.
The TV finally sold. It took 3 months but honestly I’m not unhappy with the result. This TV was getting views and watchers everyday (I think we ended with close to 200 views, 20 watchers) before finally selling for $265 + post. It’s an awesome result considering I paid literally $5. The dude selling it thought I was doing him a favor getting rid of this old thing! Like I said, if you want to know more about why this sold, go back to Issue #40 or listen to the podcast where I’ll talk more in depth about it.
Picked up on January 29th.
A 15 day sell through rate for Season 1-4 of a Cartoon Network show called Steven Universe. I picked up each DVD for around $2 from Savers ($8 total) and could see based on comps that I could get approximately $100 from it. This appears to be one of those shows that is harder to find in the land down under and I was bummed that I couldn’t find the 5th and final season of the show. If I did I could sell it as a complete collection and get close to $200!
Is the $183 price a one off? Nope, take a look at the next image.
23 watchers for a DVD is quite high, no?
This is one of those shows that you need to be on the lookout for. It’s quite easy to remember, it’s the worst titled animated TV show of all time… I mean… Steven Universe?
Bought for $6, sold for $60.
The plan worked! After ending the listing on the Friday, the set sold on the Monday! This isn’t a coincidence, it shows the power of ending a stale listing and improving upon an existing listing. It’s impossible to know whether it would have sold if I just ended and relisted the 5 books (so don’t chalk this up as a sign to end and relist all your items), but we can deduce a lot that it sold with the 5 books plus the new one.
A few other things I sold this week:
Paid $3, sold for $50. Love me some original cast Wiggles.
Only paid a couple of bucks at Savers for this bix box PC “game“
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