Issue #92

🎵It’s the most wonderful time of the year🎵

The first weekend of Australia’s biggest ever garage sale event has come to an end. How did you go? Score any bargains? Run into any sales with eBay type prices? I certainly did. I swear one of the houses was the exact same from last year with the exact same stuff. We can scoff and make fun of those houses and clean up insanely well at others. That’s the Garage Sale Trail.

In this Issue of Flip Weekly I’ll run you through everything I bought over the weekend and there was a lot. Picture every category you’d love to find at a garage sale and I pretty much found it. The expected profit is huge and that’s because we’re finding items for $2 and listing them up for hundreds of dollars. With another year of knowledge under our belts, let’s get straight into it.

A reminder that you can listen to Flip Weekly’s podcast here. It’s essentially a more chaotic version of the newsletter.

In This Issue

• What I Bought

• What I Sold

• 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 went into this weekend excited and a little bit apprehensive. I cleaned up at last years Garage Sale Trail so the expectations were high, not just from me but from the people coming along for the ride. Could lightning strike twice and we turn $120 into $1500? Could we get lucky and sweet talk our way into buying a $250 grail item for just $20? Or would we waste a weekend, crash and burn and lose all hope for garage sales as a sourcing method?

On Friday night I set up my route for Saturday morning. I would be travelling just over an hour South of Sydney to hit up sales with my sister Sam. She seemed excited in the days leading up to it but that might have turned to shock when I showed her the route. 28 garage sales all around her local area. I’d be leaving the house at 6am, arriving to hers at 7, to then start our bargain hunting journey. Armed with a full tank of gas, plenty of cash and a myriad of snacks and drinks we head off.

Starting at the furthest, we set the tone and I decide to lower my standards so that we come home with a lot of stock. We walk into a garage filled with what would be the most eclectic range of stuff we would see all day. I apologise for not taking many photos because this lady had some really cool items. We’re talking vintage symbol clapping monkeys, mink scarves with real animal bodies sewn onto it… just a bizarre collection that whilst was fun to look at, didn’t end up coming home with us. We’d come to find out throughout the day that many people decide to put up prices that are identical, if not more than eBay.

Tell a lie, 1 thing did come home with me. This really cool $5 Johnson and Friends picture book from 1991. Not worth a lot of money, but to cool to leave behind.

We head off to our next sale and unironically score a great deal on Christmas wrapping paper. 30 meters for $2. Killer. We’re not going to resell wrapping paper, but they also had 2 brand new Dell monitors just sitting there in the boxes. A sticky note showing the prices marked at $20 each or 2 for $35. The owner said that his work gave them to him but he just never used them.

Just from looking at these things I knew they’d be worth a bit of money so I got both. Both are 24 inch and seem to sell for a combined $550.

Sam kept one, I kept the other. I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of listing them on eBay so they’re added on Marketplace for a pretty steep discount.

At this point we’re feeling like we getting some okay stuff, no home runs but we’re optimistic.

The next 2 sales I spend a combined $5 picking up items that I don’t know anything about. The first was this Jarvis Walker fishing reel.

I don’t know anything about fishing. Our school took us out once a week for sport and we used it as an excuse to buy hot chips and bludge. We didn’t even try and hide it… the school needed to enact a “you must bring a fishing rod or minimum a hand reel to fish“. I reminiscence of the carefree days where my biggest worry was getting caught with my hand reel fishing line in the water without a hook; just an excuse to hang out with friends, eat food and talk crap.

Anyway, the reel felt high quality and had some markings on it that made me think it could be a home run. I mean, dudes spend up for this type of stuff, right? Unfortunately not this one. I couldn’t find an exact Active or Sold Listing anywhere so the next best thing: listed up for $50 on eBay without a single view or watcher yet. Oops.

Our luck changed on the next garage sale, I paid $1 for this vintage Sindy doll fridge.

Sindy was created in the UK in the 70’s as a rival to Barbie and quickly became one of the countries best sellers. The company got greedy, tried to introduce her into the US and failed. From there, Hasbro bought the rights, gave her a face lift to look more American and that spelt the end of Sindy.

The fridge came in its box with all of its original accessories still sealed in plastic. I realized after looking at Sold Listings that when batteries are inserted into the back and the fridge door is open a little light turns on.

It’s super cute and people seemingly pay up for this sort of thing.

This is the exact type of ROI I strive for. We’re going to turn $1 into $100.

Our energy levels are still high despite not finding anything that I got really excited about. We hit up the next sale in a suburb that apparently is extremely dodgy. So dodgy in fact Sam had to take a photo and send it through to her partner as a way to say “good Lord look where we are”.

I don’t think anything of it, but then we rock up to the sale. Gucci bags, women’s Rolex, brand name clothing - all obviously fake. Sam suggests stolen goods but I have no idea, I’m thinking a market seller because they had multiple Wii consoles. I didn’t pick those up but I did see 2 Harry Potter items and some strategy guides that I took a shot on.

The first was a backpack for $25.

The second was a talking Sorting Hat for $5.

I’m unsure if I should spend money on this stuff but I saw Loungefly on the backpack which for some reason resonated with me. I’m not sure why. The Sorting Hat also sparked something, I swear I could have seen these selling for good money?

The backpack sells on a website called Popcultcha for $120. Sorting Hat on eBay for around $70-$80.

I don’t feel as though it’s too much of a risk to buy these. Harry Potter is a massive IP and both are seemingly worth at least double what I paid.

The strategy guides were in Japanese and $5 each. Don’t ask me what they’re about.

The days getting on and I’m not feeling the best about the purchases. No real grails, nothing that screams exciting. Then we walk into one of the most over-priced garage sales of 2025. An undercover car port full of pop culture items, think Marvel, Avengers, that type of stuff. Arranged in a horse shoe layout, there’s everything from books to collectibles to movies to random knickknacks. Oh and a lucky dip box.

I take a look at this Marvel medallion looking thing, it says limited edition on it, shaped like a triangle medal and quite heavy. I haven’t seen the Marvel films so I don’t know what it is.

“My daughter bought that, she paid $95 and is asking $45.“

I’m thinking cool, too expensive for me and I think it would be a slow seller and most likely hasn’t increased in value, probably sells on eBay for that. The daughter comes out.

“I’m not asking $45, I’m wanting at least $65.“

All I can think is that these 2 people will be lugging in all of this stuff at the end of the day. The prices were just too high for sales, sort of a theme for the day. I’d guess like half of the garage sales that we went to were looking up comps on eBay.

But then… hanging on a shelf inside a sandwich bag. The first real item I thought was good enough to photograph in the moment.

2 Nintendo DS games. Pokemon Ultra Sun and Pokemon White 2. Cartridges only.

“They’re my sons and he wants $10 each.“

In case you hadn’t noticed, the mum was commenting on every single thing we looked at which was really fun. I picked the games up, grabbed 2 lucky dips for $1 and bailed.

The surprising thing is that this sale must have been at around midday. The lady told us that people were rocking up at 7am yet they completely missed these games.

It’s funny, everything was so priced up at this sale that I wasn’t excited about the games. I legit thought oh well maybe these games aren’t worth much. I didn’t comp them until we got back and even then I was like how did we score this deal? These might have been the most valuable items at the sale yet were the cheapest. Crazy. I kept Ultra Sun and listed it on eBay for $90 and Sam kept White 2 and listed it on Marketplace for $150.

This was a 36 degree day so we’re really running low on energy. We’ve hit up a lot of garage sales and the small talk, driving and constant striking out is wearing us down. We’ve got 2 left and we make the decision to psych ourselves up, finish the trail for the day and consider it mission accomplished.

I’m glad we didn’t give up, we got good deals at both. The first was a Melbourne Storm 2014 jersey brand new with tags. I paid $35 which will sell for around $150.

The second was a sale run by a whole bunch of old ladies. Lots of wool, knitting needles, some old Barbies, glassware and then inside a cheap plastic bag we had a huge lot of Cabbage Patch Dolls. Not the big ones, small ones. I’m immediately looking for the signature to authentic them and of course Sam is looking at me like what are you doing. The signature on all Cabbage Patch Dolls is on the butt so you have to remove some articles of clothing on these dolls to find it.

Signature is there, I can see the original birth certificates in the bag, this could be good, there’s a whole bunch of them in the bag. We ask for a price and we pay $10. A bargain, there’s money to be made here surely.

The Sold Listings are more chaotic than the backseat of my car.

The tiny Cabbage Patch Dolls used to come in soft bodies and hard bodies. The comps are a mix of those, plus larger dolls and I can’t really get a good read on ‘em.

I take a bit of a stab in the dark and have priced them up at $250. In just over a day they receive over 30 views and 2 watchers so maybe it’s a good price.

Here’s how we end the day:

• Johnson & Friends $5 into $30

• 2 Monitors $35 into $250

• Reel $4 into $50

• Cabbage Patch $10 into $250

• Pokemon $20 into $240

• Sindy Fridge $1 into $100

• Harry Potter $30 into $150

• Strategy Guides $10 into $80

• Jersey $35 into $150

• Lucky Dip $1 into $0.

Total Spent: $151

Listed Value: $1,300

Not too shabby.

Oh, and in terms of what was in the lucky dip. Sam got some sort of hand cream that smelt like old school Sherbet Bombs. I got some knockoff Star Wars plastic toy soldiers. I’m a sucker for a Lucky Dip.

Overall Day 1 was a success despite not feeling that way in the moment. We both had fun, Sam enjoyed herself and wants to hit ‘em up again this weekend.

I get home and I don’t list up everything that night. Honestly, I’m exhausted from the day. We don’t stop though, I plan the route for Sunday around my local area, get a good night sleep and do it all again with a mate this time.

This day would turn into some insane returns.

The very first sale we rock up to I’ve got my head in the bookshelf and my friend… like a video game bloodhound comes back to me with something I’ve never seen at a sale before, a Nintendo Game Boy bundle. Not so much games, but some really cool accessories.

This was a Sunday sale… they had been open on the Saturday yet this stuff was still there. That’s wild. An original Nintendo carry case, a Super Mario bag, Game Boy camera, Game Boy Printer plus a boxed printer paper with 2 sealed rolls.

Then I see something else that sparks my interest, something I personally think is really cool.

This is a Nokia 1610 complete in box. We have the phone, original instruction manuals, charger, the works. Flash back to Issue #52 when I found a complete in box Nokia 3315 and eventually sold it for $150, I had a feeling we could have a similar situation here.

Considering the Game Boy stuff also came with the original purchase receipts from 1999 I’d say these people liked to take care of their stuff.

We paid $50 total.

In terms of comps, the Nintendo stuff is so collectable that you could literally part out every single piece. From the paper to the genuine cable. I decided to bundle together all of the camera and printing equipment and then separate the display and carry case plus throw in a spare game I had lying around.

After testing it all out, I decided to list the Camera & Printer bundle for $300 and the case bundle for $100.

In terms of the phone, I got a bit of a shock. The 1610 was before my time so I didn’t think it would be very popular, or at least sell for more than the 3315 earlier this year. I was wrong.

$380 complete in box? No way. Unfortunately I tested the phone and whilst it made a beeping sound when plugged into the charger, it didn’t turn on. Doing a bit of Googling and seeing other people experience this issue, it appears the battery is dead. Makes sense, it’s 29 years old. Nevertheless, after seeing these comps I somehow was able to list up this old, dead phone for $250. First garage sale of Sunday is a success.

We strike out at the next couple, we’re seeing some pretty crazy sticker prices on some stuff. No joke we turn up to 1 sale and I say to my friend I went to this one last year. It was inside a garage, long driveway and I distinctly remember the young Asian woman sitting inside the garage selling off some desirable pieces but for crazy eBay prices. This exact sale is one of the reasons why I know that Final Fantasy on PS2 isn’t worth much money.

We get inside the garage and what do you know, a young Asian woman surrounded by collectibles, video games, Pokemon cards. I recognize the items, on a wall is Final Fantasy store displays and I swear the exact same video games as last year. There’s a CD rack with each shelf having a different price. They start at $7.50 and go up from there. A whole binder full of Pokemon cards with sticker prices starting at $30. None of this is worth reselling so we leave and I’m looking forward to checking this place out again next year.

From here we go on a run of finding video game consoles. I feel like such a typical bro reseller. I’m sensing that maybe the sellers had priced these bundles up quite high, buyers overlooked them and the sellers were just happy to get rid of them by the next day.

We have an Xbox 360 bundle that included 4 sealed games for $50.

And a Wii bundle that included 3 sealed games for $10.

The next sale we were greeted by swords and shields outside and mountains of collectibles inside. Some had price stickers on them that rivaled, or were even higher than eBay yet the prices on unmarked items was really good.

For example, books on the shelf were $1 each and I was able to snag some vintage Tolkien.

Again, this sale was open on the Saturday, it’s now Sunday and people overlooked 1974 Unwin Lord of the Rings? Here in Australia you can get good money for this box set and as an added bonus the accompanying The Hobbit was also from the same year.

On the “New Age“ shelf I was looking for any vintage Tarot cards. YouTuber Diary of a Flipper recently stumbled across a sealed pack at a garage sale and they turned out to be worth hundreds of dollars. Apparently it’s a good niche to keep an eye out for which makes sense considering we sold those spiritual books The Ringing Cedars this year for $900.

Unfortunately the ones I found, Doreen Virtue’s Healing with the Angels from 1999 weren’t worth hundreds but they were sealed and had some comps that were promising.

I was chatting with the owner for a bit and she said that they were going to have to move out of their home and sell everything. She mentioned sending her collection to auctioneers to get rid of it. I made the suggestion that if after her sale next weekend it doesn’t move, I’d be open to doing a bulk deal, albeit I wouldn’t be able to pay eBay style prices. I gave her my number so who knows if anything will eventuate from that.

I found a few other miscellaneous items from other sales, some sealed Dora The Explorer Mega Bloks, a $10 DVD/VHS combo with Sold Comps around the $300 mark, a random pair of $3 Converse Chuck Taylor shoes which we think belonged to a dead man.

At the final sale I found something I had been keeping an eye out for for months. When I have some spare time I like to look up Sold Listings for items that I see regularly at thrift stores and sort by Highest first. I do this for niches that I usually overlook in the hopes of finding cool new home runs. Cooking books, CD’s, that type of thing.

I did one ages ago and it was Stephen King. You can jump onto eBay now and find 1st edition hardcover Stephen King books for as little as $30. That’s not where the money is. If you want a $100+ Stephen King book, look out for The Bachman Books.

This is a compilation of short stories he wrote under a pseudonym and even in paperback format you can get a lot of money. The final sale, inside a literal garage was a pile of Stephen King books. I quickly scoured the books for this title and lo and behold I found it. First ever time. The sticky note had a price of $150 for all 15 books. I asked if he’d sell them individually. I wanted just the single paperback. He said $2. Done. I listed mine up for $150.

By the way, now that I found The Bachman Books the next one I’ll be looking out for is called Rage. King released it in 1977 but because of the topic (a school shooting) he asked his publisher to take it out of print. To this day it’s one of the most desirable Stephen King novels for collectors to own. If you find it in the wild, first of all you’re incredibly lucky. Second of all, go list that thing up on eBay for $5,000.

Here’s how we end the day:

• Tarot Cards $5 into $80

• Bachman Book $2 into $150

• Lord of the Rings $4 into $150

• Dora The Explorer Mega Bloks $10 into $80

• Nokia 1610 $25 into $250

• Game Boy Bundles $25 into $400

• Wii Bundle $10 into $120

• Xbox Bundle $50 into $300

• Shoes $3 into $50

• LG DVD/VHS Combo $10 into $300

Total Spent: $144

Listed Value: $1,880

Here’s how we end the first weekend of Garage Sale Trail:

Total Spent: $295

Listed Value: $3,180

To call this a success would be an understatement. This is a triumph. To be able to spend $259 and turn it into $3,000, providing of course everything sells, is insane. It’s a testament to visiting garage sales as a side hustle, it’s proof that the more we learn the more hidden gems we can uncover and it’s a demonstration that in 2025 you can make a side income from reselling.

Will I be hitting them up again next week? Yes. Will you?

What I Sold

It’s been a busy week of shipping. I’ve had a sale every day which means I’ve been a regular at the post office. It’s either the influx of listings thanks to the recent Marketplace and Garage Sale Trail finds or this is the Christmas rush.

Animorphs continues to be slept on with many resellers only targeting Goosebumps. That’s fine by me, I picked up this huge bundle from Facebook Marketplace for $80 back in July and it’s sold this week for $400. This listing had a lot of eyeballs on it and for good reason, those bookends you see in the photo are harder to come by than the books. It’s the same lesson as Goosebumps - anything Animorphs related that aren’t the books should definitely be picked up. I’m talking t-shirts, keychains, any sort of merchandise, it would all be rare and highly sought after.

There’s a huge market in Australia for foreign Manga that is written in English, all you have to do is find it and hide your shame when walking around the store with these creepy illustrations.

Last week I, a 30 year old man, successfully hustled a kid out of a Nintendo. Subsequently, that $20 purchase has turned into a $180 sale. From that bundle deal, we still have majority of the handhelds still to sell including the Pokemon Game Boy & 2DS plus the 3DS that comes with the games. All of those listings are priced at the higher tiers so they might take a bit longer than usual. At this time of year though I don’t really mind, someone should snap them up before the holidays.

If you didn’t see on Instagram, this is the 2nd sale of this VHS tape I’ve had. The 1st was unsuccessful because the buyer seemed to be off with the fairies. Check out the messages below and be aware that this is after they had accepted my best offer. Seriously, the people you deal with on eBay…

I forgot to mention that last Thursday I did a quick trip to Savers and found this Ravensburger puzzle. I noticed the New York City skyline and immediately saw that the Twin Towers were still standing.

I’ve talked about this before, but any sort of puzzle, ornament, decorative item that was made prior to 2001 that features these buildings can sell for a lot of money to collectors.

The only issue was that after noticing the Towers and the Sold Listings, I noticed the amount of pieces, 12,000. This isn’t a small 100 piece puzzle that I can manually count the pieces, this would take me hours and I’m guaranteed to mess up between piece number 1 and piece number 12,000. Nevertheless, I took a gamble and brought it home to find 2 sealed packets of pieces and 1 that was opened. The puzzle had been partially put together and sticky taped but there was no way for me to verify if all the pieces were accounted for. I decided to list it up for a major discount at $100 + postage and it sold within 4 days.

Earlier this week Funko announced that it may not make it as a company to this time next year. Their sales are dwindling, people have moved on to other cool collectibles like Labubu’s and thrift stores are now chock full of Funko’s that will never sell. However, this seems to be an exception. This is a very early Funko bobblehead of some elephant from a show called The Banana Splits.

I picked it up for $8 and surprisingly it had a really good sell through rate and was actively being bought by people. Who or why? No idea but it sold in 47 days. Has to be one of the quickest sell throughs for Funko right now, yeah?

After listing this ultra cute Sindy fridge on eBay at 5:50pm on Sunday night it sold just over an hour later. I had no idea it was this sought after or I would have listed for more money. I can’t say that I’ll be keeping an eye out for Sindy dolls in the future, I struggle at the best of times to identify dolls.

That said, the Sindy logo is quite recognizable so if I see it, I’ll buy it. It’s also got a really good sell through rate here in Australia. “Sindy Doll” currently sits at 159 Active Listings and 125 Sold Listings giving us an 80% sell through rate.

Our first sale from Day 2 of Garage Sale Trail. Picked up for $10 and sold for $120 in just over 48 hours. The elderly man and woman that sold this to me just wanted it gone, it came with a couple of sealed games, controllers, plus the Wii Fit board and random accessories. I ended up donating the board and some of the low value games just so this listing could be seen as a bit more higher end, because after all, nobody wants a Wii Fit Balance Board.

A very popular Australian soap opera that sells for over $100 for Collection 1. I said when I found this that I couldn’t see any traces online of Collection 2 or 3 or whatever it goes up to. If you find the full collection I imagine you’re in for a huge payday.

The 1st sale of Day 1 of Garage Sale Trail came in, and it’s the Japanese strategy guides that were bought for $10. Surprisingly not the Pokemon games. We have an $80 sale price and to tell you the truth, I didn’t even get a chance to flick through these books or really look them up. I don’t know if this is a game (I’m presuming it is) but yeah, the only reason I bought it is because I’ve had good luck with strategy guides before.

A sale within Australia that I chalk up to general scarcity. Whilst looking on eBay I couldn’t really see many of these soft body mini Cabbage Patch Kids and with a large collectors market, $250 must have been the sweet spot. With 57 views in that timeframe, it was easily the most popular find of week 1 of the Garage Sale Trail.

That’s all I have for you this week. I hope I was able to convince some of you to hit up the sales over the weekend. Have fun, stay safe and I’ll see you again next week.

Mat.

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