Issue #51

As we approach a full year of Flip Weekly newsletters, it’s time to expand. Introducing the Flip Weekly Podcast! That’s right, not only will you receive the newsletter direct to your inbox once a week, you’ll also be able to listen to the podcast on the exact same day! The podcast is being created as an accompaniment to the newsletter… it’s a bit looser (completely unscripted), features Q&A’s, contains more information (speaking is easier than writing) and it’s a way to effortlessly receive Flip Weekly content without slogging through my horrible writing.

The podcast is available on all of the major streaming platforms but if you’re having trouble finding it, simply visit this link and click on your preferred platform. To celebrate the launch, I’m giving away 3 x $50 Vinnies gift cards! It’s simple to enter, all you need is an Instagram account. Check out Flip Weekly’s Instagram account for more details. The first podcast episode goes through 2024’s top 10 flips and from then on, it will be in-line with the newsletter content. If you enjoy the newsletter, check out the podcast.

In This Issue

• What I Bought

• What I Sold

• Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

• Flip Weekly Podcast

• Flip Weekly on Social Media

• 100% Free Resources to Help You

What I Bought

If you’re a reseller who regularly looks through men’s button-ups, this first item is on your watchlist and I consider it a rite of passage for resellers. If you don’t look through men’s button-ups, take a look at the below find and you’ll soon be spending a few minutes quickly flicking through whatever is hung up in your local op shop.

This is a Mambo Loud Shirt. Easy to spot in a rack based on their “loud“ designs by Australian artists. First manufactured back in the 90’s, these were heavily influenced by Hawaiian Aloha t-shirts and started to become popular in beach side towns for their anti-mainstream prints by local artists. From there, the designs became popular worldwide, even spotted on the back of the great Robin Williams.

I think the first I ever heard about these shirts was from Diary of a Flipper on YouTube. This guy documents his thrifting on YouTube and he loves to flick through the button-ups looking for vintage Mambo and then being disappointed when the loud shirt designs turn out to be mass manufacturers (like Lowes) trying to get in on the action. The reason why people love buying these is because they’re essentially art on shirts. The older they are, the rarer they are.

If we take a look at comps for “Mambo Loud Shirt“ without even sorting by highest first, this is what we have:

Like I said, the rarer the print, the more these sell for. So let’s take a look at comps for the shirt I found.

We have 1 sale for $149 but if we look at active listings, they range from $180 all the way up to $269. It’s a lot of money for a shirt, so I decide to list mine for $159 with free post. This sales price guarantees me a profit of $100.42 and it’s only a matter of time before it sells.

These t-shirts have been around forever and most thrift stores seem to know about them (Salvos has sold them on their website before) however the fact I was able to find one in a Lifeline just shows that you can still find them in the wild today. Think smaller op shops or even garage sales. Really when it comes to this style of shirt they’re not exactly hidden, place this next to a plain white t-shirt and it’ll stand out, your eye will immediately be drawn to it. Then you simply take a closer look and check out the tag.

From men’s shirts to something even more exciting… puzzles.

Almost as easy to spot as a Mambo Loud Shirt, these old school Heye puzzles have just as big of a following. Whilst Mambo have art on t-shirts, Heye has art on puzzles. They came to my attention a few months back when I was trying my hardest to make some money from what I’ve called time and time again the most boring category and I came to realize that the puzzle brand that has the vertical, triangle shaped box tends to sell for the most money. Just take a look at the one and only active listing for this piece.

The puzzle I found for $7 was actually brand new and factory sealed, easily better condition and more desirable than the 1 active listing. I desperately wanted to sell a puzzle to scratch the itch so I listed it up for $99.95.

If you’re in the puzzle section on a thrift store, the triangle looking vertical puzzles are worth checking out. If they’re not sealed, you’ll be taking a gamble and be in for a night of counting pieces. Whether that sounds like a good night is up to you. The good news is that puzzles are despised and inherently evil so a lot of them are donated still sealed, some even with wrapping paper still attached to them.

The next item was something I’d have to take a gamble on.

When I’m searching in the board game section I’m looking for anything that’s a bit different. We all know Monopoly, we all know Trouble, it’s the unusual items that are going to be worth flipping for a profit. To be candid… this thing looks nerdy and usually those sort of items are worth a bit of money.

Like opened puzzles, you’re taking a gamble buying an open board game. It only takes 1 piece missing for you to remove the ever important “Complete“ from the title. When I was looking at comps, it became clear that even though some listings had missing pieces they still sold well so I figured let’s do it, it’s only $10. When I got home I spent 10 minutes going through the game and unfortunately it wasn’t fully complete, it had around 8 pieces missing. However, those 8 pieces were all part of the 1 sort of set (and they weren’t important, they were place markers) so I was able to keep things clear and concise and list up for $119.95 + post.

A few other things I bought this week:

Any sealed toy like this in a thrift store is going to catch my eye. Fisher Price is a great brand and whilst I didn’t grow up with this line, I did have some Fisher Price toys that are worth a lot today. Anything from the Fisher Price Great Adventures line is nostalgic to me and worth picking up. If you follow Flip Weekly on Instagram you would have seen me posting about the Great Adventures Castle before.

What I’m trying to say is that sealed Fisher Price is valuable with toys that I grew up with and wouldn’t mind finding, so it makes sense that the girls versions are too. The one that I found was bought for $4 and I’ve listed it for $95 with some interest already.

I’ve had a look of recent luck with sealed Beyblades. These toys are still being made, you can pick one up from Kmart for like $10 however in most cases the items that are donated to thrift stores are old, and when it comes to Beyblades, old and sealed are gold. I’m not entirely sure why, I imagine some are more desirable than others, but this one when loose is around $30 and sealed, we have comps that average around $100, and one even coupled with another for $500 which is insane.

I’ve listed mine up for $99.95 with free post and offers open. It’s a cool item because it’ll be easy to ship and taking photos took 10 seconds. Here’s what you do if you spot sealed Beyblades in the wild: look on the back, find the copyright, if it’s any other year besides 2025, look it up and buy it.

What I Sold

Let’s cut to the chase and talk about the featured item of this Issue, the Blythe doll. One of the best finds in my short reselling life, this ludicrously expensive doll was found for $5 in a thrift store near the city. I couldn’t find any sold comps on eBay, but I did see a few active listings which sat around the $2,000 mark with plenty of watchers. Without knowing too much about the product, and for a bit of fun, I decided to put it up for sale on eBay as an auction with a $9.99 starting bid. Immediately, the bids started to roll in…

I was seeing a lot of activity on the listing, we had over 30 people watching and hundreds of views. The stat that made me the most excited however was that of all of the bidders, 5 were recent and over $350. The only way to have a successful auction is for a bidding war to erupt and with 5 people willing to spend over $350 on the doll, it’s possible they’re all willing to spend a bit more.

With 10 minutes left in the auction, bidding had stalled at $486. If it stopped there I wouldn’t have been disappointed, I mean $5 into $486 is amazing, it’s just that I wanted a few more dopamine spikes from seeing the bids go up. Fortunately for me, go up they did. I was on the phone at the time with 60 seconds to go and had to pause the conversation to call it out in real time.

Do we have $500? Can I get $500? Yes! Bids gone up. $550? The bidder raised me $600. Wow, I can’t believe… $625… uhh… $650… $700…holy crap… $711! Boom, sold!

We’d gone from $486 with 60 seconds left to $711, a jump of $225.

Now, you’re either a glass half full or glass half empty kind of person. The former would say that $5 into $711 within 7 days for a doll is amazing and totally unexpected. The latter would say it’s $1,300 less than the active comps.

For me, I’m a glass half full kind of guy. Yes, I could have listed for $2,000 but there’s no guarantees how long it’s going to sit for, especially with zero recent sold comps and being just after Christmas. I have a few items listed in the $1,000 mark but that’s because I’m happy to sit on them, they’re things I enjoy having in my possession and there’s sold comps. This doll on the other hand, it’s a $5 purchase and the auction fulfilled its purpose of having it out of my hands within a week, selling for the current market value and creating a bit of excitement.

Now it’s up to you to recreate this excitement… look in your thrift stores and garage sales for dolls with the pull-string on the back of their heads. If you find one because of this newsletter, you’re welcome.

I’ve done it, I’ve finally made a sale in the puzzle category. Bought for $7, I listed this triangle shaped Heye puzzle for $99.95 at 6pm and it sold at midnight - a 6 hour turnaround time! The rate at which it sold I didn’t even get a chance to slowly start to despise it being in my home.

The incomplete board game that I picked up for $10 went on to sell within 48 hours for full price. No offers, no negotiation, just a quick and easy transaction.

Big box computer games are still selling well. This copy of Sim City is legit older than me and was still in good condition at the thrift when I picked it up for $8 on January 8th. Less than 3 weeks later it’s gone on to sell for full price of $99.95 and the buyer paid an additional $57.96 in taxes and post to get it to Germany, so a total of $152.91. Crazy price considering in order to play this game you need a Floppy Disc reader!

I told you about this remote control in last weeks Issue of Flip Weekly so if you haven’t checked it out yet, do so here. As unexciting as it is to think about selling a remote control, it is exciting to see $10 turn into $80 in a matter of days.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was unsure if Looney Tunes were worth buying - I hadn’t seen any sort of meaningful sales and I questioned if I would bother to buy it in the future. Than comes this sale, $49.95 for a photo album from the 90’s that I bought for $5. It did take 3 months to sell so whilst I’m still not convinced, it’s a step in the right direction.

I don’t know anything about jeans and I don’t really want to be selling them, but I couldn’t resist picking up these jeans that had NBA basketball logos all over them. There were 2 pairs, I think I paid around $20 each and both had comps around the $150 mark. I took a best offer on this pair of $110 just to get them out the door. They’ve been live since September so unless it’s a personal purchase, I think I’ll leave these to the jeans resellers in the future.

If I buy media, I want them to sell like exactly like this one. Bought for $1 on the 16th of January, sold on the 24th for $50. Great sell through rate, great return, great purchase.

Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

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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.

Flip Weekly on Social Media

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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