Issue #42

What’s going on flippers, Mat here and this week is all about gearing up for the Christmas rush. One of the #1 items that sell at Christmas are toys and I’ve got them in droves. If you’re picking up toys in the thrift know that the best ones to buy are obviously brand new and sealed but you can still make money with opened and used items, it just depends what it is. With the Garage Sale Trail in the rear view mirror, take a look at some of this weeks thrift store purchases and sales that I made.

In This Issue

• What I’ve Bought

• What I Sold

• Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

• Flip Weekly on Social Media

• 100% Free Resources to Help You

What I’ve Bought

In case you don’t know, there’s 27 days until Christmas. That means that the hottest commodity on eBay and Marketplace right now is… toys! You need to be buying and listing up any toy purchases you’ve made because the very end of November and the beginning of December are when people go nuts. I’m going to take you through this weeks toy haul that I bought specifically to sell before December 25th of this year. We’re going to start with something that was marked down due to being broken yet I guarantee sells before Christmas.

What we have here is a 90’s Cinderella snow globe that was originally a music box. There’s a wind up dial on the bottom that played “So This is Love“ which unfortunately doesn’t work which is why we have the "BROKEN” label on the sticker. If it worked we have comps up to $170 but let’s stop and think for a second. 99% of the time this snow globe is going to be sitting on a shelf. It’s basically a display piece and to me as is it looks great. It’s an old, handpainted Disney piece that I’m sure someone will want to have in their collection and I’m confident they’ll pay more than $5 for it.

I decided to pick it up and I’ve listed it for $59.95 with free shipping. Of all of the active listings on eBay, not a single one was within Australia. This is almost like a new vintage Disney product to Aussies so let’s see if they bite.

I’m like a broken record, look some more Thomas The Tank Engine! Seriously, based off of Flip Weekly you’d think that the Australian economy was made up of digging rocks out of the ground, auctioning off houses for exorbitant amounts of money and selling Thomas & Friends merchandise. This is an Activity Centre that was released in 1992 and I swear as soon as I saw it in the thrift store it brought me back to my childhood - I had this as a kid! I immediately bought it for $4 and sent some photos to my mum. She didn’t recognize it at all, she was either gas lighting me or my childhood toys blended together. Each of the 5 buttons had a task for the 3D environment: the first button moves the smoke, the second button moves Thomas' eyes, the third button spins the wheels, the fourth button makes the conductor wave and the fifth button when pressed makes a horn sound using compressed air.

This is a toy that doesn’t require batteries so it’s legit stood the test of time. There was only 1 comp online for $99, with zero sold comps:

Buying mine for $4, I decided to list it up for $59.95 expecting to settle around the $50 mark with the best offer option available. If you had a similar sort of toy as a kid, we had similar childhoods. The next item stood out to me just based purely on size.

I absolutely love these over-sized picture books. This is “The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” from 2014 in hardcover. The sticker price was $4.99 and to me it struck as either one of those cheap Scholastic Star Wars hardcovers or a really, really expensive Star Wars books. I looked up comps and this is what I saw.

The sell through wasn’t the greatest, we had 68 active listings and 31 sold comps. That puts us at 45.59%. Regardless, I narrowed the search down to Australian listings and that turned into just 9 listing with them ranging from $95 - $194. This led to me making a captains call - I have a book that has sold for $100+ in my hands and it’s just $5. The cheapest Australian listing is $95 and it’s a part of a huge franchise that is Star Wars. Even if I buy this for $5 and list it for $50 on Marketplace and $85 on eBay, I’m going to make some great profit. So that’s what I did. Moving on…

Honestly if you’re not checking any and all brand new and sealed toys this close to Christmas you are missing out. I expected nothing from this toy. To me it looks very generic, almost like the Lightyear products Vinnie mass imports into their thrift stores. However, a sealed toy is a sealed toy and I decided to check it out and I’m glad I did. Let’s start with the brand “Swigglefish“ which I’ve never heard of.

Basically a 1 in 3 sell through rate. The toy that I have is quite big, it acts almost like a storage box for all of the smaller toys.

All of the active comps have decent watcher numbers so I make the decision to list mine for $99.95. It will be the cheapest brand new item within Australia and not much more than the opened boxed ones. This thing was extremely dusty so either clean it up a bit or make a note in the description that it needs a clean before play - that’s the least you can do when making almost $100 per item.

Alright, now’s the time for some nostalgia if you were a 90’s girl. Put your hand up if you ever got one of these for Christmas.

Here’s the truth about this item: I had watched a 1997 Starcastle brand new in box since late October as a birthday present to one of my sisters (don’t worry, they don’t read the newsletter). It was $180 + post and not something I wanted to commit to too early in the year..

Here’s all that I vaguely remember about these playsets from when I was a kid: they were sparkly, they had a ton of glitter and the only way to open them was this special key on the side of the castle. I used those searches to find the above item and ever since earlier this year I’ve been umming and awwing whether or not to buy it for my sis. Because to be fair, $180 is a lot of money to be like “hey, remember this when you were a kid?”.

Fortunately for me I was able to find it complete in box in a thrift store and only paid $15. I’ve decided to put it up for sale for $100 on Marketplace and if it doesn’t sell it will go towards being a Christmas present. By the way, do you have any suggestions on how to pack this stuff properly? I pulled the castle out once and it turned out impossible to put it back in.

What I Sold

Just under a month ago I walked into a thrift store and spotted this huge WWE wrestling box resting on the floor with a $10 price tag. Given the price and the fact the box was open and manufactured in 2007, I figured it had been plundered and all that remained were a few worthless accessories. I was completely wrong, absolutely everything was inside the box and still sealed! That included 4 wrestling figures, a wrestling ring, stickers and a wrestling belt. WWE action figures and accessories (including the belts) are fast sellers and in demand items so I’m always picking them up wherever I go.

This “super value pack“ sold for $189.99 + post. Its been sent to a Mum of the Year who will wrap it up and put it under the Christmas tree for their child. Now is the time parents and family members will be looking for the perfect present for children in their lives so make sure you have everything listed and ready to go. Remember that it can only sell if its listed.

Issue #40 was the first week of 2024’s Garage Sale Trail. It was an absolute monster issue where I was joined by my younger sister and we spent just $120 and made out with a $1,500+ listed value. This Ben 10 action figure was 1 of 2, they cost $5 each and this one has gone on to sell on eBay for $100. It’s actually an international order and is off to Hong Kong, so in total they spent $124.35 just on this 1 figure! And we picked up 2! I gave my sister the other one and she listed it locally on Marketplace. Multiple people have tried to buy it and asked for shipping, but she’s adamant she doesn’t want to deal with anything that isn’t pick up. I think as Christmas is just around the corner is bound to sell, she listed it for $50 and I mean…. this one sold for $125 so some Ben 10 fan will swoop in.

I don’t really have any advice for when it comes to Ben 10 action figures, I don’t know anything about the show and to be honest I’ve always skipped past anything Ben 10 related as I thought it was too new of a show to be worth anything, but this is a wake up call and in the future I’ll definitely be checking out Ben 10 for $100+ finds like this.

Here we have another Garage Sale Trail find! These Teletubbies plush were found just last week in Issue #41 for $10, received a lot of attention and sold full price for $79.95. Teletubbies are something I’ve talked about before, they have a collector fan base and also a nostalgia factor that many people can’t refuse. It’s my first time selling them as plush toys and I think one of the reasons they sold quickly is because it was a set of 4. Comps for individuals were around the $20 - $30 mark which would net a higher sale price but it most likely wouldn’t sell as quick. When you’re at a sale or a thrift store, you’ll want to hunt for all 4 of the Teletubbies. Don’t fret if they’re not all the same size, 3 of these were tiny beanie baby type plush and the 4th was a bit bigger. The buyer didn’t seem to care. When it comes down to it having all 4 is more important than having them all the same size or year.

All the way back in Issue #9, it was raining here in Sydney so I decided to hunt on Marketplace for some deals. Manga books have always been something I’ve made money on, so I saw this bulk lot of books that I swooped in on. The series is called Overlord and it’s volume 1 through 9. I paid $67.50 for the series and its gone on to sell for $149.95 giving me a profit of $82.45. It’s not the quickest sell through rate, and I probably wasn’t looking to much at those numbers back in Issue #9, but Manga is something you want to keep an eye out for - go back through Flip Weekly for my tips on how to spot them in thrift stores.

In Issue #38 I uncovered a new niche: old and ugly kitchen appliances. This is a Breville “snack maker“ which is basically like a regular sandwich press - for context the cheapest one at Kmart is $7.50. I picked this one up for $4.99 and couldn’t believe the comps on eBay.

There weren’t many listed but I used places like Reddit to justify the purchase - people were reminiscing about this exact model and there was a hint of nostalgia. This week it sold for $119.00 on a best offer and it was exactly because of nostalgia and reminiscence.

This is one of those sales where the sell through rate on eBay isn’t going to tell you whether or not you have a winner. This is a sale purely based on this buyers childhood and perception that this appliance is better than every other one made today. The funny thing is that the argument he’s made for buying this item is quantifiable. Others don’t get hot enough? I’m sure if we measured a decent snack maker with a temperature gauge you’ll see that they do. This one tastes better? What’s the bet that a blind taste test would reveal this one isn’t the one they like the most. The thing is none of this really matters, it’s all moot. It’s a purchase made purely on nostalgia and that’s all that matters. We sold nostalgia and that’s why we’re able to turn $5 into $120.

I’ve told you before that Thomas & Friends goes wild. This Activity Centre is off to China of all places for a sale price of $49.95 + post. It’s honestly quite crazy how Thomas goes but if you’ve been following Flip Weekly for a while it shouldn’t surprise you. Just don’t go picking up random $1 Thomas trains and expecting $100 sales prices.

Whenever I hear about people dismissing books I always think of situations like this. A $4.99 book into $45.00 within 24 hours. I can’t get those sales with say Mario Kart on the Wii, or He-Man from the 1980’s, yet I can get it from a Star Wars book that was made barely 10 years ago. Anyone that dismisses books is doing so just purely because they hate books. They’ll buy Mario Kart for $5 and sell it for $30 a week later and say that they specialize in video games, but God forbid they buy Star Wars for $5 and sell for $45 (without any fees) a day later. You need to keep an open mind when selling online and don’t get too stuck down in your niche when an opportunity presents itself.

Speaking of Star Wars, here is something that I almost passed on purely because of online trolls in the past.

I found this R2-D2 miniature in the basement of a Vinnies and it kind of surprised me. I’ve never seen an R2 this big before, it was almost life sized. I thought to myself that if I go to pick this up and it weighs a ton it’s going to be something that will sell for thousands. Unfortunately I picked it up with one hand and it was obvious that it was hollow inside. Damn! It’s not a life size, robotic R2-D2. I did what I always do with these sort of things and looked at the bottom for some more information.

Ohhhh, this is another cinema exclusive and the main reason why I didn’t want to pick it up. Check out Issue #38 for when I got bombarded with online trolls due to them not agreeing with the price of a Garfield popcorn bucket - I know, of all things to target… Regardless, the comps were crazy.

I clicked on a few of them to see if people were watching the listings and they were - the first 3 I clicked in had a combined 8 watchers. If I changed the listing to Australia Only I saw absolutely nothing. This is why I picked it up - if you’re a Star Wars collector you want everything including things you see overseas. I put mine up for $124.95 and its already got a few watchers. I think that even if you don’t care about it being a popcorn bucket it’s still a good Star Wars collectible, I mean it’s a huge R2-D2 figure, it looks great on display.

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