obsolete

All posts tagged obsolete

Last week I talked about selling your stuff on eBay. For me, the best thing that has sold consistently are Magic the Gathering cards (currently have one going for $20! I love it!). This week, I want to talk about selling other people’s stuff.

A few months ago, my grandmother passed away. She was queen of hoarders. I’m pretty sure she had every item Avon ever sold. Her house was packed from floor to ceiling with stuff. Out in her yard she had several classic cars filled with stuff also. My parents decided to start selling her stuff and I offered my skills as an eBay seller to sell it for them and they agreed :) I also get 10% of profit for just simply posting on eBay… well mostly…

99% of it is just posting it to eBay. Super simple and easy. Somethings require a little research to see the going price to make sure we get a good price for it. Selling stuff on eBay for other people is awesome!

  1. It’s not your stuff so you have no emotional attachment to items. Everything is straight up “How much can I get for this”.
  2. Inventory doesn’t cost you a thing! I’ve tried flipping Xboxes, phones, and also Magic cards on eBay before. By the time you pay for the item, fix it up as needed, and resell it; your profit is low. Especially after eBay fees. Selling other people’s stuff means you don’t have to do anything other than some research and take pictures.

Most of what I am selling right now are coins. My grandma and my father had some great coin collections. And man, do coins sell like hot cakes on eBay! Just finished up selling all their Morgan Silver Dollars. They are going for $30-$50 a piece. Anywho, it’s crazy fun.

I did want to tell you about this little bill that I found in the pile of stuff.

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This bill was the hardest thing ever to find out any information on, let alone how much it goes for. See this is what is referred to as an Obsolete or “Broken” bank note. Basically before the issuing of an authorized US currency, any bank could make its own currency. Most of these bills are all older that 1861! As you can see, this bank note was in great shape for being so old. It’s also from the First National Bank of Idaho in Boise City, Idaho; which made finding anything about their currency even harder. I did find a few things mentioning it but nothing mentioning the price. I found out my parents tried to get it appraised a couple of years ago, but everyone they took it to did know what it was or how much it was worth.

But I have some research voodoo. After doing a LOT of searching, I finally found an auction that happened in January of 2013 where a similar bill sold for around 3k! Holy crap! Rather than selling it on eBay and paying a crap load of fees, I started contacting different dealers to get offers. The end result was $2,200! Boom!

This is an example of the 1% of items that take more time and energy. But boy does it pay off! Moral of the story, you can make more money for less time and energy selling other people’s stuff or things purchased cheap at garage sales.