Books from Today, Box 1
I have been really anxious waiting to get to a good estate sale. Today was a very good one. I was able to get two full boxes of books, and some misc useful and collectible inventory. I did not find any real antique products or furniture this time. I bought the entire lot for $70.00. The best rule of thumb is to get one item in your lot that will pay for everything. When I got home, I looked up most of the books (mainly technical and do-it-yourself titles). The first two books I was curious about sell on Amazon, ended up being worth what I paid for the entire lot. There was a set of technical videos that were $69.95, so I suppose that is close enough. I do not have a scanner to evaluate items on the fly. I usually use my best guess in grabbing items I am interested in, or in my own area of expertise. I think I do well. There was one fellow there that did have a scanner, and was pulling off books, scanning and piling up his load. I worked in and around where he was, and even after he left the area, and still found great items. I actually think he took too long to pull a book off the shelf, scan it, register what he saw, and place it in what ever pile he was working on. I just grabbed and pile them in my box. I high-graded a few out later. In my pile of books, I found prices listed as follows (showing the lowest price on Amazon): 1.84, 19.50, 8.49, 6.93, 8.29, 2.71, 64.59, 9.71, 6.94, 6.95, 7.50, 10.43, 35.00, 32.95, 1.71, 7.48, 49.50, 12.00, 12.00, 3.94, .10, 42.00, 7.85, .93, 89.95, 9.79, 5.99, 7.50, 13.00, 4.73, 6.85, 17.00, 2.00, 4.32, 47.00, 20.86, 10.00, and .01
Books from Today, Box 2
So, this was over $500 in Amazon “value” for the books I checked. About 25% of the books I did not check yet, no ISBN, etc. OH, and I already gave my wife 5 books that I did not even look up. There were also many journals, and manuals,etc which have some good value. There were also a bunch of video and film editing software packages I know nothing about. Plus a new in box stereo mixer, and the pile of collectibles, and useful items. It this pile was I believe a hand-crafted silver, or nickel-silver belt buckle, a small case of fishing flies, some Olympic pins, an old box of early Boy Scouts merit badges, 3 old Palm PDAs, a Radio Shack Breadboard, a Cessna Sky Comp calculator, some GB Instruments electrical testers, some micro tweezers, a DVD on coin tricks, a home-made brass steam engine, and a few other cool toys. Pretty fun day out “pickin”!
Misc Items from Today
I have found that I follow the pay for what you buy with one item rule subconsciously. Seems like every time I go to a yard sale or thrift store I find some one-sy two-sy stuff, but if I don’t find that “one big item” I usually just put the small stuff back. I need to feel like my purchase is worth my while…