A Flat of Books

Purchased a flat of books for 17.50. Thanks again to the ShopSavvy application on my Samsung Moment phone, I was able to look up prices on the fly and make sure I was getting a good deal. Despite some neat picture books only two books in this flat are really worth anything.

This book is what helped make the flat worth buying. It's a fantasy art book from the late 90's, I should be able to get $15 for this:

And here's the best book, John Fielder's 1870-2000, a photography book where he stands in the same place as W.H. Jackson, another photographer, did 100+ years earlier and takes the same picture to show what has changed and what hasn't. It's a huge book!


I was originally going to sell this one, but it is so nice and since I'm interested in both Photography and History of the West, I will keep this one and display it on my wall. Retail is over $70, though you can get a new one at Amazon for $64. There is also a sequel called Colorado 1870-2000 II, though it is not as large a format and not as highly reviewed.

A Model, Ski Boots, and Some Records

Yesterday was a day of frustration but also learning and some ok finds. I had looked some items up on my Samsung Moment phone the day before, knowing they would be on sale the following morning. I stayed up until 3am the night before, researching new ways to look up items including scanning barcodes to compare prices on Amazon.com for books and cds. This is something I'd never done before and was now very possible with my Samsung Android powered phone.

However this story actually starts two days before this, I was most excited about a record that I spotted two days prior. I went through a stack of 45 rpm records and picked out some I thought were interesting. I took pictures of them to look up later (instead of looking them up on the spot like I should have). I went up to the counter with the records I decided to buy, Pat Benatar Hit Me With Your Best Shot (for my personal collection), The Gray Things on Laurie, and a blank labeled record with "The Jacksons" written on it. They were only 29 cents! My gut feeling was to go back and get the other records I thought were interesting because they were so cheap. I opted to wait though, and when I got home I got busy with other stuff and forgot about them.

So two days later I looked at the photos I had taken and realized one of the records, a group called Quadrangle on the Philips label, was rare and worth somewhere between 30 and 100 dollars! I was hoping it would still be there the next morning.

So as mentioned I was up till 3am the night before, and somehow I managed to turn my alarm off in my sleep and did not get up until an hour later than I wanted, well after the store had opened. I was frustrated with myself but crawled out of bed and into my truck to see if there was anything left. Luckily almost everything I wanted was still there, except that darn record! I looked through the stack 3 times to make sure, every other record I saw was there except that one. Darnit!

Out of frustration for missing out on a deal, I decided maybe I should scan some CDs just for fun. There was another guy there buying a lot of CDs. I remember reading the night before that some jazz cds can be worth a little bit, and I just so happened to see one so I snatched it up intending to scan it with my new phone. The CD was Doc De Haven Jazzscapes. Unfortunately it didn't have a bar code, so I had to search for it by title on ShopSavvy. Boy was I surprised when it came back with the lowest used price of $15.99! Well that was enough to hook me and I ended up scanning about 40 cds with my phone. I ended up buying 6. It was fun! I've never sold on Amazon.com before but I figured it is certainly worth a try.

Here's a list of the day's finds:

Grumman F6F Hellcat Vintage Rubber Band Powered Balsa Model Airplane Model made by Comet 4.00
Lange Anthea Ski Boots 4.00

CDs
The Gourds present Heavy Ornamentals 1.00
Ladysmith Black Mambazo 1.00
Nancy Lamka 1.00
Doc De Haven Jazzscapes 1.50
Atmosphere 1.50 (Got home and realized the case was empty! Silly mistake!)
Great Recordings of Der Rosenkavalier George Szell Volume 1, no book but an extra cd 1.50

45 rpm records, they were on sale for only 15 cents!

The Robbs on Mercury
Mable John on Stax
Arthur Conley on Fame

And some LP classical records:

Mussorgsky and Prokofieff by Carlo Giulini on Deutsche Grammophon (often abbreviated DG or DGG) 2 of these, one was 1.50, the othe one a dollar
Hindemith by Gaetano Delogu on Supraphon 1.50
Chopin by Claudio Arrau on Philips 1.00
Schubert by Rafael Druian and John Simms on Mercury 1.00
Tchaikovsky by Dorati on Mercury 1.00

Although I was happy with my finds and excited about the new possibilities using ShopSavvy on my phone to help me find things to sell on Amazon, I was still frustrated about that record. I had it in my hands, and instead I bought 3 other records that probably aren't worth anything at all. I thought "The Gray Things" was an odd name, but I couldn't find any record of them so figured it was worthless. But believe it or not I got lucky again and found that one recently sold on ebay for $40. What a consolation prize. Here's the records I had purchased that day, with the Gray Things int the middle:


And here's a pic of the one that got away:

I'm not expecting too much money from these items, especially the Cds, but it will get me started on a new type of item to sell. All in all a fun day!

A Flip Clock and Reel to Reel Tapes

The Find

First Impression: Wasn't sure what these items were worth, but the flip clock looked good
What it is: Panasonic Flip Clock and Reel to Reel Tapes
What I paid: $20
Estimated Value: $~60
Sold For: $pending$

The Story

Found this neato vintage Panasonic Flip Alarm Clock Radio model RE-6600 today. It seems to work though it is dirty and has a bit of damage on the front. I got it for ten bucks and hoping it will sell for $40 or maybe more. It's really quite huge and heavy! And the tape player even works.

Also got three vintage reel to reel tapes including: Erroll Garner - Up in Erroll's Room on MGM, Jerry Lee Lewis - All Country on Smash, and Tom Jones - It's Not Unusual on Parrot. Not expecting too much out of these, I paid $3 each and hope to get $6-$10 each.

This was my first time using my cell phone (Android powered Samsung Moment on Sprint) to look up things before purchasing them. Before, I would always call my sister or my dad and have them look stuff up for me, which was time consuming. The most important things I looked up were items I didn't purchase at all, which means more money saved to buy items that are a better investment.

Pansonic Flip Clock Model RE-6600, paid $10, Sold For ?
Tom Jones Reel to Reel Tape, paid $3, Sold For ?
Erroll Garner Reel to Reel Tape, paid $3, Sold For ?
Jerry Lee Lewis Reel to Reel Tape, paid $3, Sold For ?

Today's Yard Sale Finds

The Find

First Impression: Wasn't expecting to find much at the community yard sales today
What it is: Lots of neat different items, some for keep, some for resale
What I paid: $52
Estimated Value: $~150 ?
Sold For: $pending$

The Story

It was a long hot day of yard-saling today, but it was fun! Woke up at six twenty am, and started hitting the sales around 7:30, and didn't finish until about 2:30. A lot of neat stuff was found and it was great to be able to get to them all on foot. Here's a pic of the day's take:

Kind of hard to see everything in the photo but here's a list of what I bought:

Nice blue pot from Home Depot - $0.50
Pentax K1000 SE SLR camera, with 50mm f2 lens w/ box and manual - $25
'Lettuce thrower' for getting the water off your lettuce - $1
Old records including two RCA Living Stereo -$0.50 to $1 each
R. Good Jr. Denver Colorado insulator + purple Am. Tel. & Tel. Insulator (cracked) - $0.50 each
Insulator book by James L. Hill and Edward Pickett $0.50
Proctor Dual Automatic model 1483 Chrome Toaster - $2
GE 7-4305 flip clock new in the box - $10
Linksys wrt54G wireless router, may not work - $ 1
Caloi Avante Viscount bike saddle - $2
White Rock Ginger Ale bottle circa 1948 - $2 -UPDATE- DIDN"T SELL FOR $10
Souder & Chick Dairy Brunswick MD half pint milk bottle $1 -UPDATE- SOLD FOR $31
Two Twin Elms Farm Dairy Springfield, MO milk bottles $0.50 each -UPDATE- Traded one, the other DIDN'T SELL FOR $10

The lettuce thrower is one of the neatest items, it folds flat or the handles flip around and act like a stand for the basket. The very neat (and very old!) lady gave me a demonstration on how it works, basically you put your lettuce in it and swing it around. She said she hasn't used it much here but back in France she used it all the time as it was the only way to dry out your lettuce after washing and still keep it crisp and fresh. For $1 I just had to try it, and I kind of have a fondness for kitchen gadget. I'm looking forward to trying it out, and I may use it for a fruit basket when I'm not tossing the lettuce around and getting water everywhere ;-)

Other highlights include home made cookies and pink lemonade for 50 cents, not a bad day!

Introduction (and a Neat Find)

Hey everyone, my name's Ryan, and I have great fun looking for vintage or valuable stuff to sell on ebay. This site is just a way to share some of my finds: past, present, and future. I'll be posting pics of all the stuff I find, as well as what I paid for the items, and what they eventually sold for. I'm always going to yard sales (a.ka. garage sales, or if you live in the Eastern U.S. 'tag sales'), auctions, flea markets, thrift stores, antique stores, surfing Craigslist; I pretty much try to go anywhere neat stuff can be found.

If you have any additional information about a particular find, or know of other sites or blogs or just have questions or comments, feel free to post!

Without further ado I had a REALLY GREAT find yesterday:

The Find

First Impression: Looked cool but I had no idea what it was or what it was worth
What it is: WWII German Tank / Anti-aircraft Binoculars
What I paid: $10
Estimated Value: $~100
Sold For: $pending$

The Story

What is it? I had no idea at first. It looks like a huge set of binoculars, but because of the tripod it was on and some of the settings I thought it was perhaps some type of surveying equipment. The tripod said "Use only with Transit No. 15050" in English, but there was German writing on the instrument itself. It was in poor shape, quite heavy (which reduces ebay profit) and I was short on money so wasn't sure I should pay the $10 for it. I had pulled it out and set it up so I could look at it, which drew a lot of attention, so I was afraid if I went home to look it up it would be gone when I came back. (In fact after I purchased it I had a guy tell me if I left it there he was going to get it!). I messed with it and found there were filters inside that would flip down when you turned a knob, (which I thought was really cool). So that feature, plus the German writing and the kind of OD green color made me think or hope it was military and worth something, so I hauled the heavy sucker home.

What is it? Turns out it's a set of German WWII tank or antiaircraft binoculars! Ebay value on nice sets is about $400, but this set is missing some parts and is in poor condition. I would be happy to get $100 for them, and I'll update this entry after they sell. Here's some more pics:


In the above pic you can see the 'snowflake' patterns in the glass. I'm not sure what caused this?




In the pic above you can see the 4 filter settings, "klar", "dunkel", "mittel", and "hell". I found this website helpful in determining these mean "clear", "dark", "medium" and "light" respectively.


Here are the markings which are hard to read, I upped the contrast a good deal for readability in the above pic:

D.F. 10x80
(triangle shape) dkl X
61938

Referencing another helpful website,
I found that D.F. stand for Doppelfernrohr (double telescope)
10x80 is of course the power and field of view.
I'm not sure what the triangle and X mean, but dkl is the code for the manufacturer, in this case Schneider, from Bad Kreuznach Germany.
Also on that latter website is a bunch of info on how to rebuild these and use them for astronomy.

All in all a GREAT find to cap a week of great and interesting finds (more on those later).

Keep looking, you never know what will turn up....