Some time ago, I bought a loose cart Mega Man IV (Game Boy) at a local thrift store for a quarter. Sold it on eBay for $39 + shipping to the UK (I think I charged him $4 to ship it). That's probably the best profit (by percentage) I've made on anything I've actually sold.
Now there's this one other question that was prompted in my mind, late last night while roaming through a random website detailing British coins... This website appears to state that large (in contrast to previous farthings of 12-15 mm) copper farthings weren't officially made in England until 1672, though a pattern exists dated 1665. I have one, or what I believe to be one...but it's dated 1661 o_O ... I bought it at a flea market a few years back, I paid something like 50¢ for it, and to the best of my knowledge, it's authentic. If it's legitimate, there's no possible way of knowing what it would sell for without actually selling it, and there seems to be a remote chance that it could fund the purchase of, say, a CIB Stadium Events or something similarly ridiculous.
Edit: Here's the website detailing British coins, specifically, the page dealing with farthings:
a few days later i went down to the goodwill and i spoke to the lady that is super cool with me and my pops,we ended up getting around 600 sealed copies for 5 cents each that was 1.00 per box of 20 i was selling them on ebay for 10.00 each shipped just about a few hours ago my dad and i sold out 600 times 10.00 is a huge amount of profit
That's really cool and all, but you can't measure profit in terms of sales. Actual profit would be $6000 - shipping (probably $2 each, 2 x 600 = $1,200) - cost (600 * 0.05 = $30) - eBay fees (not sure) - paypal fees (probably about 0.50 each x 600 = $300) = $4,470 - eBay fees.
Sure that's still a killing, but that's like 25% less than what you claimed as a profit margin. People often forget the little details that go a long way...
Honestly I have no video game stories besides that Ninja Gaiden 2 thing. I haven't been collecting for that long yet I guess. My real stories are from a long time ago...
A long, long time ago I played a game called Magic the Gathering. I used to be big on playing in tournaments all over the place with some friends, and collecting. I once bought a collection for 450$ which contained a full set of everything in excellent/nm condition(Minus Alpha/Beta/and some of Unlimited) up until Legends(1/2 of Legends was there with some Chronicles.) It came with a crazy amount of extremely expensive rares. Black Lotus, Time Walk, Timetwister, 2x Mishra's Workshops, and just tons more all NM/Excellent. Along with all that was just boxes, and boxes of extra stuff including lots of dual lands, and other things that were expensive at the time like Mana Drains, Nether Voids, and Underworld Dreams. I don't know what it came out to in the end, but everything was probably worth around 5K-10k.
I also once traded 4 foil 7th edition Coat of Arms for a 7/10 beta Mox Jet. The store owner that watched me make that trade would later trade me an 10/10(dead mint) unlimited Mox Pearl for 123 Isochron Scepters. The deal was I had to have them before the end of the week, because he oversold tons of them online due to a stocking error.
I probably have more crazy ones, but these are definetely the ones I remember most.
Edit: Just came to mind "Summer Magic Sam" is probably the "DreamTR" of Magic collectors.
Comments
Now there's this one other question that was prompted in my mind, late last night while roaming through a random website detailing British coins... This website appears to state that large (in contrast to previous farthings of 12-15 mm) copper farthings weren't officially made in England until 1672, though a pattern exists dated 1665. I have one, or what I believe to be one...but it's dated 1661 o_O ... I bought it at a flea market a few years back, I paid something like 50¢ for it, and to the best of my knowledge, it's authentic. If it's legitimate, there's no possible way of knowing what it would sell for without actually selling it, and there seems to be a remote chance that it could fund the purchase of, say, a CIB Stadium Events or something similarly ridiculous.
Edit: Here's the website detailing British coins, specifically, the page dealing with farthings:
http://www.tclayton.demon.co.uk/farth.html
a few days later i went down to the goodwill and i spoke to the lady that is super cool with me and my pops,we ended up getting around 600 sealed copies for 5 cents each
that was 1.00 per box of 20
i was selling them on ebay for 10.00 each shipped
just about a few hours ago my dad and i sold out
600 times 10.00 is a huge amount of profit
That's really cool and all, but you can't measure profit in terms of sales. Actual profit would be $6000 - shipping (probably $2 each, 2 x 600 = $1,200) - cost (600 * 0.05 = $30) - eBay fees (not sure) - paypal fees (probably about 0.50 each x 600 = $300) = $4,470 - eBay fees.
Sure that's still a killing, but that's like 25% less than what you claimed as a profit margin. People often forget the little details that go a long way...
A long, long time ago I played a game called Magic the Gathering. I used to be big on playing in tournaments all over the place with some friends, and collecting. I once bought a collection for 450$ which contained a full set of everything in excellent/nm condition(Minus Alpha/Beta/and some of Unlimited) up until Legends(1/2 of Legends was there with some Chronicles.) It came with a crazy amount of extremely expensive rares. Black Lotus, Time Walk, Timetwister, 2x Mishra's Workshops, and just tons more all NM/Excellent. Along with all that was just boxes, and boxes of extra stuff including lots of dual lands, and other things that were expensive at the time like Mana Drains, Nether Voids, and Underworld Dreams. I don't know what it came out to in the end, but everything was probably worth around 5K-10k.
I also once traded 4 foil 7th edition Coat of Arms for a 7/10 beta Mox Jet. The store owner that watched me make that trade would later trade me an 10/10(dead mint) unlimited Mox Pearl for 123 Isochron Scepters. The deal was I had to have them before the end of the week, because he oversold tons of them online due to a stocking error.
I probably have more crazy ones, but these are definetely the ones I remember most.
I call this the "please audit me" thread
LOL, i was thinking the same thing dan.
I call this the "please audit me" thread
LOL, i was thinking the same thing dan.
You sealed gurus collectors must have handful of salty profit stories that you keep secret, or, I am wrong