Yardsales: WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE

[The Less Blob]

is good for the gander.

 

This weekend we had a neighborhood yardsale, well, more like my subdevelopment as the area is only 12 sqaure blocks.

 

We, of course, had months to prepare, but only started doing work at midnight the night before.

 

The second we set up shop at 10 a.m. (the official start time), vultures descended. We should have been open at 9:30.

 

First, my wife sold about $40 of vintage costume jewelry at sub-ebay prices.

 

And then they went after my record collection. Mind you, none of these are records I ever bought or listened to, they were accumulated solely by fishing through the trash of my neighbors when I lived in a 600+ unit apartment complex. I knew I had some oddball esoteric stuff in there fished out of the trash of the many boomers and old people in my old building, a bunch of late 50's and early 60's stuff, turkish belly dancing records, all sorts of wild stuff, obscure bands, you name it. And no doubt I was selling some $15-$50 records for a buck a pop (as well as some 50 cent records for $1...seriously, how much could some beat up Billy Joel record from 1979 be worth??), but selling full size records on ebay is a mammoth PITA, especially the shipping part, so I've basically given up on that. If someone wants to make a profit off me, so be it, and I let the guys who were obviously there to resell know it.

 

Anyway, now I won't feel bad plucking comic treasures away from unsuspecting sellers. I've been "taken", time for me to do some of the same!

 

As for comics...I selected three boxes of choice 1980s and (mostly) 90's drek from the Blob Warehouse. Not total drek, lots of non-key non-mcfarlane spideys from the 300s, the Mcfarlane spiderman run (not amazing), X-Force (but not my multiples of #2!!), X-Factor, Spawn, a long box of other image junk, etc. etc. etc. Basically there was a fair amount of decent reading material in there, but nothing worth anything. And then I had a heart attack dragging them out of the house.

 

The comics looked like they would spend the day baking in the sub with no interest in them. I made them $1 each, 15 for $10. The first sale was a New Warriors to a little girl as a freebie to get her father to stop haggling over a juggling set and pay $8. The next was to a little boy or girl (I couldn't tell) of the last issue of the Maximum Carnage series. I had actually thought I had not put those out for sale as I wanted to keep a couple of sets, but I guess I blew it. The kid was happy. Next came some guys buying comics for their 8 year old nephiew, in theory. I assumed they were treasure hunters, but after I saw they were buying all my X-Men Adventures and X-Men Classics, I think they weren't full of it. I sold them 18 comics for $11, hoping they might come back later in the day. And then it was dead dead dead. Other stuff was selling, but hardly anyone even looked at the comics.

 

Then toward the end of the day, an old guy (85 y/o) who said he used to own a comic store locally (closed in 1995...apparently he got burned overordering valiants) bought 30 comics from me (after I made them 10 for $5) he says he gives them to someone with a barbershop or sells them to some guy...whatever, he wasn't even cherry picking me. He traded me some late 70s Topps baseball team cards and a Kentucky Colonels ABA team card for 15 more comics as well as giving me a cool 10,000 mark note from 1922 weimar germany that has a watermark that looks like a vampire on it or something (here's one on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/1922-GERMANY-WEIMAR-REPUBLIC-10-000-MARKS-VAMPIRE-NOTE_W0QQitemZ170320356964QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPaper_Money?hash=item170320356964 ).

 

Then, finally, the kid from down the street came shopping with his loot from selling his toys. He bought about 40 comics at 10 for $5 and I gave him another 7 or 8 for free.

 

Anyway...I dunno if dragging the comics down was worth it for my $47 in sales (plus trade), but at least 3 out of 5 of my purchasers were kids under 10 and one of the adult purchasers was buying for a kid under 10.

 

Anyway we cleared about $150 and had 3 sunburns. not bad.

[TheAvenger80]

(thumbs u

[shiverbones]

I had a yard sale when I was leaving Montana last year. Had a stack of comics out there. Byrne caps, stuff like that readers. After not selling all day at $1 a pop, I tried to give them to kids who were coming up with their parents. they wouldn't even take them for free! One kid told me he hates comics.

[SolitaireOne]

We, of course, had months to prepare, but only started doing work at midnight the night before.

Yeah, that's classic... I'm the same way!

 

 

 

Anyway we cleared about $150 and had 3 sunburns. not bad.

Still, could've been worse... the sunburns, I mean.

 

(thumbs u

[Ringfinger]

I hate yardsales.

[MagnetoWasRight]

I hate sunburn...

[Rob]

I hate yardsales.

 

Having them, or going to them? I'm out every Saturday looking for treasures to throw on eBay. Love it!