I'm one heck of a curbside recycling picker, but I'm deadly at yard sales. Without a car, and living in a big city, there isn't much opportunity for me to hunt at these, but when I do...
Once a year, my hometown does a town-wide yard sale event. As a ritual, I go home and zip around with my Mom to professionally snipe as much as I can, while being mindful that I have to take everything back on a train later.
It was cancelled last year, but I was able to go this Fall. I've always done pretty well in prior years, but this one was exceptional. Few things get me up early in the AM, and yard sales are one of them. My baseball games are the other, but yard sales ignite a different level of fierce competition I can't explain.
Expenses: I spent only $157 cash in total, but walked away with a lot of potential profit.
After a man invited me in his home to play his drumset to test out my leg that was healing from a nerve injury, I came across this glowing table I spent more than an hour at. It was untouched when I got there, but my attention to it attracted lots of other sloppy buyers while I was there. These cards had been in the attic for decades and were sorted in immaculate order. I made good small talk with the owner to learn about them and see if there was more inside. After all my time there, he clearly respected my approach, while others made a mess on his table.
This is a dream yard sale for me...
For $20, yes only $20 because the man wouldn't let me pay him more, I bought a few stacks of the best baseball cards I could find from the 1970s-1990s, and some notable non-sports cards. I also got a factory sealed Upper Deck baseball set for $20 on top, which features Derek Jeter's rookie. This summed to $40 total.
While that should be enough for $40 total, I had quickly snagged a 118 card set of Series 1 and 75 card set of Series 2 Garbage Pail Kids from 1985! I'd found a few of these on the curbs once and researched them to remember that they were valuable. They surely stood out from sports cards, so I took the entire stack and claimed them as mine no matter the cost.
These GPK cards were in very good/excellent shape, practically untouched since the 80's. SCORE! These cards were actually his brothers, but not any more. I really lucked out that 8 of the cards were the super rare and most valuable ones. I wouldn't say that they were all in mint condition to warrant sending them off for professional grading, but those 8 alone are definitely worth $500+ together alone. All of the other cards across the two series are worth a bunch too.
Going back to baseball, and to increase the dramatic effect, here's a close up of the Upper Deck set before I opened it. The fun thing about this set is that about 1 in every 15 sets was printed with gold holo stamps. That's decently rare. The others have silver holo stamps and are common. If the Jeter card inside is a gold holo, and in near mint or mint condition, it's VERY valuable. Because of this, many Jeter rookie hunters buy these sealed boxes online and hope to score big.
It's interesting to note that just because a card is factory sealed, it doesn't mean that the card will be mint inside. Many of these older card sets have a finish on them that sticks over time. If you don't carefully remove them with heat, the gloss from one card will stick the the other and peel the picture off. This is called bricking. The card could also have a defect, dent, or be off-centered.
So, instead of selling this for $100+, I decided to go for the home run and see if the Jeter was a gold foil. As I'd found so much profit already, I thought I'd give up the guaranteed profit and treat myself. If I scored the big one and it graded mint to gem mint, it's in the $1,500-$7,500 range.
Here was the rookie after painstakingly working through a brick of cards to survive without damage.
It looks gold, but I think it's silver.
Anyway, that was just a sidebar. This is the crux of the find...
After holding on to the cards for a while, I finally went to a card shop and bought some soft sleeves and top loaders to get me into selling mode. Just tonight, I sold two cards for $115 cash, and flipped the sale into being asked to teach baseball hitting lessons in two weeks for cash. The buyer is going to a MLB fantasy camp and needs some help preparing. He's invested $5,400 into that trip, so a few lessons at a price we settle in is fine by me!
These were the primary 8 cards on in front and all of others in the cases behind. These cards are odd and even gross at times, all having spoofed named and clever puns.
Four of these had glossy backs, which are the rarest. The other four were matte-backed. Their conditions varied, but were all pretty good, some very good. If only these were slightly better, I may have considered sending them off for grading, but at $100 cost per card to grade, I'll maybe send the two best later on.
Also, of the lots of others I have, I'll cherry pick those that may be mint enough to potentially ship off for grading later.
These are the two I sold today, a super rare Adam Bomb Glossy 8a from 1985 Series 1 for $100, and a Series 1 Up Chuck for $15. After speaking on the phone, this is the best I could negotiate for cash pickup this evening. I could've sold the Adam Bomb for more, but he was a nice guy who offered me advice on my other cards. It's also a good thing I did this because of the baseball lessons he wants from me for more revenue.
I've been getting some inquiries on the cards and offers for under what I'm seeking. I'm probably going to part the cards out since that's the way to get the highest return, and help as many collectors as possible. One guy offered my $400 for the 110 Series 1 cards that were not featured loose in front above, but I declined. He may still come and pick out loose ones for his collection though.
All in all, I expect to pull in about $1,500-$1,750 net on this Garbage Pail Kids haul. They are super popular and I have lots of the rare glossy versions. As for the other baseball cards, I'm going to keep most of those for myself since they're early cards of many of my favorite players when I was growing up. If the Jeter does turn out to be a gold foil (highly unlikely), then that's icing on the case. At virtually a cost of about $5-$7 for the GPK cards, that'll be quite a massive return.
Was I done though? Nope!
A few houses down, I bought 16 boxes of sealed new baseball card packs from 1999 for $100. This was a tip from my Mom who schmoozed with another Mom about her son's cards. I asked her to scout for me while I was fixated at the table above. Each sealed factory box has 36 packs of cards in it, including inserts. I opened one for fun at home and will gradually sell the rest when I'm ready. Thankfully these cards didn't have the bricking issue when I opened my box to test their condition, so that's a big plus. They'll be slow to sell, but I don't mind since I only spent $100 on them and they stack nicely on my shelf.
Yup, all from one yard sale!
They'd absolutely be a blast to dig through, but I wouldn't want to deal with all of those loose cards after. The value is in mainly in some rookies and autographed inserts, but mostly in their factory sealed condition.
Funny enough, everything above this comprised of $140 of the $157 I spent. The last $17 was spent efficiently on a $120 popular cult camera I've sold many times at $5 cost, $2 for a graphing calculator, and $10 for this sweet painting from the 1970's by a notable painter that should sell for $500-$800 once I get it listed. My Mom knew the owners and that this was previously owned by antique collectors. That means that is was vetted well and should be a nice piece to flip. Even if I'm wrong or the market dips, I can get $300-$400 for it.
It has a little water staining on the edge of the frame, but thankfully no damage to the painting.
Oh yea, I slept over at my Mom's house that night and took everything but the painting back on an early AM train with my forearms on fire. I shuffled from the subway to my apartment and immediately changed into my baseball uniform to rush out to a double header later than AM. It was hard, but I had a lot to show for it. I hustle.
Summary: $157 spent and $115 earned so far for just $42 more to go before it's all green!
This concludes this curveball post for tonight - not my usual. Hopefully you got a kick out of something and can share some of your yard sale home runs below.
Time to debate going out to hunt for curbside recycling to save and sell, or stay in to list items for sale.
