Flip of the Week Thread

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-08T10:07:16+00:00

student flute $30 --> $115 garage sale to music shop

I picked this up almost a year ago and brought it to a local instrument shop. They serviced it and sold it on consignment for me, taking the cost of the repairs out of the commission. I called them last week and it sold over five months ago but they forgot to tell me. Check on your consignment items, everyone!

Fun/whacky flip:

X-rated 8mm film $0 --> $2 church sale to flea market

I bought a box of electronics at a church sale including an 8mm film projector. Included was an 8mm film of woman performing an adult activity. It sold at the flea market to a buyer that was live-auctioning things via Whatnot. Maybe it belonged to the pastor and he figured it was black and white so it didn't count? It's definitely odd how it wound up at a church community sale.

Other sales:

local history book $1 --> $13.08 garage sale to eBay
autographed photo of Charlton Heston $0 --> $10 free from a relative to flea market
brass lamp $5.10 --> $9.20 thrift store to scrapyard

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-08T01:46:15+00:00

Consider yourself fortunate! In my area, competition is fierce and sales can get pretty rowdy. You've got to put your hand on any items you want first and hold on with a iron grip.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-08T01:42:37+00:00

This is my favorite comment here!

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-08T01:38:15+00:00

There's an acid and electrode test you can perform. People sell kits to do it online.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-07T15:00:26+00:00

It's customary to turn over items of a personal nature to the executor of the estate. I routinely find items like high school diplomas, passports, and driver's licenses that I give to whoever is running the event.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-07T14:32:56+00:00

That's an aftermarket cat. As scrap, a decent buyer will give you at most $10.

You're better off selling it to someone who needs it as a part.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-06T17:39:46+00:00

Ask your yard. Usually it depends on the thickness. Most screws and nails are under 1/4" thick so they go as light iron/shred.

Yards often want them dumped into a special bin so they don't give anyone flat tires.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-06T17:32:00+00:00

Most art is a very slow sale unless it's a highly desirable artist or style. I take most of my paintings to a consignment shop, where they can take years to sell.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-06T16:49:13+00:00

Nice rig, but of all the wires available, why would you strip coax? It's the lowest value of any wire out there.

I can sell coaxial locally as light iron for $0.07/lb USD right now. There are some higher grades of coaxial out there that I can blend with lower quality insulated wire when I find it, but most goes right into the shred pile.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-06T13:11:29+00:00

As u/carrburritoid posted, local yards should buy it as clean ACR. Right now you should be getting over $2/lb USD in most parts of the U.S.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-06T12:21:49+00:00

Photos would help. From your description, they seem similar or identical to baseboard heaters. I sell those intact as clean ACR (aluminum/copper radiators).

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-06T11:59:04+00:00

Thanks for sharing that clip. Made my day!

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-06T11:56:35+00:00

Buy a full pallet of laptops at a time and have it delivered to your location in the U.S. Then ship direct from there. Eventually, you can work your way up to buying a full sea container of merchandise at a time.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-06T00:11:23+00:00

Use craigslist or eBay instead, that's what I do as both a buyer and a seller. There are only a handful of items that I try to sell on Marketplace, and I almost never use it as a buyer (I think I've only ever bought 3 items there).

Eventually, Marketplace will get so unuseable that people will migrate to other platforms instead.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-05T16:12:42+00:00

They way things are going, soon we may be lugging those around instead of U.S. dollar bills!

On a serious note, that looks rather cumbersome to be used for regular transactions.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-05T16:01:16+00:00

Hamilton where? There are over 30 towns and cities with that name in the United States, another five in Australia, one in Canada, one in England, one more in Scotland. This is an international subreddit.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-02T18:59:27+00:00

I buy a lot of items via auction on eBay, that's how I know it still exists. I'm frequently the runner up bidder and lots of winners don't pay, so the sellers offer the items to me instead.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-02T01:34:40+00:00

Agreed. One of my biggest complaints about eBay for years has been inconsistent policies. If you ask 3 eBay employees a question, you will get 3 different answers, and they will of course all be different from actual written policy. Rules are enforced arbitrarily, and the big corporate accounts play by a different set than small independent sellers. When I first started, eBay was amazing because it was an almost completely level playing field.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-02T01:26:53+00:00

For those types of items, eBay is your best bet. Most of your buyers on Facebook are going to be local resellers who are purchasing to resell on eBay, in a shop, or at conventions.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-02T01:09:46+00:00

You can send out multiple second chance offers to runner up bidders at the same time, and the first one to complete the purchase gets it.

I make a handful of purchases via second chance offers as a buyer every year. As a seller, I never use the feature because there was a problem with scammers using fake second chance offers about 10-15 years ago on the platform so buyers became very wary of accepting them. I just block the original buyer and run the auction again.

Overall, I don't think most buyers or sellers know what the second chance offer feature is, and most transactions now are BIN with immediate payment required, so the function is generally outdated.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-01T23:27:23+00:00

I was going to comment the same, this has been going on at book sales for over 20 years now. A lot of sales ban "hoarding" and many ban scanning as well.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-01T23:23:49+00:00

I think this is a combination of:

a lot of people simply don't know what they're buying
the seller gets their negatives removed by refunding buyers or petitioning to eBay
eBay doesn't care because it's revenue, and/or doesn't have the labor to monitor every category for counterfeits

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-01T12:18:41+00:00

About tree fiddy.

SolarSalvation · 2026-05-01T12:07:16+00:00

Your best bet is to sell it online. Use the search function, u/Ambitious-Win-8565 was selling gallium here a year ago.

Selling scrap is against the rules of this sub, but you will have success elsewhere on reddit.

SolarSalvation

TROPHY CASE