Flipping Dragoncon (115 days)

Where has the time gone?!? I only have 115 days left and so far I've got around $50 in sales total. This is a slower start than I was hoping but I still think it's possible to reach the Dragoncon goal. Here's a summary of what's been sold so far:

Stethescope - $25

Video Slots - $10

Tokina AT-X Lens - $20

I had to go shopping to get some more junk with that $50.

Thrift Store Stuff

Who would give up Land Before Time hand puppets to the thrift store for 6 bucks? Not me! I picked up this set of 5 along with 4 duplicates and a set of 3 Eureeka's Castle puppets. They sold these at Pizza Hut back in the late 80's / early nineties.

Flipping Dragoncon (127 days)

It's not even been a week since I've started this challenge and I fear I've already lost my footing. I might need to revise the rules to allow more than 2 weeks to turn stuff around. It's only been 4 days since I posted my junk for sale and so far nobody is interested. I'm doomed!!

Flipping Dragoncon (132 days)

Only 132 days left to go? I think I've already bitten off more than I can chew. I did go to a couple thrift stores today after work so let's see what I got for the starting $20.

Arc Thrift gave me the following stuff:

Flipping Dragoncon (133 days to go)

I'm starting a personal challenge to flip my way to Dragoncon this year. What does that mean exactly? I plan to buy junk from thrift stores, garage sales, estate sales, or craigslist and then sell it or trade it for better stuff which will ultimately get me to Dragoncon. I've seen other blogs or message board threads of doing something similar to flip up to a sweet Transformer, electronic gadget, or special sports card of some kind. I plan to do the same thing but I'm aiming higher than most. My plan is to buy/sell/trade for me and my wife's air fare and hotel room at Dragoncon 2015.

I've been thinking of trying this challenge for quite some time but I've never gotten around to documenting my progress. Truth be told, I'm a hoarder of epic proportions and so the bigger challenge might not be to raise the money but to find the space in my house for the horde.

133 days is not a lot of time to get this done and so I'm starting tomorrow. I'm giving myself $20 to spend on random junk. I don't want to keep anything for more than 2 weeks since the pile of stuff will accumulate fairly quickly. If I don't sell or trade something within 2 weeks then I plan to donate it back to the junk store. There will be exceptions to the rule in the event that I run into a big collection of good stuff. In that case I'll milk it for all it's worth before my wife tells me to get it out of the garage :)

Toy Hunter and Comic Book Men... Why can't reality be this easy?

  

    Toy Hunter is a Travel channel show about a guy named Jordan Hembrough who travels around the country and finds awesome collectible toys. Collectors invite him into their house and allow him to cherry pick the good stuff for generally a fair price. My description of the show might be a little harsh though because I'm actually pretty jealous that it's not me. Yes, I'm certain that Jordan has paid his dues and built a reputation for himself over the years which has parlayed into a successful cable show. On the other hand I believe there is a team of producers dedicated to sourcing good collections that will make for good TV. They do a nice job of showing a balance of lesser priced toys vs higher value prized toys. I also appreciate that Toy Hunter doesn't fully exaggerate what the actual retail value of a toy is after they make a good purchase. If Jordan finds a toy with a $80 value then he will likely pay up to $40 for it. If you compare this to the outrageous estimated prices in Storage Wars then Jordan is a fucking saint!

    On AMC we have another fun show with a similar nerd vibe. This show is called Comic Book Men and it follows the shenanigans around a crew of people that run a comic shop called The Secret Stash. The Secret Stash is actually a comic book store owned by Kevin Smith and managed by his life long friend Walt Flanagan. This show follows the Pawn Stars formula of having 2 or 3 people enter the store every episode and either be selling stuff to the The Stash or buying stuff. Meanwhile the cast of the show does goofy shit for the remainder of the episode. Comic Book Men has a built in mechanism for uncovering cool collectible nerd stuff just like Toy Hunter. I assume that Comic Book Men also has a team of producers bringing in cool stuff that makes for good TV.

    Ok, we have 2 good TV shows that cover the kind of stuff I like. It's too bad these shows don't portray what real life is like. When was the last time you randomly went to a garage sale and found some nice vintage Mego figures, a rare Frankenstein bobblehead, and a stack of vintage Superman comics? This *randomly* happened to the Comic Book Men crew as they happened to have their entire film crew filming the cast find this great stuff at a garage sale. Toy Hunter is a bit more believable because Jordan is actually leaving his shop to uncover stuff in collections. It doesn't paint a true picture though because the Travel channel brings in awesome leads for him and they focus on the most interesting finds. The reality is that the common collector is not going to be invited into a stranger's house and sell him their prized possessions for much lower than retail. Another reality is that the common toy dealer doesn't not do the same amount of business as Jordan Hembrough or The Secret Stash. It becomes a novelty to go to a store like The Secret Stash just to buy something from the Comic Book Men. Or to buy a toy directly from Jordan Hembrough at a big toy show. The average Joe dealer needs to hustle to make a living in this business. Not everybody has had the lucky breaks in this industry like Jordan or The Secret Stash. I'm sure happy that I have a great day job because I could never make it at this full time.

    Now I need to catch up on Comic Book Men and Toy Hunter. See ya later!

Rifts RPG Collection from Craigslist

Garage sales and swap meets are non existent during the winter months. Yes there are a few garage or estate sales on the weekends and yes there is the Capitol Flea Market in San Jose and the Solano Swap Meet in Concord but they get old at times. Craigslist makes it possible to acquire some nice nerdy stuff for a great price with little effort from the comfort of your own home. I look for small collections of stuff that I can easily sell or trade for other stuff. Collections can typically be found for discounted prices on Craigslist by people that are just trying to downsize. There is a fair amount of people trying to sell stuff at retail prices on the site but you can easily identify and avoid them. Some of my favorite stuff to hoard from Craigslist are RPG books and games.

I recently found a gentleman who had a lot of 50 Rifts books. Rifts is an RPG system developed by Palladium Books in the 1990's. Many Rift books have been published by Palladium in the years since. It's not the most popular RPG system anymore but I'm still happy to buy the books since they can be found for a low price and turned around for a decent profit if you have enough of them. There is some pretty fierce competition on Craigslist when it comes to RPG stuff so I quickly emailed this gentleman as soon as I saw his posting. Luckily I was the first person to respond and so I drove out to his place and picked up these 50 books. It turns out that it was the first 40 issues of Rifter magazine and then another 10 or so other Rifts books. Heroes Unlimited, Robotech, and a couple others.

Model Kits, Board Games and Other Random Nerd Loot

I have a fairly broad collection of fandoms that I enjoy spending my time with. Some of these include Transformers, Star Wars, GI Joe, Battlestar Galactica, Alien, video games, board games, long cancelled TV shows, baseball, going to sci-fi/fantasy conventions, movies, electronic gadgets, kickstarters, etc... None of this comes cheap and so I'm always on the lookout for stuff to turn a profit on. You don't need to be an expert in all fandoms in order to recognize a good find at the swap meet or garage sale. Chances are that you have solid knowledge over your own interests and can carry that over to other things. I don't love The Walking Dead but I would stop dead in my tracks if I saw one of the early first printing comics out in the wild for a low price. It's just the kind of general knowledge that a collector of nerdy stuff knows. We know about fandoms outside our own and we can all potentially profit from it.

Bashki Lord Of The Rings Recall Game

A couple weeks ago on my Saturday garage sale trip I found a few items that appeal to some collectors but not necessarily me. I've learned over time that model kits are still highly sought after by collectors. Some of the vintage models are really hard to find nowadays. I picked up this Egyptian Pharoah's Palace model kit, some Greek minis, and the Peterbilt Wrecker kit at an estate sale. This same estate sale also got me a 1970's era Lord of the Rings Recall Game by Milton Bradley. The Lord of the Rings game goes directly into my personal collection of LOTR stuff but the models will go on Ebay and hopefully pay for one night at a Dragoncon host hotel.

I love board games but strategy war games aren't my thing. My fairly basic knowledge of board games has taught me that the old Avalon Hill and SPI strategy war games are sought after. I found this New World game at a garage sale for a couple bucks and now I'll try to flip it.

Finally I like RPG video games but the fighter games like Street Fighter don't appeal much to me. I know that some people love the fighter games and so I recognized this Street Fighter IV themed game stick as a thing and picked it up from an estate sale for 20 bucks. I plan to resell it hopefully for twice the price.

I'm just trying to say that you shouldn't overlook the treasures you might otherwise glance over because they aren't your thing. They might be someone else's thing and you can profit from general nerd collecting knowledge. Then you can go buy yourself something fun!