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Flea Markets/Estate Sales/Yard Sales


BeerBQ

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2 minutes ago, BeerBQ said:

Anyone else enjoy going to them? One of my favorite things to do is get up on a Saturday morning and hit a few. There’s almost always some interesting stuff. 
 

I like looking for any sports memorabilia, hand tools, vintage cast iron, etc. 

 

Figures this thread would pop up when I have to leave. To answer your question...yes. I always look for steals/deals.....especially jewelry when people or heirs don't know what they have. With what gold prices are doing the meltdown values are high. Just a few weeks ago I went to an estate sale in my aunt's neighborhood here in town. Offered $50 for a box of what they called old jewelry junk. Took it to a jeweler and melt down value was $475 or so. Easy loot. 

Cars are a  tricky one because so many will show up to buy cars at estate auctions. I don't do all the sales/auctions during these times but in our normal world I'd hit 2-3 per month just to take a peak. I've also bought lawnmowers, blowers.....great yard tools for pennies on the dollar. People just want the stuff gone.

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1 hour ago, Seeking6 said:

Figures this thread would pop up when I have to leave. To answer your question...yes. I always look for steals/deals.....especially jewelry when people or heirs don't know what they have. With what gold prices are doing the meltdown values are high. Just a few weeks ago I went to an estate sale in my aunt's neighborhood here in town. Offered $50 for a box of what they called old jewelry junk. Took it to a jeweler and melt down value was $475 or so. Easy loot. 

Cars are a  tricky one because so many will show up to buy cars at estate auctions. I don't do all the sales/auctions during these times but in our normal world I'd hit 2-3 per month just to take a peak. I've also bought lawnmowers, blowers.....great yard tools for pennies on the dollar. People just want the stuff gone.

How do you determine what jewelry is valuable? I’ve never looked closely at it. 

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2 minutes ago, rico said:

Antique stores are my thing.

I grew up in an antique shop. It just so happened to be our basement. Had a dream basement for a kid....but ultimately it became the drop off of years of antique sales for the store. We had church pews, old book containers...and so many lights and chairs and we'll just call it stuff.

The only reason my Dad became a CPA was because when he was 17 the CEO of Chevy at the time was a CPA. The reason I say that is we had to be the only family in Illinois with every single Hot Rod magazine ever invented stacked nice and neat next to all of the other antique stuff.

On the flip side of this stuff/antiques. My aunt here in town is a borderline hoarder. Gets scary visiting her with all these antiques and things.

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1 hour ago, Seeking6 said:

I grew up in an antique shop. It just so happened to be our basement. Had a dream basement for a kid....but ultimately it became the drop off of years of antique sales for the store. We had church pews, old book containers...and so many lights and chairs and we'll just call it stuff.

The only reason my Dad became a CPA was because when he was 17 the CEO of Chevy at the time was a CPA. The reason I say that is we had to be the only family in Illinois with every single Hot Rod magazine ever invented stacked nice and neat next to all of the other antique stuff.

On the flip side of this stuff/antiques. My aunt here in town is a borderline hoarder. Gets scary visiting her with all these antiques and things.

Seeking...screw the Kaufman debacle...I'm still waiting to hear how your pork butt turned out?!

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Company liquidation sales count? Just two weeks ago I got a tip from a customer, that an old customer of my went out of business and all of their assets where in a surplus auction. I enrolled and found a specific piece that I knew what was but only 1-2 other had a partial clue. I bought these whole machines (original price was a tad over 1 mil) for $7,400. There were these two, very specific boxes inside of these machine that I just sold yesterday for $48,000 and I have the entire rest of the machine left to part out. 

 

I'm happier than a pig in slop right now! Happier than a two peckerd Billy goat. A fat kid with a box of doughnuts !

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15 hours ago, Joe_Hoopsier said:

Company liquidation sales count? Just two weeks ago I got a tip from a customer, that an old customer of my went out of business and all of their assets where in a surplus auction. I enrolled and found a specific piece that I knew what was but only 1-2 other had a partial clue. I bought these whole machines (original price was a tad over 1 mil) for $7,400. There were these two, very specific boxes inside of these machine that I just sold yesterday for $48,000 and I have the entire rest of the machine left to part out. 

 

I'm happier than a pig in slop right now! Happier than a two peckerd Billy goat. A fat kid with a box of doughnuts !

This is awesome. If you need an investor I'd be happy to slide some $ your way for that type of turnaround! Haha. Good for you! Tons of money to be had in junk.

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47 minutes ago, Seeking6 said:

This is awesome. If you need an investor I'd be happy to slide some $ your way for that type of turnaround! Haha. Good for you! Tons of money to be had in junk.

I could call it the BSFN "Blind Squirrel finds nut" investment firm ! I'm not kidding myself, this was a once in a life time deal. I'm sure there will be consequences ! lol

 

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4 minutes ago, Joe_Hoopsier said:

I could call it the BSFN "Blind Squirrel finds nut" investment firm ! I'm not kidding myself, this was a once in a life time deal. I'm sure there will be consequences ! lol

 

Time to start booking some losses to offset those gains! Some tricky loopholes unless this is your full time business.

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  • 7 months later...

There’s a fairly large liquidation auction house based in Cincinnati that handles the liquidations of returns/overstocks for Amazon, Home Depot, Pottery Barn and more. You can find some insane deals, but it’s a roll of the dice: it’s as-is, where-is. If something is broken when you pick it up, you don’t have to accept it, but if you leave the premises with it, it’s yours. 
 

I think 75% of the lights and fans in our house came from there. I found a display model Honda push mower for $175, an Echo backpack blower for $90. 

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1 hour ago, Zlinedavid said:

There’s a fairly large liquidation auction house based in Cincinnati that handles the liquidations of returns/overstocks for Amazon, Home Depot, Pottery Barn and more. You can find some insane deals, but it’s a roll of the dice: it’s as-is, where-is. If something is broken when you pick it up, you don’t have to accept it, but if you leave the premises with it, it’s yours. 
 

I think 75% of the lights and fans in our house came from there. I found a display model Honda push mower for $175, an Echo backpack blower for $90. 

Earls Auction here in Indy is fun to watch.  Online bidding.  They get a lot of stuff the is returned at Sams, Lowes, Homedepot.  I've done pretty well.  Just scored a Serta twin 10" memory foam for $135 that is $199 at Sams.  I've purchased storage containers that wound up with some damage that I was still able to salvage 3 out of 4.  I've gotten a nursing chair and ottoman for barely over $100 that is $450 at buy buy baby.  

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I shop manufacturing business liquidation/ surplus auctions. Last year I found a pilot/ test manufacturing line for IV catheters, by pure blind luck. I was familiar with the line as it was from one of my customers. It had 2 very specific pieces in it that only a very VERY few people would know about. I bought the whole line (original price would have been north of $2mill) for $7,500. I sold the 2 specific pieces for $50k. I'm still selling off other pieces.

 

Absolutely killed my tax's this year!  

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