I bought a lot of stuff today, ten items for a total of $3.10. Sales weren't that good but I got lucky.
The first sale we stopped at had a lot of old electronics -- such as stacks of old hard drives -- and a lot of video game stuff -- most of it broken, such as the cases for several XBox 360s, a PS3 lacking a hard drive, some DS games, and some worthless Super Nintendo Games. None of this interested me until I saw a Super Nintendo controller sticking out of a tangle of wires.
One of my friends asked me last week to look for a Super Nintendo controller for him. I explained to him that while I would gladly look, my chances of finding one was extremely small; before today I had only ever seen a SNES controller at one sale in my life.
The sellers were very reasonable -- asking $1.00 per controller which I worked down to $0.50 -- so I also decided to buy two Sega Dreamcast controllers I found while untangling the mass of wires. They're aftermarket but decent; I have an identical one already. Dreamcast controllers are as hard to find as SNES controllers. With the three controllers I threw in a Sega Game Gear TV Tuner (worthless, as it turns out) and a random mask I thought looked interesting, all for $2. As it turns out the mask is part of an industrial respirator and costs anywhere from $130 to $200 new (I'm not sure the materials so I can't tell which model it is).
Later on in the day I bought some more items. I bought Guns, Germs, and Steel for $0.25. I started reading it last night but my Kindle copy is bad. I bought a first aid kit (only for the box) for $0.25, it included Tylenol that expired in October of 1987. I bought a "Beware of Guard Dog" sign for $0.10. My final purchase was two textbooks for $0.50; I have them listed on Amazon for $13 and $40 right now. I seem to have gotten pretty good at guessing which books are valuable. I only wish I had a smart phone so I could have checked the other, older books at that sale.
I'm pretty happy. I got my friend a good gift, some stuff for myself, and when those books sell, I'll profit around $38.
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