The trick is...

Originally Posted by teenscrapper

Parrothead u got quite the eye, thanx for the idea I ussually just go for metal but now I'm gunna start buyin stuff that looks like I culd get more out of it then wat I payed, I let u no if I find ny good scores

Just remember, it is a gamble sometimes. Don't gamble that $5 unless you can afford to lose that $5. When I was buying those I was thinking that about half of them were not expired. Unexpired strips sell for near $1 a piece. Is far as other stuff goes I have a background in buying and selling. I worked at an auction house for a couple of years part time with my brother in law.

If you want to start with stuff beyond just scrapping metal, find the auction house near you that has a weekly sale. (typically a Friday or Saturday night). We usually just call these the "Friday night junk sale". Nothing special there, but lots of interesting stuff. These sales will give you a good base of what some stuff sells for in your area. You will be surprised many times on what people will buy, and you will be surprised on what they won't buy. Soon enough you may be taking a load of stuff yourself to the auction that you saved from the landfill. You will typically pay a 35% seller's commision on items sold this way. you will need to remember that. You can't pay $70 for an item that you know will sell for $100. You just lost money if you did.

Get to know the auction owner. Offer to work for him once in a while if he needs a hand. Become a familiar face to him. Working part time at an auction house and scrapping go very well together.

To find the auctions near you go to http://www.auctionzip.com/ and type in your zip code.

When I was growing up, Friday night auctions were a family event for us. Especially if we needed a new TV . But sometimes we would just go for entertainment and to maybe buy a few things that suited our fancy.

Somthing else to consider. A few years ago when I was starting up a restaurant I went to an auction of a school that had just remodeled their kitchen so they were auctioning off all of their old equipment. There was a guy there that would start every bid, but quickly back out if it went higher. I finally figured out that he was a scrapper and he was bidding starting at just below scrap price. He ended up never buying anything because "every thing sold higher than scrap". My point is that it could be worth taking that washer and dryer or other such scrap to an auction house and you can get more than scrap. But, please do not take stuff that knowingly does not work and do this. You can get a bad rep fast and you are too young to get a bad rep.

Feel free to ask me anything you want about the resaling business. I don't know it all, but I have a decent base of knowledge. Just please take the little bit of effort and time to make your posts a little more coherent. Selling yourself in your community demands that you represent yourself in a certain light both verbally and sometimes in written language. It may be worth your effort to practice that on our public forum here as well. First impressions can NEVER be redone.