The trick is...

**parrothead** · 03-17-2011, 05:08 PM

...seeing the value where others see none.

I bought a box of recently expired diabetic test strips at a garage sale for $25 last weekend. This is a large box of boxes, not just a box of them like you would pick up at the drug store. There were over 2400 of them total. Each box had 50 to 100 each.

I put up an auction on E-bay starting at $49. I was VERY explicit about the expiration dates and used "EXPIRED" in all caps numerous times in the description. I also did a lot of research and found that most manufacturers have a built in safety of 6 months that these will last past their expiration date, as well as testimonials from numerous people that they can be used if you are just checking daily to see how your diet is going, but would not recomend it if you had to test yourself numerous times a day and actually set your dosage of insulin based on these readings. I included all of this information in the auction.

I had a bid of $49 right off the bat. Then E-bay pulled the auction. They said it is illegal to sell expired prescription drugs on e-bay. Well, These are neither drugs, nor is a prescription required.

Oh well. Before they yanked it I was contacted by a guy at UCLA. They buy expired test strips that are less than one year and use them for testing their research with mice. They pay $8 per hundred. 1600 of the ones that I have are inside of their one year parameter. His paypal payment is on it's way for $128 and I will happily be sending them to him this weekend.

So....my gamble of $25 turned out a pretty nice return.

Think outside the box, but do not gamble with money you can not afford to lose.

**j&jscrap** · 03-17-2011, 07:12 PM

That is really cool. With garage sale coming i will be keeping an eye out for things.

**parrothead** · 03-17-2011, 07:20 PM

One thing that I have had some luck with is tools. Not regular old hand tools. Every garage sale has a hammer, a saw, some sockets......none of that stuff. Specialty tools. I bought a lot of wood lathe tools for $20. Ibroke it into 4 or 5 different lots and ended up with around a hundred and a half or so if I remember correctly. It was a few months ago. I just picked up some kind of dovetail jig for $5 that looks like a 30 or 40 dollar item. That kind of stuff. Good tools that not every household has or needs.

Starrett is a good name to keep an eye out for.

**rca987** · 03-17-2011, 07:36 PM

I love garage sales for this reason, but I usually am the one having the garage sale, so don't get to go to many of them anymore. (I'm selling other peoples trash, too

hhah)

**rca987** · 03-17-2011, 07:39 PM

Also, Friday garage sales are the best time to buy, Saturdays are best time to sell garage sales.

**con** · 03-17-2011, 07:40 PM

Originally Posted by parrothead

...seeing the value where others see none.

I bought a box of recently expired diabetic test strips at a garage sale for $25 last weekend. This is a large box of boxes, not just a box of them like you would pick up at the drug store. There were over 2400 of them total. Each box had 50 to 100 each.

I put up an auction on E-bay starting at $49. I was VERY explicit about the expiration dates and used "EXPIRED" in all caps numerous times in the description. I also did a lot of research and found that most manufacturers have a built in safety of 6 months that these will last past their expiration date, as well as testimonials from numerous people that they can be used if you are just checking daily to see how your diet is going, but would not recomend it if you had to test yourself numerous times a day and actually set your dosage of insulin based on these readings. I included all of this information in the auction.

I had a bid of $49 right off the bat. Then E-bay pulled the auction. They said it is illegal to sell expired prescription drugs on e-bay. Well, These are neither drugs, nor is a prescription required.

Oh well. Before they yanked it I was contacted by a guy at UCLA. They buy expired test strips that are less than one year and use them for testing their research with mice. They pay $8 per hundred. 1600 of the ones that I have are inside of their one year parameter. His paypal payment is on it's way for $128 and I will happily be sending them to him this weekend.

So....my gamble of $25 turned out a pretty nice return.

Think outside the box, but do not gamble with money you can not afford to lose.

That is a long way out of a pretty big box but you done well in the end.

**parrothead** · 03-17-2011, 08:45 PM

Originally Posted by con

That is a long way out of a pretty big box but you done well in the end.

Heh. yeah. I may have been able to relist them if I wanted to argue with E-bay. That is futile at best.

**teenscrapper** · 03-17-2011, 11:34 PM

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

**parrothead** · 03-18-2011, 09:45 AM

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.

**IdahoScrapper** · 03-18-2011, 12:20 PM

I've done fairly well buying/selling restaurant equipment. Freezers, prep tables, SS tables, 3 bay sinks, etc.

My best deal so far was a meat tumbler that I picked up for $310 and resold for $3,300.

I've also had okay results buying a few step vans on dovebid.com and reselling.