Austrian WWII era inkwell and stamp holder: Bought for $0.25. Sold for $150

1936 Texas Bicentennial Exposition rouge makeup compact: Bought for $3.00 sold for $150

1920's - 1930's Japanese export pottery: $0.05. Sold for $60

I got lucky and got my first unit for $120.

A 10x40 hoarder unit 20% full.

We've been through most of the good stuff and pulled out about $2500.

The rest going to the flea market for a few weeks then I'm giving it away.

Can you post a picture of what a $100 mug looks like. I would hate to have come across on and tossed it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-ANCHOR-HOCKING-FIRE-KING-PIZZA-HUT-MILK-GLASS-STACKABLE-COFFEE-MUG-HTF-L-K-/220871641189#ht_500wt_1413

Well, I'm new to the lockers.

I get most of the mugs from garage sale picking. Thats how I know about them. It also isn't a matter of looking for $100 mugs as much as it is that I have found numerous, good selling $5 - $10 mugs in one place.

One of the easiest ones to find are these old brown Whataburger mugs. I frequently find them for .25 or .50 and sell them for $15 - $20.

Anchor Hocking mugs sell for $10 a pop. I've found about 20 of them in this lot.

This lot also has 14 Neiman Marcus mugs that sell for $7 a piece.

8 Japanese Otagiri mug/creamers $12 a piece

And the milk glass Pizza Hut mug that I got from a free garage sale leftover lot. $150

There's a few more I need to look at, so I'm not sure. Everyone's time is worth different amounts to them but I'm glad I looked through the mugs to find out what I had.

This also isnt just about coffee mugs. Another example of not throwing stuff out: My mother was going through a box of old makeup. The box and the stuff in it looked ****ty and I was like "I'll let you have fun with that". It wasn't long before she pulled out a ziploc bag with 14 bottles of perfumed dusting powder that is out of production. They sell quick for $50 each.

This is not always true. Some things are worth a good researching over. This is including some toys. Some toys that alot of people look at and say, oh, its only worth 50 cents to maybe $5. Then turn out it be worth some real money.

For example I was talking with RN yesterday about a doll I have, and he said he learned about them at the same time he learned of "Little Miss No Name Dolls". These I never heard of, so I decided to google them. Alot of those dolls go for about $55 and up. Some are as high as $375. Well looking at the pictures of different No Name Dolls, I realized something. I saw three of these dolls at an estate sale a few months back. They were selling them for $5 each. I past on them cause I figured I would not make any money off of them, damn was I wrong. So sometimes the research on what you have can make or break you.

However Ryante, I did a little research on this item as well as the company. Sorry to have to tell you, but you did not strike gold with this toy. Toss it in the $1 pile at your next sale.

Its a bummer that its a cheapy. I might just list it to see what happens. Just like you said, someone might have had one of these as a kid and go.. "Oh my god! I had one of these!" and buy it.

Its so true about things are as valuable as people are willing to pay for them. My mother picked up a set of Bolero (sp) vintage cups at a garage sale for free, seven of them. These types of things that people would just throw out. We listed them at .99 and they sold for $26.

You never know.

Well. I'm still up. TONS of coffee mug boxes to go through.

But I wanted to go back to something I found earlier today. Here is a video of it for reference: [/b]

So, its a little toy musical guitar. Sounds like a music box when you move the lever to "play" the guitar.

Made by "Funny Toy" company and made in Macau.

I've researched Macau and I know a little bit about that, but I am curious about the history and background of the company that made it, as well as the date of manufacture.

If anyone has any answers, feel free to let me know. Here's a few pics too. Sorry, its nearly impossible to get good pics of the marks.

Hi guys. Loving the forum.

I just started doing this after reselling via garage sale picking. I decided to get into something to get more bulk items and to fill in the slow days of the week when I dont have any garage sales to pick or items to get sold.

This was my second time attending an auction. The first one was kinda crummy except for one unit and I didn't feel up to blowing $1000 on a tool unit for my first time.

Long story short, I got a 7.5x10 full of furniture for $150 that is pretty much going to triple itself. (leather couch, stone coffee table, two piece old style dresser, matching night stand, metal tv stand with mounting kit and glass surfaces, and the ever lovely mattress set). I've gotta say I got lucky with the mattresses though. The queen mattress set has a memory foam pillow top and my mom is going to take that one for herself.

The second unit looked kinda like this (10x40 hoarder unit)



^^^ My mother going bonkers sifting through the treasures.

This facility had 7 auctions. Two were normal. The other five belonged to the same owner, a hoarder. After dealing with the other units, this was the last one and 80% of the people left when they saw it. I took it as a chance to get my feet wet and see what hard work is all about when it comes to this type of work.

I paid $120 for this unit. Luckily there are TONS of Christmas items. Ornaments, vintage wrapping paper, collectibles (cabbage patch kids, Lucy & Me Teddy Bears to name a few). A lot of glassware, good selling coffee mugs and pretty much anything 1950's to 1980's collectible type things with most of them in unopened condition or at least in the original box.

All in all, I think it worked out well. I'm estimating about $3000 out of the unit considering what we have found so far and what we've sold so quickly.

Now we have to get into getting it sold. Sorting through the boxes is fun, but high volume selling, especially ebay type things are not fun except for when they sell!

I got lucky. Now I'm dreading going out and doing it again and wondering when it is going to be "my time" to bomb out on a crappy unit :|

Take it easy!
Ryan