Today in snail mail I received a check as part of a class action suit against eBay.

The case was Yingling V. eBay Inc Settlement Fund.

They were doing business as Alamo Autosports. The class action amount I received was based on final value fees I experienced back in 2005 !

First time I ever benefitted from something like that. I imagine if I (and thousands of others) had not responded that this fellow would have done quite well, but imagine also he might have done it out of principle.

Every $20 helps !

A few more thoughts on eBay vs flea market:

As little as 3 years ago it was not uncommon for sellers at my flea market (selling the kinds of things I sell) to do $600 in an 8 hour day.

Today the more common figure is $200 to $400 for that same 8 hour day.  There are of course exceptions in both directions. One fellow said he did $75 the day I did $250; another fellow that day said he did $450. Of course we have to assume these people are telling the truth.

In the last six months my flea market sales (Saturday only) have ranged from $185 to $450 with the average (not of those two figures) being around $300.  When I see people posting on these threads that they did $75 I have to cringe a bit. I would be very disappointed in any kind of recurring figure at that amount.

At $200 for an eight hour day you're doing $25 an hour; many people would like to get that (though of course this isn't for 5 days a week of work it is for one day. )

When I do $400 for that day, it's $50 an hour (a REAL $50 an hour). Of course there was also time invested in buying the goods, sorting the goods, putting them in the truck, unloading them from the truck, etc, etc, but you have to start your calculating somewhere.


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Finally, stuff that sells at the flea might not go on eBay and vice versa; that's why I do both. I don't take stuff to auction houses or to specialty stores (antique, boutique, etc) but I do sell (cheaply) to other flea sellers those bulk items I don't want in my flea booth.

So far it has been pretty profitable, but not without time and hard work. Me and my father took apart 15-20 monitors today, going for the metal casing, (boards, which we threw in with the other scrap metal, and no one at the yard said anything, but it IS a little iffy), copper, and the degaussing cords. Also the actual cords that connect to the CPU.

Our results: $140.

We worked non stop for 2-3 hours, and my backyard looks like a computer grave-yard. There's 50+ monitors still waiting to be taken apart, and I also havent disposed of the black glass and plastic casings. Hoping to find a recycling company that will take it.

Yep, you earned that cash. I think that could work in my area too, but I don't have the time or energy for it so I would still go with getting the 6 cents per pound for an untouched (except for loading) monitor/tv.

Nice find on the mug!  I always pickup any cheap FireKing Mugs I run  across, you can make some pretty decent $ back on some of them for sure.

OK, now it is starting to make more sense. It's a specialty area just like many others. Thanks to the two coffee mug promoters here for letting us know.

Now I know to look for Anchor Hocking with logos as well as FireKing.

So, the next lkr I get with the usual dozen or so coffee mugs I will NOW do a quick look before throwing them over the edge at the dump ! (as that is where the thousands we find in a couple of years of lkr buys actually belong)

Sell what you know has a certain value, dump the other stuff at yard sale/flea market for $0.50 to $2.00, donate the rest, and go win some more units?

This gets my vote, or somewhere in between that and the "fine tooth comb". Thanks for stating the puzzle so succinctly.

The chance of finding them are the same chance you have at finding just about anything in a locker.

That may be true if looking for a specific item; say I was LOOKING for a particular watch I either wanted for myself or that I knew sold well. Chances are I wouldn't get it in 100 lockers I bought.

On the other hand if I feel that TOOLS in general do well, I am more likely to find some tools that will sell, though again the BEST tools or the BEST sellers aren't going to come up that often.

That's why as I think you said, the bread and butter items pay the way most of the time and the really good stuff is just bonus time.

As another example, generally the toys I get aren't that good, but, perhaps like you, I have learned that American Girl dolls and the wardrobes they can travel in do quite well for the most part.

Depeding on the socio-economic status of the former lkr owner, most of the lkrs have just average toys to below average, but once in a while I find a lkr with a lot of good quality toys and the orignal boxes they came in. In quantity those can pay off just as a dozen of your mugs do.

A toy train? Thomas the Tank Engine...OK. Lionel from 1938.....almost as good as a small grain of gold.

I've uncovered hundreds of dollars in hard to find coffee mugs instead of giving them away.

OK, I'll bite. How many hard to find coffee mugs have you sold in the last year (or more) and what made them so hard to find?

Name of mug (logo, age, etc) and what it sold for please.

A further question would be what percentage of the mugs you get in lockers would these hard to finds represent?

In other words, in a year's time if you found 1000 coffee mugs how many would be valuable?