As jross said....

For the most part (aside from some educated "guessing") this business involves gambling.

I think a common idea about gambling (cards, slots, craps, etc) is that you should never gamble more
than you can afford to lose.

If a person truly had $400 to work with and the rent on his living space was due in two weeks (or even four weeks) what a tragedy it would be to lose money on an auction buy and not be able to pay the rent. I think I'd wait until I had some savings to work with.  Even then, one is supposed to have a safety net of three months or so in case the worst thing happens...lose a job, car wreck puts you out of work, whatever.

If it costs you $1500 a month to live (rent, utilities, gas, food, insurance, etc) then theoretically you
should have about $4,500 as a cushion. If you had that, then gambling $400 to $1,000 might be ok.

This is just my opinion, but I think one a fair amount of people would share.

Nothing went for over $300. I couldn't figure out what the heck they were even bidding on. A bunch of broken crap, that wasn't worth much new.
I know that there will be plenty of times when the lockers just don't pay, but this was a scam through & through.

That's even more to the point...what they were bidding on, and still going as high as $300.
In my opinion, we're still pretty much in the thick of it.

At least you'll know not to go back, or if you do, see how it looks the 2nd time around.

I think jrossjr79 has an approach that works and I tried it for awhile but decided it wasn't for me.
I was just getting too much trash for the possible valuables I found. By the time I calculated effort, time, return, the bulk of the ones I could get cheap just didn't work out for me, so I just decided to back off on units I liked that were going too high. Eventually some degree of normalcy will return, but for now if I can get a lkr or two that will give me a 20% to 30% return instead of the 100% return I would like I will settle for that.

Ah, the wonderful world of lkr buying !

One week you're at the top of Mt. Everest, the next week you're at the bottom of Death Valley.

But, that's the reality of the biz...full of peaks and valleys. Is it possible to have more valleys than peaks? It must take at least two peaks to make a valley...of course there CAN BE a LOT of valleys between two peaks, so I think that analogy works.

Anyway, you got a really good one before with all that good furniture.

  I have seen thrift store owners battle over good lockers and spend so much money they expect to just break even, just so they have something to put out on the floor for sale!

In my area this is true of flea market sellers. Having fresh stock keeps the regulars coming back (especially in collectibles) and having a good variety of stock makes new flea market buyers start to become regulars.

With high priced lkrs, it's a crap-shoot sometimes as to whether the acquisition will even break even let alone make money; it's only  value might be the stock for stock's sake.  The crap-shoot factor is why I have slowed down a lot in buying. I used to buy 4 to 6 a month on a regular basis, year in and year out, but now after 7 years and 4 months, my per month average has dropped to 3.90 a month for that time frame meaning I haven't bought very many in the last three months.

I was happy to see he was buried at sea. That way there's no way we would see crowds of his SUPPORTERS moaning over his physical grave somewhere; of course they'll figure out something, but still...glad he is under water and not underground.

As of almost 8 a.m. Pacific time, not a single news item (on the Today show) of anything but joy at this death. May take awhile for the pro-Bin Laden people to make a statement....the longer the better.

We've all been there !

As to the tv box being there, I've bought lockers that had those and they were in the back BURIED by other stuff.
I think SOME people save boxes in case they have to take something back or want it for protection when they move the stuff later from one house to another. Still, if you see them up front you have to wonder if they aren't "bait".

Edit:

What was the crowd like and how were the prices for the "junk" ?