"Experiencing" VHS Success

Hello! Does anyone remember the Experiencing God bible study by Henry T. Blackaby that came out about ten years ago? If you did this bible study at your church, you probably watched these videos after going over your homework. Today, if a church wanted to conduct the same bible study they would have a hard time finding a DVD for it. Why? The publisher did not release the videos in DVD format.


I found these videos at a garage sale and got them for free! I was buying a more recent bible study by Blackaby at the same garage sale to sell on Ebay, and the owners said I could have them for free. Again, I really thought they weren’t worth anything since they where VHS and VHS’s are everywhere at garage sales as people are converting to DVD’s.

When I got home and checked Ebay, I found nothing. There wasn’t any past sales for these videos nor anyone currently selling them. “Good thing I got them for free!” I thought.

Before throwing them in the Goodwill pile, I decided to see if Christian Book Distributors was selling them on DVD. If they were, then that would explain why no one was trying to sell a VHS version of this study. CBD had the videos on their website, but not in DVD. They were in VHS! I was stunned for a nano second when I then saw “NO LONGER AVAILABLE”. When these videos were available they sold for $169.99 brand new. That’s a pretty high price!

Well, you better believe it! Ebay would be the place to sell these videos. Even if I got $25 for them, it would be worth my time. I started the bidding at $25 and up, up, up it went. The final bid at the end of the auction was $151.99. Yippee! I think it may have gone higher, but I had gone to bed early that night and a question about the videos was sent to me that I didn’t get a chance to answer. It was a from a lady asking if I would ship to Canada. She said “She would pay anything to get these videos!” Wow! This auction may have gone higher.

Keep you eyes open. I’m sure they would sell great even if they were missing their jackets.

Here’s my actual listing: Experiencing God

UNBELIEVABLE!!!

“Unbelievable” is what I kept saying when the bidding for this particular garage sale find just kept going up!

I picked up a binder at a garage sale that I thought was full of baseball or football trading cards, but it was American Girl trading cards. I didn’t even know American Girl made trading cards. I asked, “How much?”. The lady said “twenty-five cents”. I bought it. I know American Girl “stuff” does fairly well on Ebay but I really had no idea if these trading cards would be the same. I figured for 25 cents I could take a chance.

When I got home and researched the cards, I was right. They have, at times, done well. Well, a month went by and I thought about giving them to my daughter, Allison, who has recently started reading the series. However, before I did that, I looked one more time on Ebay to see the potential profit. This time I wasn’t seeing buyers paying that much for them. Would it really be worth my time to list them? I would have to list them by each individual character. Well… that night, I decided to give the Ebay wheel-of-chance a spin..

Listing them by character here are the sales:

Addy (22 cards) - $11.49
Samantha (18 cards) - $22.49
Josefina (17 cards) - $6.57
Kaya (15 cards) - 99 cents
Molly (21 cards) - 99 cents
Kirsten (21 cards) - 99 cents
Felicity (19 cards) - 99 cents

Not bad for a 25 cent investment, huh? So, why would I say this Ebay auction was “Unbelievable”?

Well… there was one more set a cards that I didn’t mention.

Kit (14 cards) - $113.50

Yep! $113.50 for 14 little cards!!!

Those trading cards brought $158.01 total. Remember, my investment was only 25 cents! Now, do you see why I say “unbelievable”!

Well, if you read my early blog about the Madame Alexander doll you saw that I asked the winning bidder why my doll sold for such a high price. One of the other trading card buyers had e-mailed me a question, and she seemed friendly. I asked her if she knew about the value of my Kit trading cards. Here is what she wrote me back:

Lynn, to answer you question, you really hit the jackpot. The 1994 300 box set cards are worth something, but 1998 thru 2001 cards are starting to get really expensive. 1998 card box sets were 360, but they were laced with leftover 1994 cards. This was the year they came out with Josefina, her cards are the 3rd hardest to find but stilI can be found, but Samantha and Addy got new different 60 card sets then, and due to the mixing they are the 2nd hardest to find. I couldn't believe your Kit cards brought way over $100, for a few loose cards!!! But, here is the deal, Kit cards were made in two batches, 2000 Kit cards 1-30, were only made a couple of years, but 2001 Kit cards 31-60 were only made about a year, or less!! This makes them very hard to find, to complete ones set, that's why yours brought so much. I hope this info helped explain, God bless, PJ. I couldn't afford them so I am still looking for some of Kit's!!!

So, keep your eyes open at those garage sales or thrift stores because you never know what little gold mine you may find.

Until next time… happy hunting.