MACHINE DESIGN TEXTBOOK

 

I always find textbooks at garage sales and thrift stores, but rarely buy them.  However, when I do the payoff is usually VERY GOOD!

Here's my FOUR RULES for buying a textbook when I don't know if it will pay off:

1) Copyright date cannot be older than 2008.  Obviously, 2009 or 2010 would be better.

2) Very good condition.  Book can't be falling apart or have torn pages.  Highlighting is okay.

3) Has to be less than $2.

4) SPECIALIZED SUBJECT.  (NOT accounting, math, biology, general science, or literature.)

Let me try and explain more about TIP #4.   Textbooks that are for a particular field of study are usually expensive to buy new or used AND they don't get revised very often.  Almost every year the basic accounting textbook will issue a new edition.

For example, the textbook above caught my eye at a garage sale one day.  First, I noticed the condition was excellent and the CD in the back had never been opened.  Second, I flipped through the pages and realized that this was a "specialized" field of study.  I actually had never seen this textbook before or come across this subject.  BUT... it's copyright date was 2007.  Uh-oh!  That doesn't fit my "rules to follow".  Lucky, for me my home was just around the corner, so I was able to check the market and value.  I went back and bought it for $1 and resold it for $39.99.  Click here to see the listing.

So next time you see that box of old textbooks you may want to see if one of them is "specialized".  And, if you can negotiate a super low price, like 25 cents.... then why not?

I once sold one of my husbands old engineering textbooks on Amazon for $100.  It was about a very particular engineering subject and it was just sitting on his shelf.  I'm not sure if the price was too low since it sold in 30 mintues!  There wasn't any information on the interent ANYWHERE to tell me the value.  Oh, well!   Not bad for a book that had been sitting on a shelf for years. 

DOMINO RALLY PARTS!

I was at my favorite thrift store the other day and notice these plastic dominoes in their toy section.  I bought them for $3.00 and sold them for $25.99.  Click here to see the listing.

The only reason I would recognize them is because of the board game DOMINO RALLY that I had just sold.  Seeing that the game is all about knocking dominoes down I figured folks may want MORE dominoes to knock down.

Click on the picture you can see what they look like.

DOMINO RALLY GAME

I stopped by a church garage sale a few weeks ago and it was getting ready to close.  They were passing out huge black trash bags and saying "fill it up for $1".  I immediately went to the board game section and took a few that I knew nothing about.  I also grabbed  some childrens books that I could use in selling large lots on Ebay.

One game in the bag paid off in both money and learning.

It was Domino Rallly.  Lucky for me the game was complete!  The game sold for $20.50.

Not bad for less than a $1 since my books will pay off and my son was able to add some military history books to his collection.

Check out ALL the Domino Rally games that have sold on eBay in the last two weeks and just the parts!  Not bad.

CHECK OUT THESE CHILDREN'S BOOKS?

Just about every person that sells on Amazon or Ebay for a living tell me that they never buy children's books.

What a missed opportunity!!!

For instance... I sold 34 children's books in one auction on ebay and made $76.51. The books hardly cost me anything, so my profit was huge!

Here's how you can do it too. Go to the FIVE IN A ROW WEBSITE and copy and past their book list. You will want the "Before Five in a Row" list as well as "Five in a Row Books 1 - 4" list which you can find here.

The curriculum is useless without these books. The website sells some of the books brand new, but at a premium price. Homeschool families and teachers LOVE these books. Some of the books are harder to find or out of print. If you find one of those then make sure your listing says that. Even better, put at least one of those books titles in your title and watch the bidding go up and up.


Here are some of the more hard to find "Five in a Row" books:
- Yellow Ball by Molly Bang
- Jenny's Surprise Summer by Eugenie
- Babar: To Duet or Not to Duet
- The Giraffe that Walked to Paris by Nancy Milton
- The Red Carpet by Rex Parkin

Yellow Ball is usually just a thin softcover book and I have found it several times in used book stores for $1. Jenny's Surprise Summer is a Little Golden book and I have found that a few times at used books stores for $1 as well. I found Babar at Half-Priced bookstore and paid $3.00 for it, but I had traded in some books that weren't worth anything on eBay so the book was free.

TIP: Wait until you have at least 20 books before listing them. You'll experience a better return on your investment.

If you want to learn more about selling childrens books in groups then download my ebook here.

Mystery Date Board Game

Surprisingly, I found this it at Half-Priced Bookstore. It was originally priced at $14.99, but when I counted the cards inside I discovered that the game was missing 1 card. So, I asked the manager to reduce the price. She reduced it to $9.99.

I went ahead and sold the game on Ebay and clearly explained in the listing that ONE CARD WAS MISSING!

It still sold for $103.50. Cha-Ching!

I had heard that this game sells well on eBay, so that's why I spent the $10 to buy it. When this happened, I decided to spend several days creating a list of board games that were worth between $30 - $200+.

Would you like my list? I'm only asking $5.00. Click here to download it.