I thought it would be interesting to talk about your best auction find.

Do you remember a product you picked up at a second hand store or garage sale that turned out to sell for a surprise profit?

For example, my Girlfriend and I were at a local Goodwill recently and came across a Speak and Spell. Well actually I saw it and passed it up (thinking it probably didn't work) but Sara (my Sweetie) picked it up and started teasing me about not seeing it.

Upon arriving home I placed some batteries in the toy and to my surprise it worked, and further research on eBay showed it averaging $30. We paid $0.99 and ever since then we carry batteries with us <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Lets here your story . . . Scott

A couple of years ago, my dad found an old brown Coca-Cola bottle that came from a distributor that used to be in business about 50 years ago. Anyway, didn't cost him a dime, but it sold on Ebay for $120! Great find!

Oh, and another time, we went to a flea market and I bought a Coke bottle for $14 and it sold for $100. Coke bottles used to be a sure sell on Ebay if they were old and/or if they came from distributors that aren't open for business any longer. I don't know if they are still a "hot" item or not, though.

Hi Jennifer,

Thanks for posting, there are still great finds with vintage coke bottles. I've seen a couple reach the $1000 mark.

If you wanted to take a look at some of the completed auctions Mpire.com has a free research tool that you can use to look at what has sold in the last 30 days.

. . . Scott

My best is the Marilyn Manson shirt I sold for $45 bucks. I had bought it when I was in highschool almost 10 years ago! It amazed me when it went for that much <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

My friend and I decided to attempt ebay consignment in our local college area, so I thought garage sales would be the best target. To my surprise, everyone wants to get rid of everything, but what was fantastic was we picked up this proform treadmill that someone was just tossing in the trash. They were convinced it didn't work as they had purchased it used. Well to my suprise it most certainly did work, it just needed to have the powercord fixed and then the voltage was incorrect for at home use, it was still on industrial voltage settings for excessive use in a gym or fitness center. I sold it for $200 and got it absolutely free. Now that's a profit if I ever saw one.

I also sold a pair of earring on Zoobid.com for $25 that I was unable to sell on eBay, more or less because they cater to a different type of user, it's more about profit than it is about assisting people in getting great buys. eBay kept charging me fees so it made it really hard to sell a basic pair of earrings. Zoobid.com was fee free, so that's cool. Hopefully they'll get a larger user base soon.

I had a Ford Mustang manual lying around the house that my boyfriend said nobody would ever want, and it went for $11, and an old radio went for $31. You never know what people might want.

That's funny Lisa, I just sold an old Haynes manual for a Suzuki Sidekick, it sold for $9 ... that's $9 more that I didn't have.

Also software demo's or bundled software that may qualify for an upgrade.

For example I just sold an audio editing program that came as part of the bundled with a sound card I bought over a year ago.

I checked the company website and sure enough, there was an option for an upgrade from the piece of software I had. In the end it would save a buyer $200 off the current full version.

I made a note of that and included a link to the upgrade information and the CD that I had never used sold for $48

. . . Scott