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Your probably thinking to yourself, well yes, no shit Jer! This seems obvious enough though you would be surprised at just how many signed photos, paintings and lithographs get left behind at thrift shops and estate sales.
So I personally have a rule of thumb. If it’s original, signed and or professionally framed and it’s less than $5, or $10. It’s going home with me! Period!
You don’t need to be a connoisseur of fine art to make money buying and reselling these things either. I’m pretty sure this is why so much of it gets overlooked. You just need to know the basics of identification. Can you tell the difference between a textured vintage lithograph and a painting? Because this is where most resellers get stumped believe it or not. The vast majority of vintage, mass produced framed prints out there look convincing from a distance. In fact there is a type of print which is textured to give the impression of being an original painting. These prints to someone who doesn’t know any better can throw you for a loop.
So lets take a look at a few pieces of original and limited edition prints that I have personally acquired and sold recently.
This professionally framed Randy J Braun photograph was purchased for $0.99 at a thrift shop. The first tip off that this photograph, or print was valuable was the frame itself. The frame was a heavy custom metal, museum quality frame. cheap prints usually don’t get this type of treatment!
Anyway we sold it for $55 within a week of listing it. Our customer was thrilled and so were we! If we wanted to push it we probably could have listed this for $85 and got it just as quickly.
This piece is a little different than what most people would think of when they think of framed art. It is a framed piece of artwork none the less. I picked this one up in a lot of merchandise won at an estate auction. I most likely have a $2 or $3 dollars invested into it. We listed and It sold in about a month’s time for $55 as well!
Finally, lets take a look at 4 painting I purchased and listed within the last week. These paintings were acquired in two separate lots of 2 paintings each. I purchased each lot for less than $10. I didn’t know much about the artist, or the paintings upon purchase. Though they were so inexpensive I couldn’t pass them up!
As it turns out these paintings could be worth hundreds, possibly even thousands of dollars! In fact not one of this specific artist’s original painting has sold for less than $300 at auction and there have been a few that sold for thousands! Unfortunately I don’t have the time or energy to have them certified, appraised and then wait months for them to be auctioned off. So I am selling them at a very reasonable $210 per painting. This leaves us sitting pretty, while also giving our customers allot of room to improve and profit off of them as well!
Believe it or not, I am not in this for the money exclusively. I am a firm believer that both the buyer an seller in any deal should be happy and comfortable with the transaction.
So my advice is simple, don’t avoid the framed art section of your thrift shop! Take a minuet or two to go threw their inventory you never know what your going to find!
Till next time, peace out!
What better way to start the weekend than with a giant, highly profitable score that included hundreds of limited edition collectibles, figurines, Funko Pops, Godard framed prints And two Godard Jazz Martini Sculptures! One of Which is signed by the man himself Michael Godard! All of it for one super low price of $475.00!
When everything is said and done the one autographed Godard sculpture should sell for around $1000. The other Godard sculpture should sell for close to $300. The additional hundreds of collectible sculptures, figures and toys are all going to be extras, one big fat giant bonus!
I know allot of resellers who almost exclusively depend on thrift shops like Goodwill and The Salvation Army for inventory. If this is you, you are selling yourself short! Don’t get me wrong, I love thrift store shopping and I do make many nice, profitable picks from thrift shops all the time. Though if your looking to really take things to the next level you have to start focusing your energy on other sources that hold much more potential for you. Estate sales, auctions, moving sales, liquidation sales and so on!
Just some friendly advice from someone who’s been there and done that. In fact in the beginning 95% of my merchandise and collectibles were coming from thrift stores. My online sales didn’t really take off until I started hitting auctions and liquidation sales. As a bonus with each auction, or estate sale purchase comes additional contacts, resources and suppliers to network with. You wont find that at your local thrift shop.
So most of this merchandise from this haul will be sold off on one of my Ebay accounts. I expect the Godard merchandise to sell relatively quickly. In fact I would be surprised if these sculptures did’t sell within a week or two of listing them. Godard’s a fairly popular guy and his work is very desirable.
In fact i believe the majority of these collectibles should sell within the first month, or two of being listed. If they don’t, no biggie either. I am confident that the majority worth listing will all sell eventually.
In addition to the valuable comes the invaluable! There are also quite a few pieces in this haul that I wont even bother listing. Those will be donated to Goodwill, or given to the our neighbors kids. This is also to be expected in a larger haul like this! Seems like most purchases I make there are always a few items that sell right away which cover my up front costs, plus a healthy profit. The remained of the lot is sold off incrementally, or stored away for listing at later date, or like I just mentioned disposed of. The last thing I want is a bunch of worthless shit laying around my place. So if it isn’t worth listing it needs to go!
Anyway, I am going to start posting regularly here detailing different aspects of making money online via reselling and also affiliate marketing. Seeings that this is not exactly a professional forum and more or less my personal blog I will also be posting allot of astrophotography, photography and other art that I do.
Peace out people and until next time!
Any of you who have been following my work for awhile now will notice my site is looking a little bare. Your not hallucinating, it’s all gone!
So I really don’t want to go into details cuz Ill end up frustrated and distracted from doing more important things.
For the next few weeks, to coming months I will be going through my photos from the last 5 years or so and unloading them here. I will also be going through my portfolio of airbrush and fine art and posting allot of that here as well. Once I’ve made the dump I will get back to posting regularly.
I would like to put more on money and how I go about making bank each and every day using Ebay, Amazon and other online sources. I will also be talking allot about stock photo sites and how to make bank with them. Even though stock photo sites account for an extremely small portion of the revenue I generate regularly.
Why is the money important? Because photography and especially astrophotogrpahy is one expensive mother F’ing hobby!
Anyway, if you see something, say something, or if you have comments, questions, suggestions, business offers, concerns reach on out and touch me!
Peace out!!