The Lucky Centurions

     Today I would like to start off with an old saying that we've all heard at some point in our lives: 'sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.' Although I would like to take all the credit when I hit a homerun, I would be be doing myself a huge disservice if I didn't recognize that luck plays role in the auction game. Through being lucky, we gain knowledge that will help in future buys. Now would be a good time to introduce my next topic. This is one of those times where luck shined down on me and I bought these guys:

     What you see are The Centurions. They were made by Kenner in 1986 and were adapted from a cartoon series that aired in 1986-87 and only lasted 60 episodes. The cartoon featured three 'good guys' named Ace McCloud, Jake Rockwell, and Max Ray. They fought against the evil cyborgs Dr. Terror and The Hacker. The Centurions had special battle suits, that were teleported to them from their space station, for any situation they faced. Although their cartoon series was short lived, the action figures are wildly popular.

    As you can see from the picture, The Centurions action figures came with a massive amount of accessories. You attached these accessories to the action figures to create their battle suits. One rule of thumb when dealing with action figures is this: accessories are almost always more important than the figure itself.

     That last sentence is the perfect lead in to how I aquired this lot. It was a typical Monday night at the auction house. I had my eye on only one section of the room. There was a table with about fifteen 1-gallon plastic Zip-Loc bags stuffed full of toys from the 1980's. There was everything from GI Joes, to Transformers, to MASK, to Thundercats, to Masters of the Universe. There were also bags full of just the accessories from the aforementioned. I figured that I would win these bags for around five to six dollars a piece. Then, right before they were about to be auctioned off, in walked Jason, my arch nemisis. Jason and I go head-to-head on all things action figure. Needless to say, we butted heads yet once again. The bags were choiced out and Jason won first choice at forty dollars(yes, I ran him up that high).  He took one bag and they started again. Jason then won second choice, for thirty dollars(me again!), and he took one bag. I ended up winning third choice for twenty-two dollars and fifty cents, and I took the best bag just loaded full of GI Joe and Transformer parts. Right then, everyone around Jason and I started bidding on these bags like they were full of gold. Bags that were somewhat worthless were selling for fifteen and seventeen fifty a piece. I think everyone just got caught up in the excitement because they were literally taking bags that weren't worth what they were paying.
     When there were seven bags left I had top bid of eight dollars and won the next choice. I scooped up the remaining bags and ended the frenzy. In those seven bags were included the topic of this post, The Centurians.
     Now I had no idea the value of that bag until I got home. It turns out that very picture above was worth a top bid of $65. That is just over eight times the money, which is always a homerun in my book.

 

Hot Wheels

     I wanted to start out with something very simple. A piece that when I describe it and how I won it, I describe some basic auction terms and slang that you will hopefully get to know through reading this blog. The item is this:

     What you see is an original 1967 Hot Wheels Redline Era Starting Gate. When Mattel came out with Hot Wheels they were marketed to young boys to actually race their cars against each other. The starting block was a very simple way to facilitate that. You connected it to pieces of official Hot Wheels track, each kid put their cars in position, and then depressed that middle button to start the race. Rinse and repeat and see what kid had the fastest car. But wait, how do we know what car won the race? Kids are kids and they love winning. What is a fair way to tell which car won? Well....

     That is the Hot Wheels Redline Finish Line. You connected that to the end of the track. Whichever car hit that little stick first, the flag would fall in that direction giving us an undisputable winner.
   
     So how did I get a hold of these two pieces(piece is what everyone uses to describe any item)? I won them in a box lot of Hot Wheels Track. What is a box lot? A box lot is literally a cardboard box filled with items. You are bidding on the entire box and not the individual pieces inside. I was eyeing the box all night long and thinking to myself that it had to be good. Well the auctioneer decided to sell the box choice out with a table full of other items. What is a choice out? A choice out is when the auctioneer sells a group of separate items together, highest bid wins first choice and you can take as many items as you want at the high bid. The reason for the auctioneer to do this is to create competition for an item where there is none. Two people may want two different items but they do not want to risk losing the item they want, therefore they bid against each other.                

     Anyway, it seemed to me that no one wanted this box but me. The first few bidders that won choices looked at the box with disdain. So I patiently waited them out and ended up winning the box for five dollars.        

     The contents of the box were quite amazing, especially at the price I paid. Included was three starting gates, two finish lines, a redline sizzlers juice machine, an airbrake, parts and pieces of the tune-up tower, and tons of track pieces. I like to sell everything separately and I have actually already sold these items on my eBay account, my primary selling outlet. My username is teen_titan_fan. Here are the links to both items sold by me:

Starting Gate
Finish Line

     As you can see, the starting gate sold for $15.51 and the finish line for $10.50. That is $21.01 profit from ONLY TWO items out of the box. I would have to say I have made well over $50 from one $5 purchase. That is a ratio I would take any day.

Introduction

    First and foremost, let me introduce myself. My name is Ben Guith, I am married, and I have three children. Like a lot of people in the United States I was looking for an alternate source of income to supplement my wages as a bartender at a local chain restaurant.
     I was, at the time, looking for Legos for my kids. My plan was to buy collections of Legos, give the building blocks to my children, then sell the Minifigures that came with the collections on eBay. My kids get toys they like and I turn a small profit. It seemed like a win win scenario for me.
     At my job, I worked with quite a few servers with children that were older than mine. I began asking them if their kids had Legos they no longer played with. One server in particular said "No, but I know where you can buy some for cheap." Well, I got pretty excited. She then proceeded to tell me all about Harris Brothers Auction House in Flint, Michigan. She told me about how on Monday Nights, they hold what is called a Shipsee North Auction. This is styled after the Shipshewana auctions in Indiana where there are three auctioneers auctioning items at the same time in different areas.
     Needless to say, I was hooked from the start(Interesting fact, I have only bid on and won Legos once in the two and a half years I have been attending auctions).  I mostly deal in toys, my specialty being toys that were made in the 1980's, but on occasion I have branched out into items such as figurines, sportscards, magazines, and art glass.
     The point of this blog is to show and educate people on what I have learned in my experiences. I will basically be blogging about how my process works; attending the auction, bidding on and winning specific items, and selling them for profit.   I plan to show the item's eBay link so you can see how much money I made, or didn't make.
     Also, I am planning a project that I thought would be awesome for the reader to experience with me. Starting January 1st, I will take ten dollars and see what I can turn that into by the end of the year.
     Some of the blog entries will include my super talented wife that has better eyes than me most of the time. All in all, hopefully we will learn more about what sells great and what doesn't, and make some money along the way.