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Usually I travel kinda far for scrap so I thought I'd do something's that's a little closer - so I figured, 'why not try some thrift stores'? Now, is there any money to be made there?
What should I look for, what's something I can make good money off of? Also how/who do I sell it too
yes on both the scrap and resale sides. Ive bought digital cameras for $5 and sold them for $50. Binder of baseball cards for $10 sold for $200 and so on. Bought brass items, silver plated stuff and pewter and sold it for more than i paid. Usually you can work with them to get better prices if you buy alot of stuff.
most definately money to be made at thrift stores, picked up 150+ grams of sterling silver yesterday for less than $5.
have picked up many items for resale, vintage toys, antiques, artwork, just have to be able to turn the stuff that you pick up.
Sounds great! Thanks guys, I'm gonna go check out some stores tomorrow - so how do I sell the items I buy?
where to sell is going to be up to you, evilbay, craigslist, yard sale, flea market.
if you are buying to scrap make sure you can guess the weight of items you are buying, dont want to buy a piece of brass for $4 and it wind up weighing less than 2 pounds.
Also you can ask what they do with all the stuff they can't sell. I pick up a pick-up truck load once a week from one thrift store. I get electronics,bar-b-q grills,stoves.lamps and all kinds of steel, aluminum pots and pans just to name a few.
I do the same as happyscrapper. I work with several nonprofit thriftstores. I look at the load, put resaleable stuff in the cab/ on top the load depending on what it is. Steel stuff in the bottom of the bed and nonferrous on the top. I have buyers for just about everything that I get that can be resold. I sell to private buyers, trading company's antique stores etc. So the moral of the story is yes LOTS of money to be made at thrift stores:-)
Last non-profit I worked with stuck us with over 300 tv's but there ended up being quite a bit of other electrical type stuff they just threw away that we picked out of the dumpster.
Here's our original post on this huge TV pickup in case anyone was interested; http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/day-l...inda-long.html
Look at the "Junk Jewelry" some of it is gold filled. See my thread in the buyers forum, I'll take any Gold Filled you find off of your hands!
I refuse to take T.V.S. He always asks but I tell him the same thing every time.
No televisions forever ...NOT!!!
I haven't spent much time checking out thrift stores yet. I did go to the local Goodwill once, but their prices were way too high to make a profit through scrapping, and I didn't see anything priced low enough to attempt resale either. I've read other posts about how Goodwill can be a good place to get rid of old CRTs (They mark those up high too, they want 20 dollars for a 19 inch!), but I haven't seen anything posted about them being a good source for scrap. Has anyone here had a similar experience with Goodwill?
The one thing Goodwill is good for is makeshift Halloween costumes. Why pay 20-30 bucks for some crappy costume at Wal-Mart when you can spend a few bucks at Goodwill and come up with something far more creative.... Which reminds me, I did have one successful re-sale experience from a Goodwill. A buddy and I were looking for halloween costume stuff at a Goodwill years ago. I was scrounging through one box, and lo and behold, I found a military issue Kevlar helmet with a sticker pricing it at 9 dollars. I found one of the store employees (an overweight guy dressed up like Ric Flair and wearing an aluminum foil championship belt) and asked him about the validity of the price. He walked to the back with it, and a minute later brought it back with a new sticker pricing it at 2 dollars. Of course I stopped asking questions at that point and bought the thing. It turns out, one of my fellow Marines who had misplaced her issued helmet heard about my story and asked if she could buy it from me. I ended up trading it to her for a bottle of high quality tequila. :cool:
Man, there's a resale shop here that keeps me BUSY with non-working, non-selling electronics. They used to didn't take computer stuff, now they give it all to me. They give me some crap... speakers, ugh... but I take it with a smile because sometimes they come up with a gem:
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/7189/mobo1p.jpg
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/6921/mobo2i.jpg
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/9328/mobo3.jpg
Pitch your partnership as you helping them keep stuff out of their dumpster... which you are.
The only thing I buy from the thrift store I pick up from are cell phones. They have a collection box up front when it gets about 10 or 15 lbs I pay them 2.00lbs. Everything else is free and it's stuff that is ether broken or they can't sell, sometimes it's stuff that they don't have room for (over stock). I also bring back ink cartreges so they can bring them to staples for credit. Been doing this for them for over 2 years now and sence they got to know me they wont let any other scrapper take anything except tv's. This has been a great sorce of all kinds of scrap for me and they like being able to get rid of all thiere junk for free. Also sence they know I come by once a week like clock work they will take things that they normaly wouldn't and just give it to me, plus it helps thiere business becuase they don't have to turn things away. I take thiere tv's and give them to a guy I know who brakes them down for the copper and he gives me the circut boards (like getting free boards)
how do you spot silver at a thrift store I have been fooled before. I bought some one time took it home and it turned out it was ferrous.
i dont think your gonna find any sterling silver at a thrift store, the employees inspect and price everything that comes in, and i can tell you that alot of the stuff that comes in does not make it to the sales floor. One of the perks of being a thrift store employee.Quote:
Originally Posted by happyisthealero
Look for markings or brand names, if in doubt write notes or take pictures with your cell phone, then you can check on the internet when you get back home.
I do find alot of name brand lead crystal that is priced very low and can be worth alot.
Look on the underside of the item for these marks 925 is sterling and a lion face is British selver. That's the two I know of. You never know, some of the smaller thrift stores have people that don't know what thiere looking at. Hey- I found a sterling silver chain in a dumpster once.
At the goodwill that I went to all the time, I left a magnet there, I put it on a stand that was always going to be on the counter. (Small one out of a cdrom). Dont get me wrong the manager and other employees knew it was there and used it too, after I showed them what it was for. Silver is usually stamped 925 or sterling.
ok heres a magnet tip, keep a p38 on your keychain and stick a hard drive magnet on it, that way you will always have a magnet with you, also the hard drive magnet backing plates have screw holes in them that you keyring will go thru, either way will work, i like the p38 method because the magnet comes off the keyring easily when its needed, just dont put your keyring in the same pocket as your wallet
another one is screwing the magnets to a piece of wood then attaching a broom handle to it, that way you dont have to bend over to pick the screws up off the floor
Haha, I do that with the stick and magnet for screws. I got a huge stereo speaker magnet I attached to a broken broom stick, use that sucker like a metal detector. Picks up all the crap I drop on the floor. Quick wave over an area and move on most of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by jghilino
Sirscrapalot - swifter picker upper...scrapper style.
Roofers that roofed the house next door about 15 years ago left a magnetic sweeper behind. Not marked with the company name & number & I had no way to contact the homeowner since they'd moved. I still find it amazing that they can re-roof a house start to finish while I was at work. Anyway, the thing has gotten some use. One of the handiest inventions EVER!
Or... if you have a smart phone with web access you can look up the stuff on fly. I carry a mobile hotspot with a deactivated 1st generation iPhone to look up stuff in the thrift shop. And when I don't, I have a buddy who is usually in front of his computer most of the day so I'll call him and have him look stuff up for me. It's amazing how quickly something can be sold in thrift shop.Quote:
Originally Posted by jghilino
But to answer the OP's question, YES. There is plenty of money to be made, especially when you know more about an item than they do. One location that I go to often has 500' and 1000' reels of old electrical and cable TV wire. They mark it at $5-$10 but it's worth $30 to $40 in the scrap yard.
there is great money to be made from 2nd hand store 90% wouldnt really know the scrap value.
you could offer free pick up of there unwanted items.I have 2 whiteware shops I grab what ever i want out the back plus a deal with 4 computer stores for their unwanted junk (he he he they dont know theres gold in there hills).they are happy not to pay to have it dumped and your happy with the unwanted items.
I say go for it dont hold back to what stores you try.dont need to be 2nd hand stores either main stream have trade ins and dumpers to
good luck and happy scrappin
I did a similar thing not long after I took up scrapping, but instead of attaching it to wood and broom handle, I just took a good lenth of wire insulation that I had removed, tied it through the hole and now can just dangle it over the floor or where ever I am working. Stick it to the side of my fridge when I am done with it, insulation still attached.Quote:
Originally Posted by jghilino
I used to keep a magnet in my pocket but my pants kept getting stuck to my truck. JG, could you explain to me what a p38 is?
P38 is a military can opener, Google Image Result for http://stuffmenlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/p38-can-opener.jpeg
Yeah it is possible dear, There are manyonline couponing stores from where you can buy any thing in discounted rate and sell hem according to your asking price.