Bag Sale Basics - An Estate Sale Secret Weapon

I didn't think I'd be shopping any sales the same weekend that I was hosting a garage sale, but when you're driving him and pass an estate sale a mile from your house, it's pretty tough not to stop in.

We walked in at 3:45 on a Sunday, the sale had 15 minutes left. When I first entered, I could smell my two worst enemies at an estate sale, cars and perfume. This woman was an Avon seller, and there were over 3,000 (that is not an exaggeration) bottles of Avon perfume bottles. The entire basement was just shelves if the stuff. Anyway, when we walked in, the people at the front door let us know that everything was 50% off (a standard Sunday estate sale practice), but this sale also had a "Bag Sale" going on.

This means they were giving out small paper bags (a little smaller than a grocery store bag) and anything you could fit inside the bag would be ten dollars. If never been to a sale like this, and the house still seemed pretty full. With a 15 minute shopping spree, this misbehave we bought. 

Yahtzee - $5 - marked down to $2.50. 

It didn't fit in the paper bag for the ba sale, but had a full set of Kismet (a game that's pretty much he same as Yahtzee) and 5 score pads. The old pads themselves still sell for $2-$3 each; I even bought one myself, along with the exact same dice cup, a month ago for $5. $2.50 was too good to pass up. Now on to the bag contents:

Four Avon Christmas Aprons- $3 each - My wife bought these so we can look ridiculous during the holidays. 

1962-63 Bowling Trophy - $3. 

Letter Opener - $5

Charlie Brown Thanksgivng (the "not as good" one) unopened VHS - $1

The Real Ghostbusters unopened VHS $1 (sells on eBay for $10-$20, us 30-year-olds love that Ghostbusters cartoon!)

Tons of Zippos and Measuring Tapes. $80. 

If I hadn't seen these, I probably wouldn't have even started a bag for the sale, and would have been happy with the Yahtzee find. When I saw all of these Zippos, the deal was too random to pass up. There were 67 Zippos and 13 Measuring Tapes in a shoebox.

They all have branding on them, so  sure they were used for giveaways a long time ago. Unused Zippos, even with awkward branding, should sell for at least the Estate Sale asking price of $1 apiece. I'll probably put them for sale in groups of ten to start and see what happens. I don't know about the measuring tapes, but as long as I sell a single batch of Zippos for $10 I made my money back for the day. 

I have no idea if this will pan out, but the Zippos were worth a shot. In total I got $107 worth of estate sale items for $12.50, none of the items are going to turn a super large profit, but for a quick stop on the way home, it was a nice surprise.