Just remembered an Ebay story...

[Chromatix]

The same kind of phenomenon shows up in EVE Online, which has a very comprehensive internal market system. You find jokers who set up sell orders for common items in out-of-the-way systems - or less popular stations in high-traffic systems - at ridiculous prices. A common one is a shuttle (a very small, fast, unarmed ship) for 8,888,888.88 isk - the usual prices are anything from 10,000 to 50,000 isk, depending on competition.

Conversely, people also put up region-wide buy orders for various goods at minimum prices. Somebody who is not paying attention might try blind-selling some goods they just found... and get only 0.01 isk each for them.

The difference from real life is that these jokers actually do get bites from careless people in a hurry. In the game, seconds matter; in real life, people are usually a bit more careful (and don't have nearly 9 million whatevers to lose in the first place).

[Zoom]

Cthulhu-Melnibone-Nehwon.

Ouch, I remember selling mine in a garage sale in the 1990s. If I'd known it had any value...

[depechemodefan]

I go to Goodwill and buy stuff to sell on ebay. I don't make much on it, but one time I bought this Snoopy cup for $.99. I looked on ebay to see what it was selling for and it was going for $200. I auctioned it but it sold for around $50. Maybe because I only bought/sold around 20 things so my score wasn't so hot.

[Bandit]

I used to double-dip when I took my work hiatus. I'd charge people $100 to clean out and dump the garage/attic/basement of their junk, but I would keep my eye out for interesting things.

Usually, I'd make an extra $300 per job on the stuff on eBay with a bit of brasso or some wd-40 or armour-all and an air duster.

B

[Andara Bledin]

Right now I'm hunting for a mass-market paperback which seems to be unavailable everywhere (Ghost Wolf by Tara K. Harper; her other books in that series are easy to find).

I wish you much luck with that. Even the multi-site search engine that uses the ISBN can't find any listed anywhere.

^-.-^

[Dreamstalker]

Yeah, that book's a weird one...all her others are available and I can often find them used.

Amazon UK has a listing, but it's been "unavailable" for months now (but with a publication date of 2007). According to her website, as of 2005 it's still a work in progress, so I'm not sure what the status is.

[ArcticChicken]

Ghost Wolf by Tara K. Harper; her other books in that series are easy to find).

Have you tried inter-library loan? Mine seems to be able to find anything.

I was looking for dead tree editions of...some webcomic the other day, and since I had an Amazon gift card, I thought I'd check there, not really expecting anything. Lo and behold I did find it. For $1000+.....I can get this stuff for free on the internet, who on earth thinks I'm going to pay $1000 just to be able to hold it.

[Andara Bledin]

Amazon UK has a listing, but it's been "unavailable" for months now (but with a publication date of 2007). According to her website, as of 2005 it's still a work in progress, so I'm not sure what the status is.

It's possible that it was never released, if it's not showing up anywhere.

I had a manga series that I was following. It was in 3 parts. The 3rd part was never released, even though there's a publication date listed (Dec 2008) and it has an ISBN.

^-.-^

[An Haddock]

I did manage to score a used first edition of Deities & Demigods from the store...it was on the shelf for $6 (I don't think anyone else there knew about the different editions...come to think of it the original owner didn't either), I snapped it up myself one weekend; I was looking for that edition anyway, and part of me realized that he would have me list it at the going rate for the later editions, then when it didn't fetch $50+ I'd again get huffed at.

!

Great price, even if it wasn't the one with the Cthulhu mythos in it. I paid around $40 for mine 10 years ago and it had a very faded cover.

On a good day you can get $75 - $150 for a Deities on Ebay if it has the Lovecraftian material in it. Not that I'd ever sell mine.

I go to Goodwill and buy stuff to sell on ebay. I don't make much on it, but one time I bought this Snoopy cup for $.99. I looked on ebay to see what it was selling for and it was going for $200. I auctioned it but it sold for around $50. Maybe because I only bought/sold around 20 things so my score wasn't so hot.

I can tell you exactly what to look for. Things that pretty much universally sell well are:

Roseville pottery (they'll have the name on the bottom - I have a client who got one in mint condition at a yard sale for $5 and sold it for over $100)
1st Edition Dungeons and Dragons Deities and Demigods (must include the "Cthulhu Mythos"
Blue Snaggletooth from the original Star Wars action figures (blue, normal height, wearing silver boots - the later editions had him shorter, wearing red and no boots)
The original "Creature Cantina" from Sears, which was nothing more than a cardboard base and backdrop which included Blue Snaggletooth and 3 other creatures
The original remote-control Sandcrawler with any or all parts, preferably in original box
The original 12" Boba Fett figure and especially the IG-88 figurine
Pretty much any Star Wars toy/figure from the 70's with the original packaging

Musical instruments typically do pretty well, too.