$6000 Garage Sale Score!

[1treasurehunter1]

Hey everyone:

My best find ever is a collection of vintage Bentley Butane lighters. I scored several hundered un-used vintage lighters, vintage butane gas tanks, Bentley lighter case shells and much more. The lighters go for between $5 to $10 each on eBay but I think I can get $10 each if I take my time. The Bentley butane gas tanks sell for $5 each on ebay and I have hundreds of them. I don't know what the lighter shells sell for, I'll have to put them up and see what happens. I scored all this for $100!

The funny thing is; the seller told me before I got to the sale that someone offered $20 for the lighter collection and was unwilling to pay $100. I'm so happy that the picker before me was so cheap! What goes around, comes around as I made a similar mistake by being stingy and passing up on a $2000 Chronograph watch for $15 that my competition got instead. Lesson learned.

Here is a video of my best find with more details if you're interested:

 

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[Omega]

I used to sell lighters on eBay as a part-time job. You definitely scored!

 

[diggummup]

Congrats. I'm always on the lookout for good lighters to resell. Hot item, always a demand for the better ones.

 

[Inkstainz]

Congrats on a great score

 

[Iron Patch]

Open a store, price them high, and just sit back and let them sell!

 

[Tallone]

...the seller told me before I got to the sale that someone offered $20 for the lighter collection and was unwilling to pay $100.

Freakin' WOW! Great score! I can't believe somebody passed on this collection. What a chiseler! For a collection that large and that nice, I would have paid $200 without even thinking about it.

 

[clovis97]

It is impossible for me to fathom that anyone on the planet would have passed on that collection because they wouldn't pay $100 for it.

 

[1treasurehunter1]

It is impossible for me to fathom that anyone on the planet would have passed on that collection because they wouldn't pay $100 for it.

The collection wasn't as neatly organized when I bought it, most of the stuff was scattered all over in one large cardboard box. The seller told me that the lighters needed some work, some did, some had flints that had almost turned to dust, I had to grind those out from about 40 lighters and replace them with new ones, about 30 lighters I couldn't get working so I sold them as-is for parts or repair for a $1 a piece at my own yard sale, however, the vast majority of the lighters were un-used and in excellent condition. The seller told me that he used to sell these in a booth; I found a manually written tag on one of the lighters; the year on the tag was 1980 so I imagine that the seller hadn't touched those lighters since . He didn't mention that most of them worked, I was expecting to fix up every single one of them but that was not the case!

 

[GibH]

I once made the mistake of passing up a Dunhill that was priced at $79 in an antique mall. I checked on it later and found out it was worth about $750. That was before smart phones...

 

[deserdog]

Only lighter I have found and sold was a table lighter made in West Germany. It had a weight in it and it lit when you lifted it up. Had mother of pearl panels on the case, and was still in the original box.

 

[1treasurehunter1]

I once made the mistake of passing up a Dunhill that was priced at $79 in an antique mall. I checked on it later and found out it was worth about $750. That was before smart phones...

Ouch. I really hate it when that happens.

 

[tamrock]

I sold a 1958 Zippo sportsman's series with a down hill skier theme lost proof lighter for a little over $400 to a resale dealer. I found it for 8 bucks. I got a Dunhill Roller for 5 bucks and got $70 for it. I do like some lighters. Keep an eye out for Zippos that were sold at the Disney parks.