

### ALMOST FREE MONEY

How to Make Significant Money from Free Materials You Can Find Anywhere, Including Garage Sales, Scrap Metal, and Discarded Items

### By Eric Michael

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Eric Michael. All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright, Legal Notice and Disclaimer:

This publication is protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale rights: you are not allowed to give or sell this Guide to anyone else.

Please note that much of this publication is based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence. Although the author and publisher have made every reasonable attempt to achieve complete accuracy of the content in this document, they assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Also, you should use this information as you see fit, and at your own risk. Your particular situation may not be exactly suited to the examples illustrated here; in fact, it's likely that they won't be the same, and you should adjust your use of the information and recommendations accordingly.

Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if we use one of these terms.

Finally, use your head. Nothing in this Guide is intended to replace common sense, legal, medical or other professional advice, and is meant to inform and entertain the reader.

Copyright © 2012 Eric Michael. All rights reserved worldwide

Almost Free Money

ISBN: 978-1482554960

# Table of Contents

PREFACE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

START-UP: INITIAL ASSESSMENT

HOW AND WHERE TO SELL

SELLING ON EBAY AND AMAZON

WHERE TO FIND ITEMS TO SELL

FINDING INVENTORY ONLINE

THE BOTTOM LINE ON EBAY BUYING

GARAGE SALES SHOPPING

RESEARCHING

FREE ITEMS TO SELL: OUTDOORS

ORGANIC ITEMS

MAN-MADE ITEMS

SELLING SCRAP METAL: EASIEST MONEY YOU'LL EVER MAKE

GETTING STARTED SELLING SCRAP METAL

SEPARATING SCRAP METALS

A TRIP TO THE SCRAP METAL DEALER

PRECIOUS METALS: FAST, EASY MONEY

WHERE TO FIND GOLD FOR CHEAP

WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR GOLD AND SILVER CONTACTS

NOTES ON PRECIOUS METALS IN COINS!

NOTES ON SATELLITE DISHES AND RECEIVERS

SELLING SCRAP METAL ON EBAY

TO KEEP ASSEMBLED, OR DISASSEMBLE; THAT IS THE QUESTION!

MAXIMIZE PROFITS IN VINTAGE ELECTRONICS

TREATING YOUR BUSINESS AS A BUSINESS: INCOME TAX ISSUES

DONATIONS

THANK YOU, READERS!

WEBSITES AND LINKS

APPENDIX 1: DEFINED VALUE ITEMS

APPENDIX 2: EBAY COLLECTIBLE

APPENDIX 3: ORGANIC ITEMS

APPENDIX 4: USABLE ITEMS

#  PREFACE

The purpose of this document is to provide the motivated person with a variety of ways to make some quick, easy money with very little initial investment. There are hundreds of sources of income lying around your house, or on your property right now. There are hundreds more available for free in your community, if you are willing to talk to people and do some leg-work.

If you have already heard about this book, the temptation is going to be to skip right to the Appendices, but do yourself a favor and resist the urge. You need to have a basic understanding of how to handle your business and how to effectively process items and materials before you start latching onto your swag.

You should learn how to identify good targets on your own, before limiting yourself to the 520 items that I have found for free and sold. After reading this book, you will be able to immediately spot good sources of free money. When you see broken electronics, lamps, grills, vehicles, and bikes along the roadway, you will know the value of the parts and where to sell them for maximum profits. You will also know exactly what to look for at garage sales, thrift stores and flea markets.

There are many ways to make extra money, and different avenues appeal to different people. I would suggest that you find a combination of sources that you find interesting and pursue them.

This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. However, you will save yourself and your family money, and have an opportunity for a secondary income using the information in this document. If you are willing to work harder than your competition, you can also start your own small business with very little investment.

Some of these materials can be sold without internet experience, BUT if you want to maximize your profits, you must at least be able to research information online. If you are willing to do some surfing, you will maximize your profits and find many new and exciting sources of free items to sell.

This document provides real-life examples of opportunities that I have taken advantage of in twelve years of selling discarded items for profit. This document's primary goal is to provide many different avenues for profit, and provide background knowledge that allows the reader to decide which sources of income are right for them.

We will discuss many different items and materials to sell, the easiest and most profitable places to sell your finds, and some tips for enhancing your profits and creating your own niche.

The reader will take a "virtual" trip to a scrap metal dealer, where I describe in detail how easy it is to sell scrap metal for the first time by yourself, with no training required. You will also learn the painfully easy process for selling almost any material on the internet at eBay, and on the Amazon Marketplace.

Perhaps most importantly, the reader will learn where to go to conduct their own research and find even more sources of income. Being able to effectively research income sources is the most important aspect of a growing small business. The reader is also provided with a number of links to internet sites with invaluable information on a variety of topics that you can use to make money.

Many of these internet sites were created by businesspersons with decades of knowledge on their particular subjects, and many have made at least six figure incomes in their niches. These sites have outstanding explanations on locating and selling free (or almost free) materials for profit, and most of the sites provide detailed images of what to look for.

If you are a visually-oriented learner, you will be using the hyperlinks provided in this document frequently to refer to applicable internet sites with images, in order to visualize the meaning of the text descriptions in this book.

Also provided to complement this document are appendices that contain over five hundred individual items and materials that you can find anywhere for free (or almost free), and details where to sell them for profit. These printer-friendly lists are broken down into categories: Usable Items, EBay Collectibles, Organic Items, and Items with Defined Values.

To use the EBay category numbers provided within the appendix lists, simply type or cut-and-paste the number into the category box when making your auction on the EBay or Auctiva (an auction listing website discussed later in the document) listing page.

I also provide you with over twenty sources to advance your knowledge base with further reading on the internet.

#  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eric Michael is married and is a proud father of two energetic sons. He enjoys family outings and many outdoor activities, including fishing, hunting and camping.

The information provided in Almost Free Money was compiled after twelve years of internet research and personal experiences developed a unique skill set – the ability to find a diverse selection of free items (or priced under $1) that could be sold on the internet for surprisingly good money.

In that time period, Mr. Michael has sold well over 10,000 unique items that were located for under $1 on the internet at an average price of over $10 an item. The Almost Free Money system has given his family the second income necessary to allow a parent to stay at home with his two boys, instead of paying for day care.

He has gone on to develop a popular website titled Garage Sale Academy that incorporates portions of Almost Free Money, and expands into other arenas of profiting from flipping garage sale, thrift store and flea market finds, as well as helping garage sale hosts make maximum cash at their sales. He also hosts Facebook fan pages for Almost Free Money and Garage Sale Academy, as well as a Garage Sale Blog and Forum.

He has also written a second book titled Garage Sale Superstar, and recently released the softcover book and DVD versions of Almost Free Money.

#  START-UP: INITIAL ASSESSMENT

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of this document, it's important for you to understand several things about yourself. First, what do you hope to accomplish by using this information? Are you looking for a second income? Are you time strapped, and only have time to save your family a little money? Are you considering a new business opportunity?

In my opinion, you should always leave yourself the opportunity to expand your efforts into at least a significant second income. What the heck, it costs you very little money to obtain your selling inventory, and there is the potential to make fairly easy profits. Why not take advantage of that?

I started out buying collectible items at garage sales for 5-25 cents, and then re-selling them on EBay for up to $250 an item. That was a cash cow for a while, but as more and more people found out how easy it was to sell on EBay, the competition got fierce, and the amount of collectibles in the marketplace drove the selling prices down considerably. So, I started researching other ways to diversify, and not rely so much on collectible items.

Now, I prefer selling items that people are always going to need, and also have a value that is determined outside of popular demand. I enjoy finding items for free while I am recreating, and then sell them for easy cash. I mean really, if you're going to have a serious hobby, make it one that actually makes you money. Why throw away big money on a golf course, when you can spend time shopping for investment items, or attempting to locate $1000 valuables with a metal detector on a beach?

As I started adding new avenues for income, I found that I could use my "hobby" as a second income for my family, and my wife could stay home with our young children, instead of working and paying for childcare. Obviously, that was a huge incentive to step it up and go for it.

When we started making significant money, I knew that we needed some kind of business plan. There are thousands of people selling odds and ends on EBay and other places online. The ones that actually make significant money are the people who: #1: ARE NOT LAZY, #2: Are not stupid, and #3: Are resourceful and are willing to do some research.

I started thinking of my second income as a business. I claimed my earnings on my income taxes, so that I could write off business expenses, such as vehicle mileage and meals while I was finding inventory or going to the scrap metal dealer. I kept track of receipts. I knew how much actual profit I was making after subtracting gas cost and EBay listing fees. I wrote off a home office and storage room deductions on my income taxes. All of these things are actually very easy to do, and make you more money for your business.

Even if you are thinking that you are only going to sell some items and materials from around your home, I can guarantee you that if you put some effort into it, you will at least expand into having your family, friends and neighbors save you items that they would normally throw away, and then you, too, will be on your way to an easy second income. So, what I am telling you is, you might as well save yourself even more money and start right off thinking of this as a business.

You have to consider more than just your initial cost and end sales price for an item and/or material that you have sold. The biggest mistake beginners make is not considering the actual cost of selling a particular item.

For instance, consider two potential sales items. The first is a book that you find at a garage sale for 25 cents and then sell for $20 on EBay. The second is a box of insulated electrical cords that you have collected at your house and then sell at the scrap metal dealer for $20. Which is the better sale?

The answer is: It depends! All things being equal, the box of cords is the better deal, because the only time that you had into prepping the cords was about five seconds to cut the plugs off and stuff them into a box. In order to sell the book on EBay, you have to: 1) photograph the book 2) upload the photos 3) type up the listing, and 4) package the item for shipping. Time is money, and you have to take that into account.

However, if you live in a rural area, and the nearest scrap metal dealer is 45 minutes away, you have the additional travel time and gas money to account for. You have to remember that some avenues may seem on the surface to be great deals, but by the time you factor in your time in preparation, hard work and gas money, they may not be your best alternative in making money.

You are looking for things that you enjoy doing anyway, have a renewable supply of, and are comfortable in selling. You also want to be able to sell the items quickly and without an overabundance of preparation time.

The last thing that you have to consider before starting is, how much storage room do you have available to you? There are a lot of items that you can make good profits on that take up a lot of room. Do you have room to disassemble vehicles or appliances on your property? Do you have room in your home for large bookshelves for storing book or music inventory? If not, you will have to concentrate on smaller items to sell, or items that you know that you can sell almost immediately. Your significant other is not going to want to have your stuff lying all over his or her counters or on the floors in your home.

#  HOW AND WHERE TO SELL

Before you start accumulating items and materials to sell, it is important to have a good idea where you are going to sell it. Finding the good stuff to sell is only half of the battle. You need to know where to go to get top dollar when you go to re-sell it.

In my experience, the best and quickest way to sell most things is to sell them on eBay. While the sales prices on many items have come down over the last five years or so, there is always going to be a market for items that people need, and you can't beat the convenience and potential deals on eBay for the bargain hunter.

Even if you are intimidated by selling on the internet or don't have the desire to do so, you should still be familiar with how eBay works and how to sell an item there. It will not take you long at all in this line of business to figure out that eBay is the best location to sell many different types of materials, including some that you may have previously thought were only sold elsewhere. Scrap metal is an example.

Consider this. If you sell copper to your local scrap metal dealer, you are selling to a middle-man. Your dealer still has to sell your copper again to a metal wholesaler for his business to make any money, so you are therefore offered considerably less for your scrap on the deal, right?

On eBay, you offer the same box of scrap copper to thousands of scrap dealers and investors. The bidding on your lot is determined by the free market and the spot copper price, not by an individual scrap metal dealer, who often has very little competition in his local marketplace. For more information on  selling scrap metal on eBay, visit the applicable web page at Garage Sale Academy.com.

Just about anything you can think of that is bought and sold in any physical marketplace is also sold on EBay. We will get further in depth into the world of EBay in later chapters, but just realize for now that EBay gives you the best opportunity to diversify your sales, and the potential for buyers to bid higher on items than you may have thought the item was worth to begin with.

I remember in our first year of internet selling, my wife and I were at a garage sale. We had a few odds and ends that we were going to buy, and my wife saw a cheap looking plastic beer sign in the ten-cent box near the pay table. She picked it out on a whim, and we paid for our stuff and left. The sign was only about 4 x 8" in size, and made of a thin Plexiglas material.

We offered the sign at auction on eBay, starting at 99 cents, and a week later, two competing bidders had raised the ending price to almost $250! The winner e-mailed us and asked if we had any more signs from the beer company that was advertising with the sign my wife had found. He informed us that the beer company was a popular brand in the state that he was from, and that the brewery had gone out of business over twenty years ago. The signs were impossible to find and were very collectible. Who knew?!

#  SELLING ON EBAY AND AMAZON

I am not going to devote a lot of time in this document to the subject of beginning to sell items online, only because the websites have done such an excellent job of making it easy for anybody to understand the process of listing items.

Both eBay and Amazon have intentionally designed their listing pages so that you can list items regardless of your internet skills and writing abilities. You will typically only have to type a paragraph or two at the most to describe your items, and simple descriptions often are better than profuse flourishing praise for your items, so do not feel bad if you are not a wordsmith.

Both websites also provide tutorials and FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) that are linked to the beginning listing pages. These documents are designed so that even if it you have never turned on a computer, you can still figure out how to get an item listed on their sites. Then, once you have listed your first item, it is very easy to list in subsequent sessions. Once you are signed in, eBay provides you with a link from the initial listing page that allows you to bring up several of the last auctions that you designed to use as a template for listing other auctions.

First, we will discuss how to begin selling on eBay. The only equipment that you will need is: A computer with internet access (high speed internet is a huge advantage, but not required), a digital camera, and a scale for weighing items.

We are going to go step-by-step, and list a collectible book that we will pretend that you found in a free box at a garage sale.

First, look at your book. Can you improve its desirability in an auction setting? People bid on items in EBay listings based on two things; the image(s) of the item and your item description. So, if you can make the digital pictures that you take look better by cleaning up your item a bit before taking the photos, by all means, do so. If the book has a vinyl dust jacket, carefully wipe the outer surface to remove any dust and dirt build-up. If there are price stickers that can be peeled off without damaging the surface of the cover, remove them.

Take several pictures of your book, including several photos of the cover, any nice interior illustrations, interesting text, and any condition issues that the bidder will want to see.

Upload the digital photos to your computer. If you have never uploaded photos, EBay provides directions on the process.

When you upload, start a folder for the items you are going to be selling in your 'My Pictures' Folder on your computer, or put it on your desktop, so that you can find the folder easily when you go to download photos to auctions or listing pages.

Go to your computer and log on to the internet, and go to the eBay site. At the top of the page, there is a link for 'Sell'. Click on the link. If you have never sold on eBay, you will need to register, and provide personal and financial information so that you can get paid for your sales through PayPal. PayPal is EBay's payment collection site.

After you have registered or signed in, go the listing page. You may elect to complete the tutorial the first time you sell. It walks you through each segment of the listing page. It is very user-friendly and allows you to quickly move through the listing page.

Make sure that you weigh your item accurately, so that you can provide the weight of the item for shipping purposes. Don't try to estimate the weight, or you will end up either paying for part of the shipping out of your own pocket, or charging too much for shipping and making your customers angry. You may also elect to allow 'Free U.S. shipping' for your item, which alleviates all of these issues altogether. Just make sure that you pick a starting price that is high enough that you make a minimum profit on the item after you add in the shipping costs that you are going to have to pay for.

Everything else in the listing page is self-explanatory. There are also links next to each heading on the listing page, in case you do not understand something.

Two of the most important things to consider when building an auction are the item's title and the cover photograph. These are what potential bidders use to determine whether they are going to click on your auction and hopefully bid on your item. Ensure that your image is clear and you can tell what the item is. Remember, the image boxes are fairly small on the EBay auctions pages. Also, anything that makes your image stand out is helpful. Make your photo as colorful or distinct as possible. If your item is not very exciting, you may decide to give your item a colorful backdrop or background.

The item's title should also accurately and completely describe it, without sounding "over-the-top". Make sure that you include brand names and dates if you know them. With books, make sure that you have the title, author, and edition number.

In the item description, describe the condition of the item as accurately as possible. Do not try to make your item sound better than it is so that you can make a couple of extra dollars on it. Also, list any other description detractions that are not visible in the photographs that you provided.

List your item. When the auction ends in seven days (unless you specified fewer days), EBay notifies the winning bidder by e-mail that they have won your auction. Payment is made through PayPal, and then you are notified, along with the winner's shipping information.

Securely package the item, and ship to the address provided. It is as easy as that.

Another very easy website to sell on is Amazon. If the item that you want to sell is a media item or has a bar code, it is probably available to sell on Amazon. Selling on Amazon is extremely fast and easy. It is also profitable.

All you have to do to sell on Amazon is open a selling account. You will have to provide a checking or savings account for Amazon to deposit your money into, but it is a huge secure marketplace with thousands of sellers. Don't worry about providing your financial information.

Before signing up, determine how many items you will be selling on the site. When you get to the point that you will be consistently selling at least 40 individual items a month on Amazon, you should upgrade to a premium sellers account. The upgraded account eliminates a $1 fee that is charged on each item sold for sellers with a normal seller account. It also allows you to sell some items that normal sellers cannot, and you can also make your own item pages, which I use regularly for selling rare collectible items. The price for the premium account is currently $39.95.

To list your items on Amazon, all you have to do is locate the item within the marketplace by doing a search for that item. For instance, if you wanted to sell a copy of the Nirvana 'Nevermind' CD, you would search for it in the 'Music' category. You can either type in 'Nirvana Nevermind' into the search bar at the top of the page, or if you have the CD in hand, you can type in the bar code number on the back of the CD. It is always found below the bar code, and includes the smaller numbers at the beginning and end of the bar code. For U.S. items, the bar code has 10 numbers, and for European items, there are 13 numbers.

For books and media items, there is usually an ISBN number provided on the title page or on the item cover that you can type in.

When you find the correct item page, there is a link that says 'Sell Your Item' on the right side of the page. You click on that button, and then simply type in your description of the condition of the item, enter your asking price, and then click 'complete', and your item is for sale on Amazon. It is very quick and easy.

When a potential buyer goes to the Nirvana 'Nevermind' page to buy the CD, they see a number of individual listings for that CD, along with your listing. The buyer chooses the copy that they want to buy, based on the price and condition description provided. The buyer clicks 'buy' to complete the sale. There is no bidding, as on eBay.

You do not have to take photographs for your item, or making time consuming listings. If the buyer picks your item, Amazon takes a closing fee from your selling price, gives you a shipping credit and then deposits the balance into your account.

When you get enough money in your Amazon balance, you can then deposit it directly into your personal bank account, or Amazon does it automatically for you every two weeks.

You can see that there are advantages to selling on Amazon versus eBay. First, it is much easier and faster to list items. A box full of CDs can be listed in about a half an hour on Amazon. It is also free to list items. You don't get charged until someone buys your item through the Amazon marketplace. You can build an inventory without any upfront cost. On eBay, you are charged a listing fee for each individual auction listed, whether the item sells at auction, or ends without a bid.

Amazon can be a catch-22 proposition for selling items, in that you may sell your item the same day you list it for more than you can sell it for at auction on EBay. However, you could also list a great $100 collectible book on Amazon, and it may sit there on your shelf for over a year before the right buyer comes along and buys it from you, or it may never sell at all.

You are also constantly competing with other sellers' prices listed on Amazon. You could have the only copy of a collectible item available on the Amazon marketplace for months for $250, and then have another Amazon seller list the same item for significantly less than your price, and then steal your sale when it is purchased several days later from that other seller.

Amazon also charges what I would consider exorbitant selling fees when your item sells; significantly higher than eBay's closing and listing fees combined. Amazon knows that they have very little competition in their niche, and they take advantage of that.

The seller has a number of things to weigh when determining where to sell online. How quickly do you want your money? Do you have room to store items for a period of time? Is it more important for you to maximize profit per item, or sell items fast for a bit less money? Is your item collectible and therefore may do better on EBay, where bidders can see photos of your cool looking item, and also let you tell them about the item in your description?

There are also other places to sell online, and after you determine your own niche, you may decide to build a website, but to begin with, eBay and Amazon are the two easiest online sites to begin selling on.

There are also many physical stores that you can sell items to. Collectible items can be sold to stores that specialize in selling collectibles, such as sports collectibles shops. They can also be sold to pawn shops, antique stores, etc. The most important thing about selling your item to these people is YOU HAVE TO KNOW HOW MUCH YOUR ITEM IS WORTH BEFORE you go the store to sell it. Period. Do your research online and find current values for commodities with spot prices, like gold and silver items, or search completed listings on eBay for similar items. Do NOT allow a pawn shop owner to swindle you. You have to realize that while you will get cash in hand at these types of places, you will not get full value for your items. The shop owner has to make a profit when he or she sells your item again. You will almost always get more for your item online than at a physical store. You have to weigh ease of selling and immediate sales against maximum profit and more prep time selling online.

#  WHERE TO FIND ITEMS TO SELL

It is surprisingly easy to find cheap stuff to sell. It is all around you, and you probably don't even know it.

Let's start with your home. Hopefully, somebody at your house is a pack-rat and you haven't had a garage sale in several years. Here is the most important thing to remember. Almost everything has a value to somebody. You just have to find that person or group of people to sell your stuff to.

Start looking around your house, and then look again. The second time, try to see your belongings through a collector's eyes. Do you have any old toys that are collectible? How about old biker's jackets, vintage T-shirts or retro dresses. All of this stuff is collectible. Do you have old books or comics? What about your old collection of marbles, baseball cards, or buttons? These are all collectible. What about that old box of stuff your uncle gave you with his old racing trophies and the broken Commodore 64 computer in it? Yep. Collectible.

Once you start looking, you will be surprised what people collect. Old playing cards, yes. Matchbooks, yes. Beer caps and cans. Yes. Just start gathering stuff that you look at and say, hmm... maybe somebody collects this. If somebody ever thought that the item was cool, I will guarantee you that somebody still thinks it is cool today, and therefore worth money. I will show you how to determine value later.

Another place you can make some quick money is with non-functional electronics and appliances. If it's been broken for a long time, it may very well be collectible and worth fixing now.

Several years ago, I found a Simon electronic game in a 'Free' box in a garage sale. I grabbed it and brought it home. It didn't work, so I opened the battery compartment. It only needed to have the terminals cleaned, and it worked like new. I sold it in a week for $50. It is amazing how often broken stuff can be fixed for free and with very little effort.

Also, high-end equipment can be sold for parts, even if it is not repairable. For instance, the cushioned feet on high-end audio equipment can sell for $25, and that's just for the feet.

Many of the components can be sold on EBay, even if the item hasn't worked in years! You can also scrap larger appliances for scrap value. Junk computers may have $20 or more in scrap gold, silver, and copper inside them, as well as having usable components that you can sell separately. The trick is to find where on EBay to sell the scrap and parts.

If you are willing to do some work, you can even scrap whole vehicles and sell many of the resulting parts on EBay. Then, you can scrap the remaining steel auto body for up to $250 at a scrap yard.

Do you have any decaying cars, snowmobiles, or lawnmowers in your yard or pole barn? Have any 25 year old bikes in your garage? They are probably worth at least $50 apiece. You can see where I'm going here. Check the list at the end of the book for more ideas about things to look for.

The bottom line is, if you have something that you can sell at a garage sale, you can probably sell it for considerably more on eBay.

Now that you have cleared out your collectibles, move on to clothing. Vintage clothing should be sold individually. Many jackets, headwear, suits, ties, shoes, dresses, etc. can sell for more than what you would think on EBay. Next, gather your clothing that is in good shape, but you don't wear anymore, or the kids have outgrown. You can sell clothes lots on EBay for a good profit, or you can take them to a second-hand store and set up an account and have them sell clothes for you there. You get a percentage of each sale. Take your remaining clothes and put them in your Goodwill box. Keep track of what's in the box, because you will be writing the value off on your income taxes.

Next, if you have kids, gather all of their toys and games that they have outgrown or don't play with. Check Amazon first. I was amazed by what I have been able sell used toys for on Amazon. It the toy has a box with a bar code, it's very easy to find and sell them. Simply type in the numbers under the bar code into the Amazon search bar.

Even toys without boxes can be sold by searching for the name of the toy. This is true even of smaller Tonka toys, action figures, baby toys, etc. It sometimes takes a while to sell, but they often sell for a lot more than on eBay. Board games can sell very well on Amazon, too, but toys can sometimes take a long time to get off your shelves.

What you don't list on Amazon, check on eBay. If your toy or groups of toys have sold well on EBay in completed listings, make a listing and sell them. Remember to always check discarded toys for usable batteries before listing them or getting rid of them. Batteries are expensive! They also add to the shipping weight, and should not be shipped inside of toys or electronics for fear of the batteries leaking and causing damage.

OK. All of the toys that have not been listed on Amazon and EBay can be put in a box. Cut off anything with a copper wire or brass pieces and save them. Look and see if there is anything worth disassembling for parts. Tip: I have sold battery compartment covers, cases from electronic games, board game pieces, and lots of other parts that are easily broken or lost on eBay for good money.

Everything that can't be sold or scrapped should go in the Goodwill box. Write down all of the toys in the box for your taxes.

Next go to your storage areas, closets and attic. Go through all of your junk boxes. Take out everything that might be collectible and check values in EBay completed listings. Most any everyday item that is usable and in good condition can also be sold on EBay. Put all of your electronics and appliances in one area. If they work, check completed listings and see if they have value on EBay. If they do have value, sell them. If they don't, scrap them for metal value.

Keep metals separated, especially copper and brass. Many scrap dealers will also buy electronics by the pound for scrap value. You can sell the electric motors inside of electronics, as well as any parts containing solid copper (not wires) as 'copper breakage' for good money. I will provide you with a sample list from a scrap dealer that shows how to scrap appliances and what you can get per pound for the pieces.

Check all of your home décor items (knick-knacks, curios) on EBay to see if they are worth selling there. Many have decent value. Some you can group together in a lot (Hallmark ornaments, collectible plates, bells, etc.). If you have anything that looks like it is made of brass or is copper colored, check them with a magnet. If they don't stick to a magnet, they are pure copper or brass and should be sold as such. Currently, spot price for copper is over $3 a pound and brass is over $2 a pound. You can either save these metals for scrap value, or sell on EBay if you think you can make more than the spot price per pound. If you have high value items like Longaberger baskets, nice antiques, or Hummel figurines, make sure you know what they are worth before listing them, or have them appraised. They can be worth big bucks.

Now go to the garage or tool shed. Take any power tool that you don't use and see if it works. If it does, and there is value on EBay, sell it there. Most power tools sell well on EBay. If it does not have value and the tool has a rechargeable battery, the batteries are often worth as much as the used sale price of the whole tool, if the battery has good life left. The battery charger should also be sold with the battery, or separately if the battery is dead.

Hand tools can be sold in lots or individually, in some cases. Everything left that is made of metal, put in your scrap metal pile. Anything electric that doesn't work should at least have the power cord cut off for copper scrap. Heavier items should be disassembled for copper breakage and other scrap value. Check anything that contains a battery to see if the batteries or battery holders are usable or sellable.

We have completed the home sweep. You probably found a bunch of other sellable stuff that I did not even mention, once you got searching. You now also know where to look for good stuff in your relatives and friends homes. Most of the time they will give you this stuff for free, especially if you are willing to do some work and clean up the boxes and other stuff lying around their homes for them.

Additionally, metals like copper, non-magnetic aluminum and brass can be easily collected in a small box by your family and friends, and then you can pick up the boxes periodically when you visit them. Perhaps you feel generous, and decide to give them a little cash for their trouble.

Once you have practiced at home, you will come up with all sorts of places to find similar items for cheap. Sellers at garage sales, second-hand stores, Salvation Armies, Goodwill Stores and flea markets often have not done their homework on what they have for sale, and you can get high-end items for under a dollar, especially at garage sales.

Check the road-sides for free metal, especially anything with a power cord.

#  FINDING INVENTORY ONLINE

There are also numerous places to find items to sell online. Finding items from your computer or portable device can be particularly advantageous if you are tied to a desk at work or only have time to look for inventory when most physical stores are closed.

Bargains abound on eBay and Craigslist, but you have to consider that you are competing with other resellers for your items to sell, and it will cost you more to get your source material to sell than it would if you found the same item at a garage sale. You also have to consider that on top of the higher cost per item, you will also probably have to pay shipping costs for your items.

Having said that, there is definitely profit to be made on many items listed on eBay. So... What are we looking for exactly, you ask? The trick is to be smarter and more diligent than your competing sellers on EBay. You want to win your items for the lowest possible ending price (net ending price, including shipping costs).

I have had very good luck winning large lots of items, such as boxes of books, and then re-listing individual books from the lots on eBay or Amazon. I have found several $100 books and quite a few $50 collectible books in bulk lots of books that I won for under $5. I have also won quite a few books and other collectibles for 99 cents, which I immediately re-listed with a better listing page and resold for over $50.

Here are some quick pointers. Do not bid until the last minute of an online auction if at all possible. Many auctions do not get bids at all, especially obscure collectibles that are valuable only to a select few. These items can be very profitable, if you have the ability to find those people that collect them. You may have to re-list these items multiple times, or allow them to sit in your Amazon inventory for months. But, they have the potential to make big profits.

Items that do have bids tend to draw the competition's attention, and if you bid early, someone will often outbid you at the last second. There are 'auction sniping' programs and applications that can help you win bids at the very last second, but they cost money. It's up to you to determine if you think the program is worth the added expense.

Look for inventory when you don't have a lot of competing bidders. You can steal auctions late at night, on holidays, and early in the morning.

You are also looking for the lazy sellers' auction items or lots. Try to find the lots where the listing seller did not do his or her homework and does not know the value of the items. Look for misspelled words and author's or musician's names.

Look for short descriptions that don't specify content. For instance, an EBay listing titled only 'Grammas old books' would definitely catch my attention for several reasons. Number one, the books are probably going to be older and potentially collectible. Number two, the seller is lazy and not very bright. They cannot spell 'grandma', and they didn't care enough to tell the bidders what kind of books are in the lot and whether they were valuable.

I typically search specific category locations where bulk lots are listed like music, books, or collectibles. You are given check boxes on the top of the page that allows you to sort by 'best match', 'lowest price', etc. I click on 'lowest price, plus shipping', which gives you the entire category listed, with the lowest priced items, plus shipping costs added in at the top.

Usually you have to sift through a bunch of garbage for the first couple of pages, but sometimes you will find a gem. You can also sort by auctions 'Ending Soonest' to see the auctions that are very close to ending. That can also help you win excellent lots or items.

When I find interesting auctions to bid on, I 'Watch' the auctions. Watching auctions allows you to easily come back to the auction at a later date or time if the price at the end of the auction is still to your liking.

Simply go to your 'My EBay' page, click on your 'Bidding' link and check the auctions that you are watching. If you are watching a number of items, you should leave yourself a note somewhere where you will see it often, reminding you of what the item is, when it ends, and how high you are willing to bid to win the auction. It's easy to get tied up with something else and miss the end of an auction that you really wanted to win without placing a bid.

Another idea is to search for a specific title, instead of looking in your usual categories. A lot of times, sellers will accidentally list items in the wrong category by forgetting to change the category when they are listing many auctions at once (Yes, I've done it, too.). Some sellers just do not know where to sell items, and list them in the wrong locations, as well.

There are additional considerations with EBay auctions. Don't get burned by a lazy or dishonest seller. EBay provides bidders with information to avoid some of these problems. After a person wins an auction and receives the item that they won, they are given an opportunity to provide 'feedback' to other potential bidders, regarding their buying experience for that particular seller.

Each seller is given a feedback score that tells you how many feedbacks they have received. It also has a positive feedback percentage to the right of the seller's name. If the seller has had over 100 feedbacks, and a score of over 95%, they are probably a reliable seller. You can also read individual feedbacks by clicking on the feedback number, and you can read what other buyers had to say about their experience with that seller.

You also want to CAREFULLY read the descriptions of the items that you are potentially bidding on, and make sure that you understand what the seller is listing. It seems like that would be obvious, but quite often, sellers don't take the time to adequately describe items. Sometimes, they just don't have time because they are listing tons of items. Other times, items have short descriptions in order to purposefully omit condition issues with the item(s).

Make sure that you have the information you need BEFORE bidding on it, especially if the auction would potentially cost you some money. Use the 'Ask Seller' link to get the information you need before you place a bid.

#  THE BOTTOM LINE ON EBAY BUYING

Here is my secret formula to successful eBay bidding. I locate items to bid on, and do not bid early, as we have already discussed. When I am looking for items, I use at least two browser tabs. One is for the eBay listings I am searching.

I also have a second tab open to check the value of items. For media items, I use Amazon. It is very easy to search for items in the Amazon marketplace and look at the average price listed for items within the lots that you are looking for during your eBay search. AdAll.com is another location to find values for rare collectible books.

If I am searching in collectibles or other eBay categories, I open a second browser tab for searching Completed eBay Listings. I search for the item on the first tab, and then look at the ending prices for similar auctions over the last three months on the second tab.

I generally do not get overly excited about an auction unless I know that there are several individual items that are valuable within the lot. I do not like guessing what items may be hidden in an auction lot. Usually, you can see enough either in the text of the auction's description or by looking at the photographs provided to tell if the lot is worth your time. Watch out for the sneaky seller who sells a large lot of garbage and then throws in one or two valuable items to attract bids. If you only see one or two photos of nice items, but no pictures of the overall lot, or a detailed description of what's in there, look out!

If I can verify that several of the items within the lot will pay for the entire cost of the auction, including shipping, I attempt to win the auction. After a while, you get pretty good at getting a feel for which auctions will also have extra hidden goodies in the lot, besides what was listed or photographed.

It's always fun opening your large boxes of goodies to see what you got. Sometimes, you'll have over $100 in extra inventory that you didn't even know about inside your package. Sometimes you only get what was listed in the auction, but, if you did your homework, you should always come out ahead when you re-list the individual items. Plus, you can re-list the remainder of the items that had little value as a lot on eBay, sell it at a garage sale, or donate it to Goodwill for a tax write-off.

#  GARAGE SALES SHOPPING

Finding stuff to make large profits on at garage sales used to be easy. Now, there are many people re-selling items from garage sales on eBay. Plus, the people holding the garage sales are more aware of the value of many collectible items than they used to be, so items are often priced higher. Still, you can find a lot of great items to sell at sales, often for very cheap prices. You can regularly find $10-20 items for under a dollar. How's that for profit?

Here are a number of tips to help you find stuff at garage sales to sell. Number one, do your homework ahead of time. Go through the newspaper classifieds and Craigslist to find sales that advertise what you like to sell, or similar items. Write down when the sales start and end, and what they are supposed to have at the sale that you are interested in. Look for sales that advertise large bunches of stuff, '25 years of accumulation', or that type of language in the ad.

Make every effort to be at the most attractive sale first when it opens. If you can go to sales on Thursdays and Fridays, you can find much more material to sell than if you wait until the sale has been running for a day or two on Saturday morning. Make yourself a route that hits all of the good sales. This prevents you from wasting time and gas money by going back and forth across the county to get to all of the garage sales. If you can hit a neighborhood or citywide sale, by all means, go there.

Number two, don't waste time fiddle-farting around at sales. Treat your garage sailing as a business. It is fun to find stuff at sales, but you are there for a reason. Say hello to the homeowner and be polite, but don't talk for half an hour. If you get to the tables, and there is obviously only junk there, leave immediately and move on to the next one.

If you do find items that you want to buy, ask if you can stack them by the pay table. Get what you are going to get at the sale, pay, and leave. This allows you to hit the most sales possible in the time that you have for that day.

Number three, look at EVERYTHING at the sale. This may seem to contradict rule number two at first glance, but it really does not. When you get more experienced hitting sales, you will understand exactly what I mean. Don't waste time gabbing, and wandering around, but make sure you look at all the tables at the sale. I have found tons of great items underneath junk on tables, inside other boxes, scattered in amongst books, in boxes of toys, and everywhere else you can think of. The items you are looking for are items that the seller does NOT know the value of. This stuff could be anywhere at the sale.

As a matter of fact, I have found some of my best items in FREE boxes or 5 or 10 cent boxes, thrown in with a bunch of crud. If you see these types of boxes ALWAYS look in them all the way to the bottom of the box. If it's a free box, you can always grab the whole box to save time, and go through it later. You are doing the homeowner a favor by getting rid of the box of junk for them. Take almost any books, CDs, DVDs, or media items that you see in a free box. I have found multiple $50 books in free boxes at sales.

As a savvy reseller, you also have the advantage of having an Amazon selling account. This puts you ahead of 95% of the re-sellers you are competing with at garage sales, who are only selling on eBay. Look for media items that you can sell for a higher price on Amazon, as well as boxed items with bar codes that you can resell. Make sure you quickly grab anything sealed in shrink wrap that you can sell as 'New'.

Number four may be the most important rule. Make sure that you can sell the items that you are picking up. Condition of the item is one of the most important things to consider when deciding on whether to buy an item. Is the item operational? Does it have all the parts? Does it need additional cords to be usable?

Plug electronic items in to test them. Almost everybody has outdoor outlets available to test with. If they refuse to let you test an item, don't buy it. It probably does not work.

Also, keep in mind that some items are valuable without being functional. You just have to remember that you are going to have to spend additional money for parts, plus spend time fixing the item, which cuts into your profit.

For instance, it is quite common to find video game systems without cords. That does not mean that you should not buy them if the price is right. It is very easy to get cords online for any video game system, and they are usually fairly cheap. You can also save the systems for a while and try to find cords at other sales, or at second-hand stores.

Make sure you examine the entire item. Does it have broken corners, re-glued pieces, etc.? If it does, the collectible value is going to be significantly reduced.

Also, keep in mind the shipping cost of heavy items. There are many collectible items that would make nice profits, if it was not for the weight of the item. Figure on all items over one pound to cost over $5 in shipping costs, plus an extra $2+ for every pound after that. A heavy metal item could easy cost your potential winning bidder on eBay an additional $15 in shipping fees on top of their winning bid. Consider the total cost that you think the average collector would pay for an item.

Let's say you found a really cool retro glass lamp that is priced $5 at a garage sale.

From your prior research, you have seen comparable lamps priced at about $25 at antique stores. Should you buy this lamp, if it appears operational?

The answer is: You probably will not make much profit on this lamp. The antique shop owner may offer you a slight profit over the $5 that you would be paying for it, but by the time you figure your drive time to the antique store, you won't make much money there. If you planned on selling the lamp online, remember that the lamp weighs over ten pounds and would cost the potential buyer $15-20 in shipping fees over top of their winning bid.

Large items are also a pain to package, and you have to pay for bubble wrap to prevent damage. So, while the lamp looked like a great item at the garage sale, it probably would be a break-even venture for you in the long run.

Number five, keep a magnet in your pocket for identifying valuable scrap metals such as copper, brass, and silver-plate. Remember that non-magnetic metals are usually more valuable than the metal objects that stick to your magnet.

#  RESEARCHING

If there is one area that a motivated seller will stand out above their competition, it is in their knowledge base pertaining to the items they sell. If I could give you one piece of advice, it would be this: Start with what you know, and then broaden your knowledge from there.

You really do not have to know much to sell usable items, clothing, and other non-collectible items online. You simply identify the item in an auction or on the Amazon marketplace, describe the condition, and then make it available for purchase.

However, other items such as collectibles, high-end electronics, computer equipment, and auto parts require the seller to have some background knowledge before selling the item. In order to be able to describe the item sufficiently so that a potential buyer is comfortable buying it from you, the seller has to understand what type of information the buyer needs for them to determine value and functionality.

Start selling what you are familiar with. If you grew up collecting sports cards and memorabilia, and you have boxes of baseball cards in your closet, start by selling your excess cards. You already know how to describe your cards to buyers. You can 'speak the language' to collectors on eBay. You know what an insert card is, and how to identify a rookie card. You know how to describe the condition of the card to a potential buyer.

Get yourself a current price guide for your sports cards so that you have an idea of the current market value. Then, collect a number of cards that you are interested in selling and type the player's name and year of the sport card in the search bar on eBay. Click on the checkbox on the left side of the screen that says 'Completed Listings'. You get a list of the ended auctions from the last three months with your search description. The average ending price is what you should expect to sell your card for, if the condition is also similar.

The same process can be applied to any subject area. When you have an item that you want to determine value on, take a look at the last three months of sales on eBay. You should be able to make a quick determination if the item is worth your time. If you are considering selling the item on Amazon, locate the item in the Amazon marketplace using the search bar, and see what the average price listed is.

EBay completed listings can also help you in other ways. Let's say that you found a vintage Pioneer audio receiver for free at a garage sale. Good for you! Now, how do you make a profit on it, if you have never dealt with electronics before?

If you plug it in and everything works, you just hit the jackpot. Look on the back of the unit and find the model number. Type it into the search bar, and see what similar working units have sold for, and list your receiver starting at the low end of the completed listing's end prices. You want to encourage bidders by starting at what feels like a bargain to the bidder.

If you attempt to test the receiver and it doesn't work at all, don't fret. You actually may make more money by disassembling the receiver and selling the parts.

The trick is to determine which components and parts to sell. You should have an idea what parts are going to be sold BEFORE taking the receiver apart, because some larger components are more valuable whole then totally disassembled. For instance, if your vintage audio item has a record player, you will want to keep the entire tone-arm assembly together to sell it.

In order to determine what we are going to sell, we use Completed Listings again. Type in the model number from the receiver on the main eBay page. Most of the time, the search will return many whole receivers that were for sale. But, it will also give you a list of parts and components that other sellers have listed and what the ending prices were.

For instance, with vintage Pioneer receivers, you would probably find that the outer case was worth listing (and would make you some good money, if it was wood). You would also note that the knobs, feet, emblem, and face plate were worth money. Usually the tuning mechanism, display, and some of the internal workings will also be listed.

You may also want to go to the 'Vintage Electronics' category and look at the Completed Listings for the entire category. This will give you a general idea of some of the parts that are often valuable, regardless of brand. You would probably note that large power transformers are usually worth money, and since your Pioneer has a similar transformer to the ones that you saw in Completed Listings, you would want to list your own transformer in the category that you found the others in.

A good seller is curious. If you are at a garage sale, you should be looking for new sources of income. If you find something interesting, look it up in Completed Listings when you get home, and see if it's worth your time.

I spend a lot of time just browsing Completed Listings in given categories and looking for new areas to list items in. If I find an interesting listing that did really well for another seller, I look at the auction page and try to figure out why it did better than others in the same category. Were there certain words used in the item title? Were the photos showing a certain aspect of the item? Was the item described in a particular way? If I can pick up anything useful, I use similar wordings in my titles or descriptions.

You may also find totally new areas to sell items in. I remember one night browsing Completed Listings to see if any 1980s-era magazines were worth buying at garage sales, because I was seeing them quite often. I found that 95% of the magazines I was seeing were not going to be worth the time it took to list them. But, I saw some listings in other categories that _were_ interesting.

Other sellers were listing just the advertisements from magazines and newspapers for pretty decent money. Often, the magazines the ads came from could be found for $1, but the ads within could be worth up to $20 apiece. People were looking for ads containing celebrities or certain products (like vintage autos, or Atari 2600 games) and framing them for décor in their homes and businesses.

So I picked up a bunch of magazines, and clipped interesting ads out. I scanned the ads with my scanner, and listed them on eBay. I made several hundred dollars selling magazine ads in a relatively short time. I looked at a number of sellers' listings, and it was apparent that they sold only magazine ads and did quite well.

I sold ads for a while, but I quickly realized that you have to make a lot of listings to make any real money, and I found it quite monotonous clipping and scanning, so I moved on to more interesting ventures. If you are interested in selling ads, there are books available on Amazon for identifying and pricing print ads to get you started. The startup cost is almost zero, and you will make some money if you can find some older magazines to pull ads from.

#  FREE ITEMS TO SELL: OUTDOORS

DISCLAIMER: Consult the appropriate laws on the collection of goods and materials from government-owned public lands, whether the lands are federal, state, or municipally owned.

There are often laws pertaining to the commercial use of these lands, and the taking and/or use of wild animals, plants, and minerals or their parts may be restricted or forbidden. Vehicle access may also be restricted to certain areas. You can be fined or possibly even arrested for the violation of these laws, so conduct research on the laws BEFORE you enter these lands.

There are thousands of different things that you can find while you are outside doing yard work, recreating, or bee-bopping around in your ORV, snowmobile, or vehicle that you can quickly and easily sell. While you are out having fun, you might as well try to pay for the gas you put in the gas tank to get you out there, right?

Before you leave your house, you should prepare for locating items to sell. Put together a 'gathering kit' that you can bring with you, whether you are in a car or on a smaller recreational vehicle. Find a small gear bag or backpack that is the right size for you to carry, and does not get in the way of the other activities that you got you outside in the first place.

Inside the bag, you will need a lightweight set of tools that you will use often while gathering items to sell. You will want to tailor your set to the types of items that you like to sell. Make sure that you have plenty of room left over inside the bag to place items when you find them.

At the minimum, I would recommend including the following items: Work gloves, bug spray, a small first aid kit, a small magnet, a multi-tool (Leatherman-type) that has both types of screwdrivers, a knife, needle-nose pliers, and a wire cutter; several additional rolled bags i.e. garbage bags or burlap sacks to put stuff in, a map of the area you are exploring, a compass, a cellular telephone, pencil and paper, and this handy-dandy book for reference.

If you have a handheld GPS or smart-phone that has GPS capabilities, you are ahead of the game. You can mark locations to return to, and easily find your way back to your vehicle if you are out on foot.

OK, so after you are mobile, what are you looking for? Basically anything that people might want to use, or that you can find value in. You have already done part of your research by reading this book. You have an excellent selection of items to look for.

Now, just start thinking logically while you are out having fun. When you see things in the woods, either collect them, or write them down on your pad of paper to check when you get home.

When I started this gig, I sat down in front of a computer and just started searching for things that I could possibly find in the woods in my area. I did searches on EBay completed items and Google searches for items I was seeing while hunting, fishing, or whatever else got me outside. Some items were worth gathering, and some were not. Some items I immediately found that I could sell on eBay, some took more digging to find places to sell them.

#  ORGANIC ITEMS

I remember duck hunting near an abandoned beaver dam, and seeing lots of cool looking beaver-chewed sticks. I wondered if people would use them for rustic home or cabin décor. I grabbed a couple of medium sized logs with nice wood grains, and took them home. I found several areas on eBay where people had sold similar items for décor and animal taxidermy backgrounds.

People were also using natural beaver logs with no preparation for crafting candle holders for $2-5 apiece. If you wanted to do some work and either make the candle holders yourself, or power-wash and stain the logs, you could make even more money on each item.

In many areas, local businesses will also pay you to bring them outdoor goods and edible items. Bakeries, delicatessens, restaurants, and specialty shops like organic foods stores may pay good money for things you can easily find and gather such as: Berries, nuts, mushrooms, and edible plants like wild asparagus and wild leeks.

If you own wooded property, timber companies may pay you very good money to come to your property and harvest timber. Most timber companies will even do select cutting, where only specific trees are cut, or a stand of trees is thinned. Such a timber harvest is actually very beneficial to the health of the forest and the animals that live there, and any damage to the ground heals naturally in a short time period. Plus, you can receive substantial money for allowing the timber company to harvest on your property.

Similarly, if you own a large tract of land, you may consider contacting an oil and gas company to test your property for mineral harvest. You may be sitting on a gold mine, and don't even know it!

On a smaller scale, many other forest products can be sold to local companies for their resale. Such items would include: Christmas trees, saplings for tree sales, seeds and seed-bearing cones to nurseries for tree regeneration, pine and cedar boughs for wreath making, wood mulch, wood chips, and tree bolts to landscaping companies, and the list goes on and on.

I know several people who make hundreds of dollars every year gathering acorns and other seeds and selling them to tree nurseries, with very little preparation time. You only have to do a little leg work ahead of time and establish a relationship with the managers or owners of these nurseries so that you know what they are buying, and when to bring them your supply to get paid.

#  MAN-MADE ITEMS

If there is one thing that aggravates me to no end, it is seeing litter in the woods. There should be automatic jail time handed out to any person convicted of littering.

But, there _is_ some nice money to be made on trash found in the woods, or along the roadways. I regularly pick up trash when I find it in the woods or in rivers while I'm recreating. While I'm doing my good deed for the day, I'm also going to see if I can make some money on it, as long as I'm spending my time picking up after others.

First of all, make sure that you wear thick work gloves while handling any man-made materials that you find. There is the potential to be seriously cut, and you could contract a number of diseases by being cut by unclean glass or metal.

I do not open any trash bags found in the woods, and I highly recommend that you do not open any closed bags, either. The health concerns are obvious. You don't know what is in the bag, correct? At the least, you could be dealing with rotten food and diapers. At worst, the contents of a garbage bag could be explosive, if a drug manufacturer threw out the remains of a mobile meth lab!

So, where is the value in discarded litter? You should immediately recognize the intrinsic value of picking up unsightly, environmentally degrading litter in the area where you live. It should make you feel proud to help your community and conserve your local environment by making the effort to pick up that litter. That is the value in picking up most plastics, trash bags, broken glass, shingles, and other litter that has no resale value.

It should not be difficult at all to find a local business or a governmental agency that will allow you to dispose of bags of litter that you selflessly picked up from public land. You should not have to pay to dispose of such materials yourself.

There is also a lot of tangible money to be made at these dump sites. I can guarantee you that if 'push came to shove', I could feed my family for months solely off the scrap metal value of litter piles found in the woods on state land where I live. That's not my first choice of material to sell, but it would do just fine in a pinch.

In order to maximize your profit on this scrap metal, consult the chapter on Scrap Metal in this book for the separation and identification of particular metals.

If you have a scrap metal vehicle or trailer, you can continue to add magnetic steel from a number of litter locations until you get a full load to sell at the scrap yard. If you do not have a designated vehicle, you may opt to mark scrap metal spots on a map or GPS unit, until you think that you would have enough steel to make a load, and then pick them all up in the same trip.

Remember to remove anything that is not magnetic (non-ferrous) from the scrap metal, before going to the scrap dealer. Anything that is non-ferrous should be sold separately as it is has significantly more value than ferrous steel.

And now, let's talk about the real money. As you are loading your scrap metal, remove any items with dedicated recyclable value. One example would be aluminum beverage cans in states with deposit laws. There are also many other items with designated values listed in APPENDIX C, such as cellular telephones, Lithium-Ion Batteries, and printer cartridges.

Next, look to see if there is anything that you can sell individually. Look for any media items, like music CDs, DVDs, video games and books that are in good enough shape to sell.

One of my best finds ever was in a trash pile along a road on state land. I stopped to pick up the litter, and noticed a huge pile of 1980s heavy metal CDs that had been tossed out with the litter. Many of the cases and paperwork therein were destroyed by the elements, but 90% of the CDs themselves were just fine.

I listed over 100 of the CDs on Amazon, with values of up to $20 each. I sold most of them within two months! There was also a working video game system worth $50 in the pile. Of course, I also disposed of the rest of the litter that was there. Intrinsic value, folks.

You should also look for board games, handheld video games, and electronics to sell for parts, collectibles, vintage bottles, batteries, battery chargers, computers, cords, remote controls, and other similar items.

Check inside anything with a battery compartment for batteries. I have found many usable alkaline batteries lying around inside litter piles. You can also save the battery compartment doors to sell on commonly owned items like remote controls and toys. Save any rechargeable batteries as well. You can make very good money on large rechargeable batteries, if they are not completely dead. Even if you don't have the manufactured charger, it is still possible to recharge most batteries. I will provide you with a link later in this document that provides directions on how to recharge many supposedly 'dead' batteries.

After you have removed all of the items that you can sell individually and the recyclable items, hit all of the metal with your magnet. Take anything out of the pile that is non- ferrous. Make sure you remove any copper wires and cords. Make a separate pile for this material, or put it in a large sturdy bag. Also include in this pile any junk electronics that you plan on disassembling for sellable parts, or the interior copper and precious metals content.

Finally, remove the large steel frames from any furniture that is there. Items like sleeper sofas can have $10-15 in steel in their frames alone. Put the remaining ferrous metal in your scrap vehicle, separate from your non-ferrous pile. Take your valuable non-ferrous pile, bag it, and remove it. Complete your work by bagging the rest of the litter and disposing of it on the way to scrap metal dealer.

In addition to piles of litter, there are many other free single items that can be found while outside that you can sell. Along roadways you can find hubcaps and wheel rims worth $2-3 each at the scrap metal dealer, recyclable cans, bungee straps, ratchet straps, and if you are really luck, exhaust pipes with the platinum-containing catalytic converters attached. Junk 'Cats' are worth $40-150 each, because of the platinum content inside them!

If you can find a junk vehicle in the woods, congratulations! You can haul the body to the scrap dealer for at least $200, if you can get it out of the woods. If you can't get the car out, you may very well be able to strip out a bunch of parts to sell individually on eBay. You can also remove the 'cat' from newer vehicles, take all of the copper wires, remove the radio, etc. If it is an older vehicle and not too rusted, you may be able to sell the chrome trim, decals, hood ornaments and other collectible items for very good money.

Some other man-made items that I have found and sold or converted to personal use while outdoors are: vintage fishing lures and tackle, golf clubs, golf balls, railroad ties, railroad spikes, lumber, automobile batteries (why would you throw these out? You get at least $5 just by taking them to Wal-Mart!), tools, doors, door knobs, bench seats, coolers, bottles, vintage cans, winter outerwear, a paintball helmet, copper pipes, tents, hunting blinds, ice spuds, duck decoys, duck decoy anchors, shotgun shell hulls, brass shell casings, vintage shotgun shell boxes, can openers, collectible lighters, folding chairs, camp chairs, working radios, Walkman radios, an I-pod, and on and on.

For a complete list of free outdoor items that you can sell and where to sell them, see the Outdoors Items Appendix provided with this document.

#  SELLING SCRAP METAL: EASIEST MONEY YOU'LL EVER MAKE

I wish I could go back in time. If I could transport myself back to when I was a teenager, with the knowledge I have now about selling scrap metal, I could have saved myself several summers of misery working at the local grocery store. I could have been working outside at my own pace, and made twice as much money as I did bagging groceries and dealing with snobby tourists.

Finding and selling scrap metal is extremely easy, not very competitive, and you can do it anywhere. You can start collecting scrap for free, and you do not need a large area to collect it in. Plus, there is good money to be made in selling scrap.

In addition, you are cleaning up the environment by picking up metal that would otherwise take decades to biodegrade. You are keeping materials that you can make money on from being taken to landfills, and we have all heard that many landfills are completely full already.

So why doesn't everybody sell scrap metal, if it is so easy to make money on? Good question. I think that there are several things that keep the majority of people away. Many people seem to think that you have to be a scientist to identify different types of metals, and that selling to a scrap metal dealer is a mysterious process that requires extensive training to be able to complete.

This could not be further from the truth. You need absolutely no prior knowledge of metals to sell scrap. Selling scrap metal can be as simple as this: Find metal objects, throw them into a truck, transport the metal to the scrap metal dealer, drive your truck onto their scales just as you would pull into a drive-through car wash, unload the metal from your truck where they tell you to, re-weigh your truck, and go into the dealer to get paid. The whole process can be completed in twenty minutes for a pick-up sized load.

It is extremely easy, and you do not even have to know what type of metal you have. Of course, you will make much more money once you know how to separate your metals, but that is easily accomplished, too.

I also think that there is the perception that selling scrap would take up a lot of room on one's property, and that scrapping is a messy business. Well, that may be true if you are a large-scale scrapping outfit, but you can contain a modest scrap metal venture in a very small area.

I got into selling scrap as a way to minimize the loss on metal items that I had bought at garage sales to sell on EBay, but ended up not being able to sell. I was also picking up litter from the woods and looking for someplace to take the metal so that I did not have to throw it in the trash.

Initially, I just started throwing all of the metal into the bed of my plow truck, which I only used in the winter. The first time I emptied the truck out at the scrap metal dealer, I made $160, selling all types of metals together as 'Tin', which is how most scrap metal dealers classify loads of metal that are unprocessed.

Later, I did more research on scrapping, and found out that I could have made an extra $50 by selling the aluminum objects separate from the rest of the load. But hey, I was pretty happy at the time, making $160 on a bunch of junk.

#  GETTING STARTED SELLING SCRAP METAL

You can start collecting scrap without spending any money at all. All you need is a small area to collect metal in, some large boxes or bins, heavy work gloves, the tool kit described in the Outdoors section of this book, a magnet, and a vehicle or trailer to haul the metal to the scrap dealer in. Bolt cutters and a hacksaw come in handy, as well.

This chapter is intended to be a very general guide to the art of scrapping. After reading this chapter, you should feel very comfortable with the process of selling scrap metal. You will understand the basics of how to separate metal, and where to go online to increase your knowledge base. It is not a complete how-to manual for starting a scrap metal business. You will still need to broaden your knowledge of metals through experience and your own research.

Selling scrap metal is one area in which people with very little spare time can save themselves and their family significant money. Even if you do not want to commit the time and effort into starting a second business using the other information in this book, you should strongly consider selling scrap metal. You could easily save enough metal to sell once a year and pay for all of the Christmas presents for your family!

THE BASICS OF SCRAPPING

You have to realize that the scrap metal business works just like any other business. The metal itself has a value, which is similar to stock prices. The value is called a spot price. The spot price of each particular type of metal fluctuates, depending on supply and demand for that metal across large regions of the country and the world. The spot prices for each type of metal can be found at any time on the internet.

The spot price is the only point in the scrap selling process that has a fixed value. Everything else is determined by individual scrap metal dealers. To illustrate this, let's say that you have a load of shiny aluminum to sell. You check online, and see that the spot price for Aluminum is $0.85/LB. Should you expect to be paid $0.85/LB when you go to your local scrap dealer? Of course not.

The spot price is quoted for clean processed aluminum. You have used manufactured aluminum. The dealer you are selling it to is a middle-man. He has to buy your metal, and then negotiate a better price with the larger metal processing company that he sells to in order to make a profit.

What does that mean for you? Number one, you will never sell your scrap metal at the spot price, but it gives you a good indicator of whether the metal's value is rising or falling. Try to sell when the spot price is rising, not at the bottom of a price fall.

Number two, the prices quoted to you at a scrap metal dealer are not etched in stone and they are not the same at all scrap metal dealers in your area.

Scrap metal pricing is similar to how gas stations set gas prices. Not all of the gas stations in your area will charge the same price for a gallon of unleaded gas, but they will almost always be in the same ball park because of the overriding oil prices.

The difference between metal and gas is that sometimes if you contact the scrap metal dealer ahead of time, the buy price for particular metals can be adjusted if you have a large load of a particular type of metal. At the very least, you may want to check around to see which scrap dealer has the best buy price for the metal you are going to be selling before you decide where to take your scrap.

Before you even start scrapping, you should go to a Metal Spot Price internet page and take a look at the values of the common metals that you will be finding. You should know which metals are more valuable, so that you can look for them.

#  SEPARATING SCRAP METALS

The easiest way to increase your profits in the scrapping business is to correctly identify and separate the more valuable non-ferrous (non-magnetic) metals from the more commonly found ferrous metals, such as steel.

Let's revisit the load of metal that we sold at the beginning of this chapter. $160 is not bad for a load of junk metal. But, if you are going to make the effort to save the metal and haul it to the scrap dealer, you may as well get the maximum value for it.

You will want to sell loads of one particular classification of metal whenever possible, instead of half-full loads, or mixed metal loads. At the very least, you will want to remove the non-ferrous metal from the steel. Steel will get you about $240 a ton, or about 12 cents a pound. Shiny Aluminum can be sold for over 45 cents a pound, and bare copper wires can be sold for over $2.50 a pound.

Copper and aluminum can often be found inside large metal items, such as appliances. You can usually remove the more valuable metals in several minutes, making it well worth your time to do so.

So how do I tell the different types of metal apart, you may ask. There are many ways to identify metals, but the easiest method to separate metals is to use the visible characteristics of the metals. If the metal is not silver colored, remove it from the rest of the scrap. Non-silver metals would include copper, brass, bronze, gold (if you are lucky), and their alloys. All of these metals are worth removing and collecting separately.

For similarly colored metals, there are several ways to further distinguish them. The first way is to check the metal object with a magnet. This is particularly helpful for separating non-magnetic stainless steel and thick aluminum from common magnetic steel. A magnet will also tell you if a copper colored metal item is pure copper or an alloy, which is worth much less.

Another easy way to separate metals is by their weight. Lead items are extremely dense and very heavy. Steel items are also relatively heavy. Aluminum, on the other hand, is fairly light compared to non-ferrous Stainless steel. Shiny aluminum and non-ferrous Stainless can be difficult to differentiate for beginners.

A third way you can tell metals apart is with a 'spark test'. This method sounds more difficult than the other two methods, but really is quite easy. All it involves is hitting your metal with a rotary tool (Dremel) with a cutting wheel. This is extremely helpful for differentiating stainless steel and thick aluminum. Steel sparks, aluminum does not. You can also identify several high value metal carbides with a spark test.

Once you start separating the different types of metals, you will quickly become proficient at the task, and you will often be able to tell what type of metal an object is made of just by looking at it, or feeling the weight of it.

#  A TRIP TO THE SCRAP METAL DEALER

As I alluded to earlier, one reason many people do not sell scrap metal is because they are unfamiliar with the process of selling metal to a dealer. I believe that after reading this chapter, you will feel confident enough to go to the scrap dealer on your own for the first time.

I will go over a typical trip to the metal dealer. You will see that there really is nothing difficult about the process. The only thing that is difficult at all is loading the heavy metal into your truck or trailer.

The first thing that you must do is take an inventory of all of your collected scrap metal. Every trip that you make to the scrap yard costs you gas money and time, so minimize the number of trips, if at all possible.

You should already have your metals separated ahead of time. Usually, when I go to the scrap dealer to sell scrap, I have a pickup bed-load of steel. Put as much metal into the bed of you truck as possible, and then use ratchet straps or tie-downs to secure your load. It is illegal to transport large loads without securing them, and it is also dangerous for you and other motorists.

You may also have enough aluminum to fill a small trailer. If so, you can bring the trailer with you and save yourself a trip. Make sure to secure your load, just as you did with the scrap in your truck bed.

I usually have some non-ferrous scrap to sell, as well. That is where the real money is. You can pack up the inside of your vehicle with boxes of copper, brass, small amounts of aluminum, and other separated non-ferrous metals. For those people without access to pickup trucks or trailers, you will probably only be selling non-ferrous metals, as the ferrous metals are not going to be worth your time. You cannot transport enough volume of non-ferrous metal to make the trips worthwhile.

The only thing that you really have to prepare for is the unloading of the metal at the scrap yard. Make sure that you have your non-ferrous separated, and placed in either heavy bags or sturdy boxes, so that it is easy to handle when you unload at the scrap yard.

Before you leave, check all of your tie-downs, check the tires on your vehicle and trailer, and the fluids in your vehicle. You may be hauling more weight than your vehicle is used to, if you do not normally work your vehicles hard. It's OK if your vehicle looks like the truck from the TV show 'Sanford & Son' when you're ready to go. It is not supposed to look pretty.

Make sure that you have a pair of heavy work gloves, work clothes, and possibly a flat shovel for scooping loose metal pieces from your truck or trailer. It also doesn't hurt to have a hammer and crowbar, because sometimes large metal pieces will get wedged together and you will have to separate them.

When you arrive at the scrap yard, there will be an office building with a set of drive-on scales nearby, at the front of the property. Pull off of the road, and go into the office. Make sure that you have your wallet or purse with you.

Go to the main desk, and tell the attendant that you have scrap metal to sell. You will provide your identification, or the attendant may ask you for personal information, address, etc. This information is provided to prevent criminals from illegally selling stolen copper pipes and other high-end metals to scrap yards, and also is used to issue your check when your trip is complete.

The attendant will usually ask you whether you have non-ferrous metals to sell. The attendant will hand you a ticket or sheet of paper with your information on it, and send you back to your vehicle.

If you have non-ferrous metal to sell (which you should), you may be instructed to go to the non-ferrous unloading area first. When you get to the specified location, you will unload your boxes or bags of separated non-ferrous metals one material at a time. Each material will be weighed on a foot scale inside, and then you will deposit the material where the employee tells you to place it. The employee keeps track of the weight of the materials you brought. When you are done dropping off all of your non-ferrous metals, the employee will give his list of weights and materials to the main office for calculation. You may also receive a copy. This process takes only several minutes.

Next, you will sell your ferrous metals, which is usually steel, or mixed metal which is sold as 'Tin', or 'Unprocessed'. Pull your vehicle onto the main scale near the office building. There will be a large metal area on the scale, where you will center the weight of your load. Usually there is a set of lights that resemble traffic lights near the window of the office building.

The attendant inside the office will look out the window at your vehicle. Once it is positioned correctly and the weight from the scale has been recorded, the light will change colors, and you will proceed through the scales and into the main scrap yard.

Usually within sight of the scales, there will be another employee waiting for you. He or she will take a look at your load, and determine what type of material you have for the payment calculation. Hopefully, you have separated your metal, so that your payment is not calculated using the 'unprocessed' rate, as you will be losing significant money.

The employee will make a note on your ticket about the contents of your load, and then he or she will direct you where to dump. If you have all steel, you will be sent to an area where a large magnet will pick up the majority of the metal.

If you have a mixed load, or a bed cap or something else that prevents the magnet from unloading your metal, you will be directed to another unloading area. You will manually unload your metal into a large pile of metal objects. I always have to unload manually, as my truck has a contractor's rack over the bed. I unload my metal in about ten or fifteen minutes, it is not a big deal.

After you are unloaded, you head back to the front of the yard, re-weigh your empty truck on the same set of scales that you first weighed your load on, and then go back into the main office.

Hand the attendant your ticket. He or she will calculate the value all of your metals sold, and issue you a check for the full amount. It is as easy as that. The entire process should take you about half an hour, unless you have to wait in line to unload, which happens quite often.

I have been to a number of scrap yards, and the process is very similar at each one. If you have an additional trailer, you may have to go through the scales twice. The scrap yard may reverse the order of dropping of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. Other than that, things will go pretty much as I explained in this chapter.

#  PRECIOUS METALS: FAST, EASY MONEY

When most people think of selling scrap metal, they picture the loaded down pick-up trucks traveling down the highway with pieces of steel sticking out haphazardly from the overflowing bed. This is also where a lot of scrappers make their grocery money.

However, the real difference between the average scrapper and the successful businessperson is in their knowledge of the craft. Anybody can throw a bunch of junk into their trailer and make a couple of extra dollars, but the experienced scrapper knows that the real money in the scrap metal business is made in selling precious metals, such as gold, silver, and platinum.

Often, these precious metals, which can be valued at up to $1580 an ounce, can be found within larger pieces of machinery that is scrapped at the base scrap steel rate of near ten cents a pound!

Of course these precious metals are found in relatively meager amounts in these places, but it does not take much volume to net you a nice profit. The trick is to know where to locate the precious metals within the larger pieces of machinery. You have to do your research.

The easiest of the precious metals to find is copper (usually considered semi-precious). Almost all machinery and motors have copper inside them, due to copper's conductive properties. 95% of the wires that you find will have copper inside them.

Whenever you find copper, it is worth saving. Copper has a current spot price of $3.60 a pound. Even copper that is sealed inside motors and transformers can be sold at significantly increased rates over their base metals by selling it as copper breakage. Most scrap metal dealers will have a set rate for copper breakage, or electric motors, which currently sells for about thirty cents a pound, or three times more than scrap steel.

I remember the first time I took a load of scrap to the scrap metal yard. I had a truck bed overloaded with steel, and several large boxes of stripped copper. I was very surprised when the boxes of copper netted me almost as much money as the truck bed full of steel.

Again, copper is very easy to find. Start by saving all of the power cords that you see. If you see electrical items for free at garage sales, you should at least be saving the power cords for scrap copper. If something breaks or stops working in your home, cut the power cord off and save it. You should also disassemble appliances for interior copper and other precious metals.

The question often arises, as to whether the thrifty scrapper is further ahead to simply throw copper wires into a box and sell it as insulated copper, or to strip the insulation off and get the higher value for the non-insulated 'clean' copper. After doing a fair amount of research, the consensus seems to be that standard house wires and similar sized wires should be sold as insulated copper wires. Larger wires that would qualify as #1 copper should be stripped and sold as clean copper. Generally, #1 copper is considered to be any bare wire that is larger than a standard No.2 pencil lead and has a single layer of insulation. Anything smaller than that is #2 copper. #3 copper is telephone wires and computer cables.

Of course, if you have lots of spare time, feel free to make the extra profit and strip insulation to your heart's content, but remember - time is money.

Decorative solid copper items and copper tubing can also be found rather routinely at sales and thrift shops. Remember to keep your magnet with you. Non-magnetic clean copper can be sold for about $3 a pound. Non-magnetic copper coated ferrous metals are sold as copper breakage - thirty cents a pound.

You can also find gold and silver within the metal appliances and electronic scrap that you find discarded in various locations. This is where you can really make some extra dough. Silver currently spots at over $29 a troy ounce and gold sells for over $1580 a troy ounce. It does not take much gold or silver to make some nice money.

Where can I find this gold and silver, you may ask? Ah... That is question, isn't it? There is a ton of information on locating scrap silver and gold on the internet. Several excellent links have been provided for you in the free internet links at the end of this document.

To make a long story short, there are several locations where you can consistently find silver and gold in electronics and machinery. Computers have a fair amount of gold in the fingers on the connectors of the circuit boards, and also within the CPU processor chips. The older the computer is, the higher the gold content, in most cases. Some of the older circuit boards are actually gold plated.

Another good place to find silver and gold is in electrical contacts. While these contacts are often small and worth only 25 cents to a dollar, some silver contacts in vintage industrial machinery can be worth $20 a piece. I have found solid silver contacts in 1950s industrial lifts that weighed almost two ounces, or over $50 a piece!

This can be to your advantage, because a lot of the free electronics and machinery you are going to find are going to be old rusty vintage items. It is quite common to find 1950s or 60s electrical junk laying there in the woods, waiting for you to take it home and disassemble it.

Some other common places to find gold and silver is in thin interior wires in vintage electronics, some gold faced diodes in computers, vintage rotary telephone and telecommunications items, vintage video game systems, and inside cellular telephones.

I have provided an excellent link for several publications that I have bought and picked up a tremendous amount of information from, regarding the harvest of gold, silver and platinum from electronics, dental scrap, and other sources. I highly recommend that you check them out.

You can also find gold and silver quite regularly at sales and thrift shops, once you know what you are looking for. You would be surprised at how many sterling silver items that you can find at thrift shops once you get a knowledge base and start looking for them. Many of the people that price the items in thrift shops do not use current spot prices to price with, and you can often get a great bargain just by knowing the spot price and how to identify different types of precious metals.

There are many books and internet pages devoted to identifying gold and silver in its different forms, and also how to evaluate the gold content by using scratch-tests and strike sets. By all means, please take the time to research in this area while you are reading about how to find "Almost Free" items.

This book is devoted to locating free or almost free sources of income. You will not find "karat" gold or sterling silver items very often for cheap, but if you have done your homework, it is very possible to buy these items and resell them for a nice profit, so do your reading on this subject.

What we _are_ going to discuss in this book is where to find gold and silver for free! Yes, that's right. I have found hundreds of dollars' worth of gold and silver just lying around in the woods and in junk piles, just waiting to be reclaimed. Does it have the romance of panning for gold in a mountain stream Out West? No, it doesn't. But the value is the same \- gold is gold, plain and simple.

Where do we find this free gold and silver, you ask? Well, it's all around you. Gold and silver are among the most conductive of metals, which make them highly useful in a wide array of electronics and machinery. Gold and silver also are very resistant to abrasion and they do not oxidize (rust), which makes them the primary metals used in electronic contact points, and shiny surface coating for decorative items.

What is most important in locating gold and silver is to understand where it has been used. This is accomplished through diligent research, including the reading of this book. Remember, it does not take much gold or silver material to add up to significant profits.

If you can collect enough gold plated items or gold contacts to add up to one troy ounce of gold, then you have "mined" enough material to equal seven or eight large truck-loads of scrap steel! Gold currently spot-prices at close to $1620 a troy ounce. Silver, which is used more than gold, prices at close to $30 an ounce.

The historical price of gold is also important to understand (and silver historically parallels the gold price). The price of gold per ounce stayed fairly constant at between $35-40 from 1935 all the way up until 1971, when the US Dollar was removed from the Gold Standard. After 1971, the price of gold jumped from $40 an ounce to $150 an ounce by 1974, and then up to $615 by 1980. Do you think there's going to be a difference in how much gold was plated onto costume jewelry, gold rimmed plates, and eyeglass frames in 1968 when gold was $35 an ounce compared to 1995, when gold was $380 dollars an ounce? You betcha.

Even throughout the 1980s and 90s, gold stayed fairly steady at between $350 and $400, except for a spike in prices in the year 1980, when gold hit $615 an ounce. It wasn't until 2005 that the price of gold really skyrocketed. So, there is still significant gold to be found in items that are not all that old, relatively speaking.

That being said, the PRIME decade for finding the most gold and silver in electronics and decorations is from about 1961 to 1971. This is the time period when gold and silver had the most uses, and electronics from the era were often heavily plated with silver, and sometimes gold. Manufacturers were much more lenient in the application of gold and silver - remember, gold was only $35 an ounce, compared to over $1500 an ounce today.

It is common to find electronics from the 1960s for next to nothing at garage sales, thrift stores, or even laying in junk heaps. I guarantee you that there are thousands of these items in landfills near you right now. The electronics from the 60s are now over fifty years old – most items are broken, missing pieces, or downright outdated. A few are collector's items, but most are heavy, bulky clunkers that take up too much room in people's homes. Their loss is your gain.

Any time you see electronics for free, you should be grabbing and running. This is especially true, if they are from 1960-1985, or so. Not only do electronics from that era contain more gold than newer models, their interior components are also more valuable to sell on EBay, as we have discussed earlier.

#  WHERE TO FIND GOLD FOR CHEAP

We all know about the traditional methods of finding gold, including strip mining, gold panning, and dredging. All of them involve back-breaking labor and lots of money invested in order to get to the gold.

Why go through all this effort when there is gold to be found above ground for very little cost? We are going to talk about some specific items that you can find at garage sales, thrift stores, and in scrap piles for free.

First of all, look for scrap or discarded computers from the 1980s and 90s. You can find these computers for next to nothing. I have found quite a few computers in free boxes at sales and lying in the woods. They all have gold and silver inside, it is only a question of how much.

First, almost all motherboards contain gold in the connector fingers. Motherboards are the main circuit board inside the computer, and they will also have a heat sink with an IC chip underneath. The IC chip will also contain a significant amount of gold, and sometimes can be worth more than the spot gold value because of the collectible market of these chips to 'techies'. Check your EBay completed listings to see if the IC chip is worth more as a collectible piece.

Some of the older personal computers can have circuit boards that are completely lined with plated gold, and many of the connectors within the circuit boards also contain gold. Communications devices and high-tech items from the 1980s can also contain similar boards.

The circuit boards inside back planes and hard drives in computers also contain gold and silver in small amounts. These items are often more valuable sold as whole units than disassembled into smaller parts. The same is also true of RAM, or computer memory boards, which also contain small gold fingers. RAM is almost always more valuable when sold as whole boards than when the gold fingers are trimmed off of the boards. The smaller wires and the connector jacks that connect the wires to the circuit boards also often have gold or silver inside them.

Platinum can also be found in minute amounts in the platters of hard drives inside computers. These items can be saved and sold in large lots.

Gold can also be found inside of almost every cellular telephone. Some of the early cell phones can actually have a significant amount of gold in their circuitry, and these are the ones that you can find in junk piles and free boxes. All cell phones are worth money. If you see them, pick them up. If nothing else, there are many internet sites that offer a set price for scrap phones, dead or alive, so they are worth your time to pick them up.

Newer printer cartridges also contain gold in their contact buttons, which is why they also have a set scrap value on a number of internet sites.

There are many vintage items from the 60s and 70s that actually contain a fair amount of gold. Almost every item with a circuit board has gold or silver contacts. Some of the high- end electronics have large gold contacts. I once found a large factory loader from the 1960s that had interior gold contacts that added up to over ¼ ounce of pure gold, which is worth over $375 in today's gold market!

I have found that the 1960s audio equipment, including turntables, consoles, and radios will occasionally have silver coated copper wires throughout the entire main circuit board. These wires are always worth saving for precious metal refining. Almost all of these vintage audio items also have gold and silver contacts, and also have a fair amount of copper wiring inside.

Rotary telephones from the 1960s - early 1980s contain gold in their mouth pieces, and in several other internal contacts. The jacks of almost all telephones contain small amounts of gold inside the connectors.

There also many vintage items that you can find small amounts of gold in, where you would not expect to find gold. Such items would include: Some cologne and perfume caps, designer pens and pen holders, older trophies, dental work, lamps and lamp shades, gold colored trim in band uniforms and Rotary and Lions Club hats, Gold-trimmed china and dishes, picture frames, purse trim, lapel pins, clocks, cigarette holders, cuff-links, eyeglass frames, plaques, emblems, calculators, all switches, plug ends, telephone key pads, ribbon connectors, thermostatic contacts from high temperature items like popcorn poppers and electric skillets, coasters, waste baskets, vintage clothes gold-colored trim, coffee cups, and many more locations. If the item looks like it may possibly be gold, test it with your gold tester!

This subject is expanded on at one of our most popular pages titled Finding Gold and Silver on Garage Sale Academy.com.

1950s and 60s gold-colored lamps are fairly easy to find in thrift stores, as they are large by today's standards, and therefore sell slowly. Some of the these large lamps have a fair amount of gold plating in their bases, well worth the asking price at thrift stores, which is often $1-2.

There are many places that you can find items with interior components that you can sell, or scrap for metal value. You just have to use some ingenuity.

Besides finding items set out for free or discarded in the woods, you can also get these items for free by doing some leg-work. Think about where these items are going to show up.

Where do items that do not sell at garage sales go when the sales wrap up? In the garbage? Why not make yourself some business cards and give them to garage sales holders. Tell them you will haul away all their unsold items for free after the sale ends. You are going to get some junk, and may need access to a dumpster, but you will get a lot of good scrap metal and other items that we have discussed. For large sales, you may even get paid a nominal fee just to haul stuff away!

You can also make a classified ad or Craig's List ad that offers your services for removal of appliances, electronics and other items.

You could visit second-hand stores and antique shops and ask the manager if you could leave a large box for them to put broken or unsold vintage electronics, gold and silver plated items, etc. You may have a pay a small fee for each box-full of items, but probably not. Just start thinking about where dead electronics and appliances may be found, and you will come up more ideas on your own.

#  WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR GOLD AND SILVER CONTACTS

There are many investors looking to take advantage of the security of investing in gold and silver. The risk is considerably less than speculating on the stock market. Gold and silver are commodities with a finite supply. It is getting harder and harder to find, so the spot price is going to continue to trend upward over time.

The question for many gold and silver scrappers is: Do I save the scrap gold and silver and cash in several years after the gold prices advance, or do I cash in my gold immediately?

I have been saving my gold for several years now. I think that it's going to be a nice little kitty in several years, when our family is going to be paying for college tuitions. However, you may opt to cash in your gold, silver and platinum as you collect it. This can be accomplished in several ways.

First, you can send all of your contacts to an internet precious metals company, such as those listed in the Appendices in the back of the book. Keep in mind that if you sell your scrap gold to these companies, you will have to subtract your shipping costs in getting your gold to their location, and rely on their processes for evaluating the gold.

You can also take you contacts to a physical assayer or gold buyer in your area. They will assess the value of your gold or silver, and issue you a check for the value on site.

The third avenue for your consideration is more risky, but also will yield the highest value for your scrap precious metals. If you can effectively refine your own metal, you cut out several "middle-men", and get the most value from your hard work.

You must consider that the refining of precious metals is a risky business for beginners. The refining processes require the use of caustic materials, including acids. They also take some time and effort, and you will have to purchase chemicals and hardware to complete the refining.

If you choose to take this route, you do so at your own risk. Refining precious metals can emit noxious vapors and the acids can cause severe burns. You must have a secure area in which to refine, where you have ventilation system and can keep children away from. This is not a suggestion. It is necessity!

There are many different methods for refining precious metals, and I have not tried any of them, opting instead to hoard my gold and silver, with the eventual goal of selling to a reputable precious metal buyer. I do not recommend any one method of refinery. I t is up to you to decide after completing your research.

There are many different methods for refining precious metals, which can be found online through your research. Websites for refining gold and silver from electronic scrap can be found in the Links at the end of the document.

#  NOTES ON PRECIOUS METALS IN COINS!

Quickly answer the following question: How much is a U.S. Quarter Dollar worth? Twenty-five cents, you say? Not so fast, my friend.

The average person walking down the street will tell you that a quarter is a quarter. They are all worth twenty-five cents. That is true, if you are spending the quarter in a store. But, if you are a knowledgeable investor, you know that the quarter is currently worth $5.23 if it is from 1963 or before, due to the metal composition of the coin.

All quarters minted before 1964 contain 90% silver. The same is true of dimes from the same period. Even war nickels minted from 1942-45 contain 35% silver, and are worth $1.35 at today's melt value. For a complete list of melt values for circulated coins, check the Links at the end of this document.

90% silver coins are tough to find on the street. Consider yourself very lucky if you receive a silver coin as change in a payment transaction. There are not many of these left in circulation, due to people knowing the value of the silver contained in the coins. That being said, there is nothing wrong with checking your piggy bank to see if there is some silver in there!

The melt value also gives you a reference point, so that you can determine if you want to buy silver coins if you find them at flea markets, antique stores, or garage sales (rarely). Many antique store owners do not frequently update their prices, and the silver spot price can shoot up from time to time, allowing you to pick up silver below the spot price.

Even if the silver is priced at spot, you may elect to buy the coins, and save them to sell when the spot price rises. Silver and gold are very dependable investment options; much safer than stocks. There is only so much metal that is left to be mined or reclaimed. The price is going to go up eventually. It's only a matter of when, and how much.

Silver coins can be hard to find at an affordable price, but one coin that you can easily find that has a definitive spot price is copper pennies. I remember researching scrap metals on EBay, and seeing people buying bag fulls of pennies. I was intrigued. Why are people buying pennies when they are only worth one cent?

Then, I thought about it a little more. It's all about volume and investment. All U.S. pennies minted before 1986, and Canadian pennies minted before 1994 are made of 95% copper. A 1980 Lincoln penny is currently worth almost three cents in melt value, although it is illegal to melt the coins down for copper (it is NOT illegal to melt down old silver coins, for some reason). Regardless, the coins still contain a specified amount of copper, and are traded based on that value. The value of copper is also on the rise. Start saving your old pennies. Ten years from now you will be glad that you did.

#  NOTES ON SATELLITE DISHES AND RECEIVERS

A person could make a nice side-job business by offering to remove unsightly decaying satellite dishes from people's yards for a nominal fee, or for free, if that does not work. You can also stop at homes that have these old dishes, and offer your service in removing them. Many people will be appreciative to you for cleaning up their yards or homes.

Start looking for these old outdated, non-functioning satellite dishes and you will see them everywhere. Look for the huge 3-4' wide mesh dishes from the 1980s and early 90s. None of the systems that these dishes were designed for are in use anymore. Also look for the older model DIRECTV and Dish Network dishes. They will usually be sun faded and have green mildew or moisture marks on them.

Many of them are even on ground level, so you don't have to mess with climbing ladders and getting on roofs. People don't have any use for them anymore, but they do not want to take the time or make the effort to remove them.

This is great for you. You can remove dishes on ground level in about fifteen minutes. All you have to do is cut the pole off and throw the whole pole and dish into your truck and you are done. Disassemble the dish from the pole later at your facility.

Cut the sod or turf in a circle around the hole and attempt to save the grass for when you are done. Dig down about 8" around the base of the pole. Make the hole wide enough to get a reciprocating or cut-off saw (or a hacksaw, if you don't have access to a cut-off saw) into. Cut the pole off level with the ground. Trim any cords that are showing. Put a small board over the stump of the pole, so it does accidentally cut someone's feet if it gets dug up. Cover the board with dirt level with the yard. Replace the sod, if you were successful in saving it. If not, you may elect to carry a small bag of grass seed with you to fix the hole that you made.

You should also ask the resident there is they have the receiver box or remote control for the dish that you removed for them. The receivers contain large circuit boards that you can harvest precious metals from. The remote controls also have small boards inside.

Why go through the hassle of removing dishes? Gold. There is gold and silver in all satellite transponders, and there is quite a bit in the older large dishes, and even the first generation DirecTV dishes. The transponder is the plastic piece in the center of the dish that receives the signal from the satellite itself. The dish itself is also usually magnetic stainless and if you have a good number of these, you can get a higher rate for the stainless than normal shred value for steel.

But, back to the gold. I just opened up several transponders from vintage dishes to see what was inside them. I was surprised to find that the entire circuit boards inside several transponders were plated in gold, and there were several other interior components that had gold in them too. The circuitry also was lined with silver. The jacks were brass, with gold pins.

To get at the interior circuit boards, hit the seam on the transponder with a hammer to split it open. The circuit board comes out very easily.

#  SELLING SCRAP METAL ON EBAY

It is easy and profitable to sell scrap metal on eBay. I have found that I consistently make more cash per pound, selling solid copper and brass on eBay than I do selling the same materials at a scrap yard.

I will go through this process, as I did for selling metal at a scrap yard.

First, go onto the USPS website and order yourself a selection of Priority Mail shipping boxes. All of these boxes are free to order, and have no shipping charges. The USPS wants customers shipping items by Priority Mail, as it makes them more money than the same items shipped Parcel Post or First Class Mail.

Get a variety of sizes of boxes, but make sure that you get the large regular Priority Mail and Large Flat Rate Priority Mail boxes, plus some smaller regular Priority Mail and Medium Flat Rate boxes.

Once you get the boxes, start collecting your scrap metal in the Large Flat Rate Boxes, especially solid metal copper and brass. The copper box will probably contain copper pipes, ornamental copper items, and copper connectors, etc. The brass box could have ornamental brass objects, plumbing fixtures, etc. Many scrap metal dealers require you to keep brass bullet casings separate from other brass, as there are small amounts of other metals in casing primers.

Once you fill up a Flat Rate box with one type of scrap, you are ready to sell it on eBay. Weigh your box with the metal contents inside it on a scale with a digital read-out.

Take a digital photo of the scale, with the weight of the box displayed on the readout of your scale, so that your potential bidders on eBay can be confident in the accuracy of your auction. These potential bidders will be bidding based almost entirely on the weight of the scrap metal in the box, so they will want to be able to verify the exact weight of the product.

Next, dump out the box on a flat surface and take some photographs of the contents. If you have ornamental items in your box, take additional photos of those items.

Next, download the photos to your computer, and then log in to your eBay account. Go to the 'Sell an Item' page on eBay. There are two categories that you can sell scrap metal in: Coins and Paper Money, Bullion and Business & Industrial, Metals & Alloys. List your scrap metal in one of these two categories.

Go to the photograph section and upload your digital photographs to your auction listing page.

An example of a title that I would use for my auction would be along the lines of: '24# (LBS)

#1 SCRAP COPPER Bowls Pipes Decorations'. #1 Copper is the designation scrap dealers use for solid copper items, or large stripped copper wires with no insulation, and is the highest grade of copper. The additional descriptors may also get collectors of ornamental copper items to bid on your auction.

Make sure that you are accurate in your description of the auction. Subtract the weight of the box when providing the weight (usually about 8 ounces for a Large Flat Rate box). Under the Shipping section of the listing, click on 'Large Flat Rate Box', and use the 'Calculated Shipping' option, with an additional $1-2 added, so that some of your eBay and PayPal fees are covered by the shipping cost.

List your auction. I like to start my auctions between 3:00 and 9:00 PM, as that as when the most users are on eBay.

When the auction is complete, seal the Flat Rate Box, address it with the winning bidder's address, and take it to the post office to ship it, or if you are already an internet seller, use your online shipping service and ship from home. It is as easy as that!

#  TO KEEP ASSEMBLED, OR DISASSEMBLE; THAT IS THE QUESTION!

One of the more difficult decisions in maximizing profits on large pieces of vintage electronics or machinery is figuring out whether to sell the entire item on EBay, or to take the item apart and sell the interior components.

There are several things that will affect your decision. The first is the overall size of the item. It is common to find large appliances, console stereos, exercise equipment and other similar-sized items with a 'FREE' sign on them along the roadways in any small town. Should you pick them up? Heck yes, you should.

The question then becomes, how do I sell this bulky piece of junk? Obviously, nobody is going to pay the shipping fees for shipping these items weighing several hundred pounds, unless the item is extremely valuable.

It is possible that you can sell the item on EBay, with a free local pickup option for the shipping method. The winning bidder then has to make arrangements with you to pick up the item after the auction is completed.

You can also list the item on Craigslist or in the local classified section of your newspaper. Selling the item whole is often the fastest and least time-intensive method of selling large items. There is almost zero preparation time, and you can often unload items in one week or less.

You should sell items whole if you determine that the item is collectible in the condition you find it in (no restoration costs to you), and if you think somebody near you would want to buy it. This is often the case with audio equipment, juke boxes, large advertising items, and arcade games. These types of items have many collectors, and they will buy whole items whether they work or not.

There are some issues to consider when selling whole items, such as the ones that we have discussed. The most important issue is that in order for you to sell the item, you have to know whether it works, or not. If you advertise that the item works, it had better be completely functional. This is especially true if you sell your item on EBay, as you do not want to receive negative feedback from your buyers, or nobody will want to bid on your auctions.

You may decide to advertise the item in 'As-Is' condition, which means that buyer or bidder is buying your item as they see it in the ad or auction page. 'As-Is' condition means that you are unsure of the operating condition of the machinery and components, or that you know that the machine does not work. This is often a safer way of selling large pieces of machinery with many moving parts.

You also have to keep in mind that old machinery that has not been used for a long period of time will often break down quickly when it is put back into use. In other words, if you test something for a couple of minutes and it seems to work fine, it may still break very soon after your buyer starts using the item. Then, you have to deal with possibility of having the buyer leave you negative feedback or having to at least partially refund the sales price because the item broke. Imagine how you would feel if you bought a cool collectible vintage juke box, and then it broke down after you played less than ten songs on it. You'd want your money back, right?

I honestly have sold very few large whole items, due to the problems I've already discussed. Nobody wants to pay shipping costs on these types of items, and gas prices prevent people from driving long distances to pick them up.

It is also routinely more profitable to disassemble large items and sell the components on eBay. I can remember multiple occasions, where I attempted to sell electronic items that weighed between ten and seventy pounds on eBay and received no bids at under $10, due to the shipping costs. After I received no bids, I disassembled the electronics and sold the components for 5 to 10 times that amount within several weeks.

One good example of this was a vintage 1960s console stereo / record player that we found at a garage sale for $5. We hauled it home and put in our basement. It worked great! It had a sharp looking wooden cabinet, and contained a radio, a record turntable, and even an 8- track player with some old working Elvis, Aerosmith and Johnny Cash tapes. I don't remember the manufacturer, but it was a mid-range brand name that I was familiar with. In other words, it was not a top-of-the-line collectible brand.

Everything worked great on the console, and I used it a lot when we first got it, and then less and less frequently over time. Eventually, we decided that the console took up a lot of room, and we wanted to go another route with décor in the basement, so we tried to sell the stereo.

We listed the whole console on eBay for $20, with a free local pickup shipping method. It did not receive a bid for three re-lists at $20.

My wife wanted to put the console out for free at the roadside, but I said no. Even though this was at the beginning of our selling careers, I knew enough to take apart the console and try to sell the interior parts.

It has been about seven years since we sold the console, but from my recollection, it took about four hours to completely take it apart. It took a couple of hours to research which parts to sell on EBay, and another couple of hours to list the items. After about two weeks, I had sold the 8-track tapes for $20, the 8-track player for about $25, some parts off of the turntable for $15, two sets of large interior speakers for $35, the cloth wiring for $10, the tuner assembly for $15, and then scrapped the rest for another $20-30 in scrap copper and other metals. If I knew then what I know now, I would have made another $20-30 in selling name plates, the turntable stylus, the cloth speaker coverings, and other items, and also an extra $10+ in scrap gold and silver contacts. You get the point.

Recently, I helped my mother remove a 10-year old treadmill exercise machine from her house. I took it apart in less than an hour, and sold the motor for $25, the digital display for $15, the rollers for $10, the track for $5, and it had about $25 worth of scrap metal in it afterwards.

I found a dead Pioneer tuner stereo at a garage sale for free about three years ago, and sold the oak case for $50, the metal screw-on feet for almost $20, and the name plate for another $10. I sold assorted components for another $20, and there was about $10 worth of scrap metal inside, mostly copper, aluminum and brass. These are not just isolated incidents, I find this stuff all of the time.

If you think about it, the selling of components makes much more sense on many levels. The shipping cost for these smaller components is usually going to be under $10. People can afford to pay for shipping for parts, rather than paying significantly higher shipping costs for whole units.

There are many, many collectors of these types of vintage electronics. If you can think of a popular type of electronics, somebody probably collects them. Collectors enjoy tinkering with interior components, upgrading parts, and customizing their units. Plus, old systems often break down and parts fail. In other words, people that like these old machines need parts often, and they are the type of people who enjoy being on a computer and buying things online.

Vintage components are also very difficult to find at physical stores, even in metropolitan areas. Do remember seeing stores that sell vintage audio or computer components? Me either. It's much easier to go to eBay and find what you are looking for there, than to locate a physical store that sells vintage replacement parts.

#  MAXIMIZE PROFITS IN VINTAGE ELECTRONICS

There are several things that you will want to research BEFORE you take apart any vintage electronic item.

As we discussed before, research Completed Items on EBay, and determine which components are worth selling. Again, you should know ahead of time which assemblies are better sold whole, and which assemblies should be broken down into even smaller components, or individual parts.

I have also provided you with an excellent free resource in the Links which describes in detail how to disassemble many different large electronics and appliances for scrap value.

Once you have an idea of which parts you will be removing for sale, take your item to a location where you can make a mess, but not lose any small parts. A large table top or countertop works well.

Gather your tools. The tools you will use most often are: both types of screwdrivers, needle-nose pliers, wire cutters, an adjustable wrench, a hammer (Oh, yeah! Breaking' stuff is fun!), a magnet, several large vinyl trash bag, and safety glasses and gloves.

You can expedite the process with a cordless drill or power screwdriver with both driver bits. A power rotary tool (Dremel) with a supply of cut-off disks and a drill bit is well worth the investment, if you do not have one. I use mine constantly.

You may also need a set of sockets, and you will occasionally find exotic screw heads like star bits and Allen wrench heads, but if you have a Dremel, you can cut off the screws, or make them into standard screwdriver heads by slicing them with the cut-off disk. You will also use the Dremel often for cutting off rusted or stripped screws and bolts. It also cuts through thick copper cord insulation like butter, saving you tons of time!

Please heed a word of caution. Before you start breaking stuff, make sure you know what you are doing. Remember, in the 1950s and 60s, nobody even knew what a 'health code violation' was. Old electronics and appliances can contain some nasty stuff. There is mercury inside some old glass switches and components, for instance. You should not open anything that is sealed in glass, or welded shut, unless you know for sure what is inside.

OK, now that we got that out of the way, let's break some stuff. Start on the outside and CAREFULLY remove any decorative items, advertising badges, knobs, feet, etc., that you can sell. Remember, the plastic is going to be old and brittle on vintage items. If you snap the emblem in half, it is worthless. Believe me, I have broken some, even though I was being very careful. Even the glass in the display covers is more brittle in many older components.

After the outer pieces are removed, check eBay Completed Listings to see if the outer shell of your item can be sold. Often, the shells and cases of audio components, and even rotary telephones can be sold.

I usually start by using the cordless drill and unscrewing all of the screws that I can see on the outside of the device. Remove the outer shell, or the access panel to get at the interior of the item. If the shell is going to be sold, put it in your 'Sell' pile. If it is not going to be sold and it is plastic, throw it in your trash bag. If it is metal, hit it with a magnet. If it is ferrous, throw it in your 'Steel' pile. Sometimes the shell will be aluminum and should be saved in its own pile with other aluminum.

I save all of my screws, bolts and other connectors, as well. I put them all in a large coffee can. When it's full, I intend to sell the lot on eBay in the vintage electronics category for about $20. I also sometimes use various screws when I need them for household repairs, or sometimes screws are sold with components, and I need to replace a couple that I lost. Occasionally, you will find screws and bolts made of solid brass or aluminum. Save these in their respective scrap pile.

Now that you are into the interior of the item, find the components that you are looking to sell, and remove them. Put them in your Sell pile. Save the screws and attachments that affix the items that you are going to sell if possible and sell them with the component. If you lose a screw, do not worry about it. The screws are just for insurance, in case the buyer needs them. They are not required.

Try to avoid clipping wires connected to components that you plan to sell. Carefully pull wires that have jacks or plugs from their ports using needle-nose pliers. Remember, your buyer is going to be hooking the component into his system, and is not going to want to splice wires, if it is avoidable.

If there are multiple components available to buy on eBay, and some of the listings have the entire wires, with the plugs, and yours have clipped ends, your item will not get many bids, or will not sell if it is a fixed price auction.

Once all of your sellable components have been removed, the fun starts. Take one last look, and see if there might be anything else that you could sell that you did not find on eBay before. When you are satisfied that everything that could be sold has been removed, you are ready to start scrapping.

You should realize that there are also whole components that can be sold as scrap, on eBay, via an E-Scrap website, or at your local scrap yard. Internet sites such as Boardsort.com offer fixed prices for items such as computer hard drives, circuit boards, cellular telephones, and computer power supply boxes. You should check these sites so that you know what you will be saving, and the prices that are offered. Several of these sites are listed in the appendices of this document, with hyperlinks to their websites.

Now that you know what you are looking for, get out your USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes. Label the boxes with the materials that you intend to place in them. In addition, you will need extra-large boxes or totes for ferrous steel, and medium and low class circuit boards. You will have a lot of these materials.

I normally collect a fair amount of vintage electronics and appliance parts before I have a disassembly session, so that I can get a lot of scrap to sell at one time.

When I start scrapping, I always have the following Large Flat Rate boxes ready for material collection: Bare Copper, Insulated Copper, Bare Brass (It is OK to have copper attached to brass, and most scrap yards allow chrome covering over brass, as well), old aluminum, shiny aluminum (often aluminum heat sinks), and a smaller box for silver and gold contacts and components I intend to break down for precious metal content.

If there are computer hard drives in the pile, they usually require their own special boxes for material that will be sold separately, or sent to Boardsort.

I usually keep another box of copper / aluminum heat sinks, and later take the Dremel to the copper wire. If you use the cut-off disk on the Dremel, you can slice the copper all the way down to the spool, and then peel off the copper. Place the copper in your shiny copper box, and save the heat sink bases. They are often stainless steel, and can be sold separately at scrap yards for decent money. You will find a lot of large heat sinks in old electronics and appliances. I found a heat sink several days ago in a 1950s industrial washing machine that had ten pounds of copper spooled inside it. The stainless base weighed 18 pounds.

I also save all of my plug ends from electrical cords in a box, and later peel the prongs off with pliers or cut open the plug end with the Dremel, and remove the metal. Older plug have brass prongs, and most newer plugs are made of shiny aluminum. You are required to cut the plug ends off of copper electrical cords before you can sell them at the scrap dealer, so you will be cutting off the plug ends, anyway.

Boardsort also offers a fixed rate for wire and cord connectors that contain gold. Many computer connectors that resemble bristles at the ends, or have many tiny holes contain small amounts of gold and silver. Ribbon ends also frequently contain precious metals. You may decide to save these connectors in a box, and sell them on eBay, as well.

Most scrap dealers also buy components containing copper as 'Copper Breakage' or 'Electric Motors'. Save components containing copper in a box. Many of these components can also be easily broken open with a hammer or cut open with a Dremel, and then you can remove the copper and brass pieces that are inside to maximize your profits.

Make sure that you are keeping an eye out for precious metal contacts while you are scrapping. Old electronics and appliances can have relatively large contacts that are often pure silver, and sometimes gold. Look on the ends of brass and copper fingers where wires are connected, inside all electric motors, and inside any components that spin at high speeds or generate a lot of heat.

Contacts can range in size from the width of a pencil lead all the way up to the diameter of a large watch battery. Many gold contacts will be bright and shiny gold-colored buttons. They are easy to spot, as gold does not tarnish. Silver contacts can be more difficult to find, as they are often dulled and tarnished with age, and can blend in with the base material.

If you are unsure if the contacts are silver or gold, lightly scrape them with a screwdriver, or hit them with the Dremel disk. The will be bright and shiny under the exterior coating of grime. If you're still not sure, test with your gold tester, or throw them in your 'Gold and Silver' box and refine it with the rest of the material in the box later.

When you find good contacts, clip the button of silver or gold off, and then keep the base material for brass or copper scrap. Don't waste the whole brass or copper finger by refining it in your gold and silver material.

When you fill up the Flat Rate boxes, photograph the materials inside, weigh the box (take a photo of the box with the scale read-out), label the box with the weight, and then list the material on eBay, or save it to take to the scrap dealer.

The last step is the most important. Make sure that you clean up your mess after you are done bashing electronics! If you do your business inside, your significant other will not be happy with the end result of your destruction. If they are not happy, then you will not be happy either, right?

If you have an outdoor shop or disassembly area, you should still clean up the mess. Metal pieces can be sharp, and kids or pets can get cut on them.

#  TREATING YOUR BUSINESS AS A BUSINESS: INCOME TAX ISSUES

You don't have to be an accountant or a business major in college to effectively manage your small business. In my opinion, the one thing that keeps the majority of internet sellers from graduating from a small-time operation into a real business is the failure to understand where they are making money and where they are losing profits.

On the surface this sounds like it would be common sense, but often, the sources of the issues are not as evident as you would think. Anybody can look at their checking accounts and see how much money eBay or Amazon is depositing into them. But is that the bottom line profits of your business? Of course not.

I highly recommend keeping track of your profits and expenses on a spreadsheet, so that you can get a picture of your overall money flow.

There are many different spreadsheets online that you can tailor to your selling situation. Find one that you like and start using it from the outset of your selling or scrapping career. You will be very glad that you did.

Keeping your spreadsheet helps you in a number of different ways. First, you can see which segments of your selling are making you the most money. Second, you can find areas where you can save yourself money in over-expenditure on packaging supplies, storage fees, gas money, etc.

To illustrate the second point, I remember reviewing our numbers after one season of garage sailing. We thought that we were doing really well, because we were making good profits on a very high percentage of the items that we bought. However, after crunching numbers, we were not as happy. We were losing a lot of our profits in gas costs and meals while driving from sale to sale. Also, a lot of the items were we selling were large, bulky items, and were costing us more money for packaging supplies. We also realized that we were spending a lot of time and money driving to the post office with packages.

These discoveries that we made directly led to us changing where we bought inventory, how we kept track of travel expenses, and investing in using an internet postage and pick-up service.

Keeping track of your expenses also prepares you for completing your income taxes. Not only are you required to claim your income from internet sales on your income tax returns, your internet sales business can actually help you with your tax burden, or increase your refund.

This is especially true in the first year of your business, as you are allowed to claim start-up expenses for expenditures, such as computers, smart phones, Wi-Fi and high speed internet installation, storage units, shelving, desks and furniture, and other odds and ends that you need to start your business. Just ensure that you are using the items that you are going to claim as business expenses only for your business. If you use any of the items for personal use in any manner, you will need to adjust for this personal use. Failure to do so, could lead to large fines if you are audited.

Keeping you receipts organized is also very important. Not only does that allow you to see where you are spending your money, it is also necessary to be able to verify spending to claim them on your income tax returns. You can claim meals and other expenses while you are conducting your business (finding inventory), overhead costs (packaging tape, computer paper, etc.), and advertising expenses, but only if you have receipts to verify your claims.

Another very nice tax deduction you can claim is for your home office. If you have a portion of your home or other building that is used EXCLUSIVELY for the execution of your business, you can claim that portion of your home's utilities, repairs, and property taxes on your income taxes. That can be a huge break. You can also claim the cost of the degradation to your office space and the furniture and appliances that you use in your business. All of the forms needed to claim these items are found on tax preparation applications, such as TurboTax. You may have to do some research, or ask you tax professional, but the time will be well spent.

Just make sure that you understand that if you claim a home business deduction, you will be more likely to be audited at some point. Ensure that you have reviewed the applicable IRS rules, and have receipts and paperwork to verify your deductions.

#  DONATIONS

Another way that you can save money is to donate items to Goodwill or similar non- profit organizations. This would include both your own personal items and your business inventory items that did not sell at auction or on Amazon.

One website that will greatly assist you in this area is www.ItsDeductible.com. The website provides you an acceptable allowance to claim for a wide array of household items in two condition categories. For instance, a used vinyl record in average condition may be claimed for $2. The values are accepted by the IRS. You may be surprised how much a large box of clothing will allow you claim on you taxes. You can also claim the mileage for you to get from your home to the donation site.

You do not get to claim 100% of the value of the donations to Goodwill, but the amount that you can claim can be significant, if you donate continually throughout the year.

Make sure that you take pictures of the contents of the boxes and bags that you donate, and save them in a folder on your computer, so that you can verify what you have donated.

ItsDeductible is also partnered with TurboTax, and other tax prep applications. This allows the tax applications to directly download your information from your donations and mileage on your ItsDeductible page, and place the values in the correct areas of your return.

This is a huge time saver!

#  THANK YOU, READERS!

Thank you for taking the time to read this book. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed researching the background content and putting this book together.

Please put your mind to immediately applying what you learned here in Almost Free Money. DO NOT wait until next week or next month to start! You can find items to sell in any location, and at any time of the year.

YOU have to make up your mind to get the ball rolling, and it will be all downhill from there. I hope that you will have as much fun as my family and I have finding treasure for free, or plucking dusty gems from garage sales and thrift stores.

If you have any questions, contact me on my Facebook page, at Garage Sale Academy's Forum, on Twitter, or email me at almostfreemoney@yahoo.com. I would like to hear from you!

If you feel that this book has helped you to find new and enjoyable ways to make money or save your family cash, I humbly ask you for only two things. #1, tell your family and friends about this book, and #2, please take several seconds to leave positive feedback regarding this book on its Amazon Detail Page. Positive feedback directly affects other readers' reviews and leads to additional orders, and the proceeds from this book will go directly into my sons' college funds.

Thanks again, and please proceed to the Appendices, where over 500 specific items that you can find are listed, and also over 20 links are provided to aid in further research and enhancement of the knowledge that was provided in Almost Free Money.

#  WEBSITES AND LINKS

Here are some very helpful websites and web pages to jump start your research. These are my favorites, after many hours of surfing (You are welcome!)

1. <http://www.scrapmetaljunkie.com/scrap-metal-handbook-guide>

I still can't believe this site is free. A tremendous amount of information, and well organized. The site provides a nice explanation on how to sort and identify scrap metals.

This is the only site that I have found that provides step-by-step instructions on how to disassemble appliances and other large items for maximizing scrap recovery.

Includes: How to take apart a TV, Computer, Washing Machine, Microwave, and many more items. Also has an excellent blog, with information from many experienced scrappers. Regardless of whether you are a beginner, or an experienced scrapper, if you have not been to this site, you will make money by spending time here.

2.  http://www.scribd.com/doc/20327561/Scrap-Parts-Comp-Identification#outer_page_1

Scraper's Master Parts List: A nice summation of where you can find valuable gold, silver and platinum in computers and other electronics. Indexed, with photo identification of components like diodes, transformers, and capacitors and where to find them within the electronics.

3. http://boardsort.com

This company will pay you up front through PayPal immediately upon confirmation of your information with digital photo of your material. They pay competitive prices for computer scrap, gold board fingers, and some other related e-scrap. You have to pay for shipping, but they pay up front, which is nice. They also have an updated price list of what they pay for a variety of materials, so you know what you can expect to be paid when you send them your scrap.

4.  http://voices.yahoo.com/find-almost-free-gold-thrift-shops-yard-sales-beginner-113530.html?cat=51

Also has a link for finding silver. Good explanation of the different classifications of gold and silver, their markings on jewelry, and how to find it for cheap at garage sale, thrift shops, etc.

5. <http://fairsalvage.com/material_info.html>

A sample page from a scrap metal yard - good descriptions of different classifications of scrap.

6. <http://fairsalvage.com/pricing_clare.html>

A sample price list from the same scrap yard.

7. <http://www.ehow.com/how_7830442_refine-gold-plating.html>

How to refine your scrap and plated gold to .995 pure. Requires chemicals and safety equipment. Do this at your own risk.

8. <http://shorinternational.com/RefineAgInstruct.php>

How to refine plated silver and silver contacts to .995 pure silver. Alternate method using household chemicals. Do this at your own risk.

9. <http://cointrackers.com/is-my-coin-silver.php>

Good information on silver coins, and actual silver content. Did you know that a 1963 USquarter is worth $2.09 due to silver content?!

10. https://www.auctiva.com

eBay listing web site. We use this exclusively for making our EBay listings. You get free templates and scrolling display, which lets visitors on your auctions see all of your other ongoing auctions. Auctiva also allows you to use an unlimited number of photos in your listings. Creates professional-looking auctions, which helps breed confidence with bidders. Current price $15.99 a month, after free trial for new users.

11. https://itsdeductibleonline.intuit.com

As discussed in Donations section. Provides IRS-accepted values for your donations, and keeps track of your donations for the entire tax year. Inserts your donations into online Income tax forms such as TurboTax.

12. http://used.addall.com

Free book search with values, used for finding values for rare and collectible books. Save this to your favorites, you should be using this site on a regular basis.

13. http://pulse.ebay.com

Provides a 'Hot List' for EBay completed listings. There is a drop-down box at the top for searching specific categories.

14. http://www.isoldwhat.com

Has entire listing of EBay categories, and also number of individual listings for each category and subcategory. Also has Amazon browse counts by category.

15. http://www.metalprices.com

Spot prices for most precious and scrap metals, plus historical prices, with graphs.

REMINDER: The category number in the Appendices tables refers to the eBay category number that you should list that particular item in. Just cut-and-paste the number into the eBay category number box on the eBay listing page, or into the Category Search Bar.

<> If you are viewing in large font sizes, it may distort the edges of the tables. You may wish to order the Softcover or DVD version of Almost Free Money. The table is optimized for Kindle Fire, but it is impossible to size this table for all readers, due to Kindle format limitations.

SMD – Scrap Metal Dealer VI – Various Internet Sites E – E-Scrap Sites, like Boardsort EM – eBay Motors

#  APPENDIX 1: DEFINED VALUE ITEMS

# -- ITEM -- CAT. -- DESCRIPTION

1 -- Air Conditioner Compressors -- SMD -- $3

2 -- Alternators, Vehicle -- SMD -- Abt $4

3 -- Auto Bodies -- SMD -- $300+

4 -- Batteries, Lithium-Ion -- SMD -- At least .60/LB

5 -- Calculators, Graphing -- VI -- $4-20

6 -- Cam Corders -- VI

7 -- Cameras, Digital -- VI

8 -- Cartridges, Ink Toner -- VI

9 -- Catalytic Converters -- VI, SMD

10 -- Cellular Telephones -- VI -- Working Phones to $80, Junk phones still $4

11 -- Circuit Boards Gold Fingers -- E

12 -- Circuit Boards, Clean -- E

13 -- Circuit Boards, Populated E-Scrap Sites High -- E -- Gold Fingers, Content, Low -VCRs, TVs, etc

14 -- Computer Backplanes -- E

15 -- Computer Daughter Boards -- E

16 -- Computer Diodes -- E

17 -- Computer EPROMS -- E

18 -- Computer Hard Drive Boards -- E

19 -- Computer Hard Drives -Whole -- E

20 -- Computer IC Chips -- E

21 -- Computer Memory -- E

22 -- Computer Mother Boards -- E

23 -- Computer Processors -PCUs -- E -- Ceramic, older CPUS can be collectible -Big $

24 -- Oxygen Sensors, Vehicle -- VI -- Abt $3 / LB

25 -- Pager Boards -- E

26 -- Printer Cartridges, Empty -- VI -- Values $1.25 - $20

27 -- Radiators, AL -- SMD -- $3

28 -- Radiators, Copper -- SMD -- $15, or $1.65 /LB

29 -- SIM, Smart Card Scrap -- E

30 -- Starters, Vehicle -- SMD -- Abt $4

31 -- Tantalum Resistors, Chips -- TantalumRecyclers.com

32 -- Telecom Boards -- E

33 -- Text Books -- VI -- Usually better on Amazon

34 -- Transistors -- E

35 -- Transmissions, Vehicle -- SMD -- $10-35

36 -- Video Game Systems -- VI

37 -- Wheels, Aluminum -- SMD -- $10 each

#  APPENDIX 2: EBAY COLLECTIBLE

# -- ITEM -- CAT. -- DESCRIPTION

1 -- 1950s Items -- 69853

2 -- 1960s -- 69854 -- Items Retro, Hippie items Lucite, Bakelite

3 -- 1970s Items -- 69855

4 -- Advertising Items -- 34 -- Colas, John Deere, Recognizable Logos. Pick Up any Free Items w/Advertising

5 -- Aprons -- 13951

6 -- Archery, Vintage Items -- 158960 -- Broad heads, Wood Arrows, Ads, Bows

7 -- Ash Trays -- 594

8 -- Autographs and Signed Items -- 14429

9 -- Automobilia, Collectibles -- 14024 -- License Plates, Spark Plugs, Advertising

10 -- Aviation items -- 14049

11 -- Bakelite Plastic Items -- 72397 -- If you don't know what Bakelite is, find out!

12 -- Banks -- 66503

13 -- Beads, Vintage -- 156281 -- Bakelite, Retro, Ceramics best

14 -- Bears, Teddy -- 386

15 -- Beer Collectibles -- 562 -- Advertising, Signs, Tins, Cans, Bottle Caps

16 -- Bikes, Vintage -- 159000 -- Frames Parts Frames, Handle Bars, Forks, Guards, Pedals

17 -- Billiards Balls -- 75192

18 -- Boat and Ship items -- 14052

19 -- Bottle Caps -- 158421 -- Look for Cork lined caps

20 -- Bottles -- 39491

21 -- Bottles, Antique -- 29797 -- Early Coke, Pepsi worth hundreds

22 -- Bowling, Vintage Items -- 159100

23 -- Boxes, Ammunition -- 71131

24 -- Breweriana -- 562 -- Caps, Cans, Advertising, Clothing

25 -- Building Toys -- 18998 -- Legos, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs

26 -- Buttons -- 41195 -- Look for Military, Character Buttons

27 -- Calculators, Vintage -- 58042

28 -- Calendars -- 41183

29 -- Calls, Duck Hunting -- 36252 -- Plus Goose, Turkey -good $

30 -- Candle Holders -- 4062

31 -- Cards, Greeting -- 35889 -- Also sold for collages, crafts

32 -- Cards, Playing -- 1438 -- Can be sold as decks, or singles

33 -- Cartoons and Characters -- 1344

34 -- Casino Collectibles -- 898 -- Chips, Dice, Advertising, Apparel

35 -- Cast Iron Items -- 3631 -- Table and Kitchen Items, Wall Decor, Toys

36 -- China, Dinnerware -- 24 -- Sets $$

37 -- Christian Items -- 11668

38 -- Christmas Collectibles -- 13877 -- Very Abundant and Worth Good Money

39 -- Christmas Decorations -- 907 -- Ornaments, Decor, Nativities

40 -- Clocks -- 397 -- Even 1970s Alarm Clocks, Bakelite

41 -- Coasters -- 13907 -- Sets much better

42 -- Corals -- 165715

43 -- Costume Jewelry, Beads -- 156281

44 -- Crucifixes and Crosses -- 11669

45 -- Decorative Collectibles -- 13777 -- Plates, Figurines, Curios, Baskets

46 -- Decoys, Hunting -- 71131 -- Early Duck decoys worth hundreds

47 -- Disney Items and Characters -- 137 -- Can be worth a lot of $

48 -- Drapes, Curtains -- 942 -- Vintage, retro Fabric

49 -- Dreidels -- 165694

50 -- Fabric, Vintage -- 29817 -- Lengths of Vintage Fabric can be up to $800!

51 -- Fantasy, Magic Items -- 10860 -- Unicorns, Skulls, Gargoyles, Dragons

52 -- Fast Food Toys -- 19077

53 -- Fishing Decoys, Spearing -- 793 -- Old carved decoys over $100

54 -- Fishing Items, Vintage -- 792 -- Fly Rods & Reels worth hundreds

55 -- Fishing Lures, Vintage -- 36169 -- Can be worth a lot of $$

56 -- Fishing Reels, Vintage -- 36175 -- Complete or Parts Easy to find, worth good $

57 -- Fishing Rods -- 11144 -- Vintage or not

58 -- Fishing Tackle Boxes -- 793

59 -- Fishing Taxidermy -- 159028 -- Finished Mounts over $100, $50 for common

60 -- Fishing, Fly -- 23810

61 -- Fishing, Vintage Items -- 792

62 -- Flags and Pennants -- 13881

63 -- Flashlights -- 13863

64 -- Flies, Fishing -- 11142

65 -- Football, Vintage Items -- 159120

66 -- Fraternal Organizations -- 402 -- Scouts, Lions Club, Kiwanis, Knights

67 -- Frisbees -- 19017

68 -- Games, Handheld Electronic -- 19072 -- Easy to find, older ones worth good $

69 -- Glass, 40s-60s -- 4207 -- Anchor-Hocking, US, Fenton

70 -- Glass, Art -- 955

71 -- Glass, Carnival -- 2668 -- Fenton, IN Glass Cos.

72 -- Glass, Crackle -- 2712

73 -- Glass, Depression -- 1002 -- Anchor Hocking, IN, US Glass

74 -- Glass, Pyrex -- 4765

75 -- Glass, Vaseline -- 4935 -- Bright Yellow-Green Glass

76 -- Golf Balls, Vintage -- 18924

77 -- Golf Club Head Covers -- 18930

78 -- Golf Items, Vintage -- 83041 -- Balls, Bag Tags, Score Cards, Ads, Clothes

79 -- Greeting Cards, Vintage -- 35889

80 -- Gun Parts, Vintage -- 71131

81 -- Halloween Collectibles -- 14285 -- Can be worth more than you think

82 -- Halloween Items -- 907 -- Actually worth more than Christmas items!

83 -- Historical Items -- 13877 -- Police, Fire Depts, Organizations

84 -- Holiday Decorations -- 907

85 -- Horse Shoes, Tossing Vintage -- 79790 \-- For Horseshoes game - Can be $20 set

86 -- Hunting, Vintage Items -- 71131

87 -- Insulators, Glass & Ceramic -- 795 \-- Can be found near existing power lines

88 -- Jars, Cookie -- 4047 -- Character Jars VG

89 -- Jewelry, Vintage and Antique -- 48579 \-- Brooches, too!

90 -- Jewish Items -- 13773

91 -- Key Chains -- 38016

92 -- Kitchen Items -- 81 -- Utensils, Canisters, Table Ware, Appliances

93 -- Kites -- 2569

94 -- Knives -- 1401 -- Old Swiss Army Knives!

95 -- Lace and Doilies, Vintage -- 945

96 -- Lamps, Electric -- 4053

97 -- Lamps, Oil -- 4057

98 -- Legos -- Even newer Lego Sets, Men can be $30

99 -- Letters, Correspondences -- 156488 -- Love Letters, Military Letters

100 -- Lighters -- 951 -- Vintage Lighters can be worth $200+

101 -- Lunch Boxes and Thermoses -- 1409 -- Do not have to be Character boxes!

102 -- Magnets -- 476

103 -- Maps and Atlases -- 37958 -- Can be worth good $

104 -- Maps, Vintage -- 1412

105 -- Marbles -- 771 -- Can be big $ for old marbles

106 -- Maritime Antiques -- 37965 -- Bells, Anchors, Nets, Ship Items

107 -- Match Books -- 156496

108 -- Medical, Dental Items -- 4065

109 -- Menorahs -- 13775

110 -- Menus, Restaurant -- 1437

111 -- Militaria -- 13956 -- Especially Civil War and WW2 items

112 -- Models, Vintage -- 1188 -- Unassembled worth much more

113 -- Motorcycle Items -- 10958

114 -- Mugs, Coffee -- 38148

115 -- Music CDs, Records, Tapes -- 11233 -- Records and obscure CDs best

116 -- Napkins, Vintage -- 165662 -- Packs, Old

117 -- Napkins, Halloween -- $30-50

118 -- Night Lights -- 157010

119 -- Other Holiday Collectibles -- 907 -- St Patrick's Day, Valentines

120 -- Pens and Pencils -- 966

121 -- Pentacles, Wicca -- 35835

122 -- Perfumes and Perfume Items -- 35982

123 -- Pewter Items -- 1434

124 -- Pez Dispensers -- 4097 -- Look for items with no feet

125 -- Photographs, Vintage -- 14277

126 -- Pin Cushions -- 1465

127 -- Pins (Pin-backs) -- 50787 -- Look for Obscure Campaign Buttons

128 -- Plastic Retro Items -- 108962 -- Lucite, Lustro-Ware, Serving Pieces

129 -- Police Collectibles -- 928 -- Old Badges worth big $

130 -- Political Items -- 4100 -- Campaign Pins, Posters

131 -- Post Cards -- 914

132 -- Pottery, Art -- 27 -- Can be worth a lot of $$

133 -- Print Advertisements -- 34 -- or Sell in Subject Matter's Category

134 -- Puzzles, Jigsaw -- 2613 -- Wood, Springbok Circular Puzzles VG

135 -- Quilts -- 947

136 -- Radios, Vintage + Parts -- 931 -- Part out broken radios!

137 -- Retro, Vintage Items -- 69851 -- BAKELITE, Hippie, Mod Art pieces

138 -- Science Fiction and Horror -- 152 -- Star Wars, Trek, X-Files, UFOs, Aliens

139 -- Sewing Items, Vintage -- 113

140 -- Shakers, Salt and Pepper -- 4049 -- Characters, Should be Pair

141 -- Shells -- 82515 -- Sea Shells, Conches, Sand Dollars

142 -- Shot Glasses -- 3273

143 -- Signs, Antique -- 63519 -- Ceramic, 2-Sided best

144 -- Silver-plate Items -- 1436

145 -- Skateboarding Items -- 16262

146 -- Skateboards -- 16264

147 -- Skateboards, Vintage & Parts -- 114248

148 -- Slot Cars -- 2616

149 -- Souvenirs and Travel -- 165800 -- By State, Country -Spoons, Patches, Mugs

150 -- Spools, Thread

151 -- Sports Cards -- 212

152 -- Sports Memorabilia -- 50123

153 -- Stamps -- 260 -- Can be attached to Envelopes

154 -- Swizzle Sticks, Vintage -- 10905 -- Bakelite, Metal Handles

155 -- Table Linens, Cloths -- 13954

156 -- Tarot Cards -- 35837

157 -- Telephones, Vintage + Parts -- 38036 \-- Parts often worth more than the entire phones

158 -- Thermometers, Barometers -- 14020

159 -- Thimbles -- 38060

160 -- Tin Items -- 10950 -- Collectible Tin Containers

161 -- Tobacco Items -- 593

162 -- Toleware Items, Decor -- 1218 -- Antique Painted, Floral

163 -- Tools -- 4121 -- Especially Planes, Old Saws, Farm Items

164 -- Tools, Vintage -- 4121 -- Esp. Skeleton Keys, Planes, Forged Tools

165 -- Toy Soldiers -- 2631 -- Don't have to be that old

166 -- Toys, Action Figures -- 246

167 -- Toys, Antique -- 717

168 -- Toys, Building -- 18991 -- Legos worth $, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs

169 -- Toys, Celluloid -- 722 -- From 40s, 50s - $20-100

170 -- Toys, Die Cast Vehicles -- 222 -- Matchbox, Hot Wheels cars, examples

171 -- Toys, Tin -- 735

172 -- Toys, Wind-up -- 74986

173 -- Train and Railroad Items -- 1444

174 -- Traps, Animal -- 71131 -- Some old traps worth over $1000 Newhouse

175 -- Trivets -- 11656

1776 -- Trucking and Semi Items -- 35976

177 -- Tubes -- 64627 -- Can be worth $50 for matched pairs, quads

178 -- Tupperware -- 13934

179 -- TV, Movie, Character Toys -- 2624 -- Look for popular 80s TV shows, movies

180 -- Vanity Collectibles -- 597 -- Hair Items, Shaving, Perfumes

181 -- Vintage Bicycles and Parts -- 35959

182 -- Watches -- 14324

183 -- Waterford Crystal / Glass -- 7291

184 -- Weather Vanes and Balls -- 37918 -- Antique Iron -Worth $100s

185 -- Wicca and Pagan Items -- 35831

186 -- Yo-Yos -- 2664 -- Duncan, old wood

#  APPENDIX 3: ORGANIC ITEMS

# -- ITEM -- CAT. -- DESCRIPTION

1 -- Agates -- 3215

2 -- Antlers, Sheds -- 71124, 4560

3 -- Asparagus [Wild] -- 115722, Local Bus

4 -- Basswood, Black Walnut, Ash Wood -- 160675 -- Cut to blocks for carving

5 -- Berries, [Wild] -- 25460

6 -- Berries, Blackberries [Wild] -- 25460

7 -- Berries, Cranberries [Wild] -- 25460

8 -- Bones, Animal -- 45604, 36271, 1466 -- Taxidermy, Animal Collectors, More

9 -- Boughs, Pine & Cedar -- Local Businesses -- For Wreath Making, Holiday Crafts

10 -- Burls, Wood -- 3127 -- For Wood Carving, Turning. Can be $1000

11 -- Coral 169311 Aquariums -- 66793

12 -- Cottonwood Bark -- 160675 -- For Carving - $20/8 pcs

13 -- Deer Tails -- 87096 -- Fly Tying

14 -- Driftwood -- 66789, 1285, 71130 -- Aquariums, Terrariums, Taxidermy, Signs

15 -- Eggs, Blown -- 116639 -- Empty Shells for Crafts -Ducks, Chicken, Goose

16 -- Feathers, Bird -- 45220, 41199 -- HOT for Hair Accessories, Colorful

17 -- Feathers, Duck -- 44913 -- Fly Tying

18 -- Feathers, Goose -- 41199 -- Domestic - For Blankets, Coats

19 -- Fossils -- 3215

20 -- Fur, Other Animal -- 87096, 71130 -- Fly Tying - Woodchuck $3, Squirrel

21 -- Fur, Rabbit, Hare -- 87096 -- Fly Tying

22 -- Hives, Bees Hornets -- 71130 -- Taxidermy -MAKE SURE ITS EMPTY -$20

23 -- Horns, Bull -- 71130 -- Taxidermy

24 -- Leeks [Wild Onions] -- 115722, Local Bus.

25 -- Meteorites, Tektites -- 3239 -- Meteorites can be worth $1000s

26 -- Mushrooms, Chanterelles -- 115722, Local Bus.

27 -- Mushrooms, Morel -- 115722, Local Bus.

28 -- Nuts, Pecans -- 25460

29 -- Nuts, Walnuts -- 25460

30 -- Petrified Wood -- 3215

31 -- Pine Cones -- 103479 -- Crafts, Wreath Making

32 -- Rocks, Stones for Aquariums -- 66793 -- Holey Rocks up to $25 a piece

33 -- Sand Dollars -- 157016

34 -- Sea Shells -- 82515, 116418 -- Sea Shell Collectibles, Aquarium

35 -- Sea Shells -- 82515 -- Large Conch Shells can be $20+

36 -- Skulls, Animal -- 45604

37 -- Squirrel Tails -- 87096 -- Fly Tying, Lure Making

38 -- Star Fish -- 157019

39 -- Stone, Petoskey 3215 -- 3215 -- Up to $50 for Large -Polished or Rough

40 -- Stones, Beach / River Polished -- 66793

41 -- Stones, Pudding -- 3215

42 -- Wood Blanks for Turning -- 71235 -- Carving, Turning - Nice Grains

43 -- Wood Plaques 71130 -- 71130 -- Background for Taxidermy- Cedar, Oak, Juniper

#  APPENDIX 4: USABLE ITEMS

# -- ITEM -- CAT. -- DESCRIPTION

1 -- Air Conditioners, Parts -- 20711 -- Scrap - Lots of copper in old ACs

2 -- Archery Equipment 20835 -- Bows, Arrows, Shafts, Tabs, Guards

3 -- Audio / Video, Vintage and Parts -- 175740

4 -- Baby Food Containers [glass, plastic] -- 57736 -- Used for craft supply storage

5 -- Baby Food Containers, Plastic + Lids -- 83893, 44912 -- Used for Beads, Fly-Making Supply Holders

6 -- Bar Items and Accessories -- 3265 -- Bar Sets, Corkscrews, Pitchers, Taps, etc

7 -- Bar Tools -- 20687

8 -- Barn Doors and Hardware -- 162926 -- Vintage doors $300-800, Iron Hardware VG

9 -- Barn Wood -- 84011 -- Sold by board, or sell locally Craigslist

10 -- Baseball and Softball Gear -- 16021

11 -- Batteries, Rechargeable -- 48619 -- Any batteries that work - Can be up to $40

12 -- Battery Compartment Covers -- eBay -- List in category of complete unit

13 -- BBQ Grill Tools -- 20725

14 -- Beach Glass -- 41221

15 -- Beads from Vintage Costume Jewelry -- 156281 -- Bakelite, colorful

16 -- Bells, Small to Medium -- 71110 -- Used for Hunting Dog Locators

17 -- Bike Accessories -- 22688

18 -- Bike Parts, Newer Bikes -- 57262

19 -- Bike Parts, Vintage -- 56197 -- Some worth quite a lot - Easier to part them out

20 -- Billiards / Pool Balls -- 75192

21 -- Billiards Accessories -- 75184 -- Cues, Balls, Racks, Decor

22 -- Bird Houses -- 20502 -- Home Made VG

23 -- Board Game Parts, Dice, Pieces -- 7317 \-- Check out everything you can sell here!

24 -- Board Games and Parts -- 233, Amazon -- Pick up any Sealed games for Amazon

25 -- Book Dust Jackets, Illustrations -- 121833 -- Scrapbooking

26 -- Bottle Caps -- 160732 -- Scrapbooking, Crafts

27 -- Bottles, Wine -- 38172, CL -- For Wine Making

28 -- Bowling Ball Bags, Vintage -- 169291 -- Sell for $10-50 as Women's Purses

29 -- Bowling Gear -- 20846

30 -- Boxes [Empty] -- eBay -- Electronics Boxes can be worth $20!

31 -- Boxes [Empty] Small -- 83893, 44912 -- Fly, Bead Storage, Also for shipping Jewelry

32 -- Brass Bullet Shells [Empty] -- SMD, CL \-- For Reloading, Scrap Value

33 -- Brass, Scrap -- 29402 SMD

34 -- Building Toys Lots -- 18991 -- Esp. Legos -random lots

35 -- Butter Containers w/Lids [Empty] -- eBay -- Lots of 20 -Various categories

36 -- Cabinet Hardware -- 41971 -- Pulls, Slides, Hinges

37 -- Calls, Hunting -- 36252 -- Can be $50 - Sterilize and sell

38 -- Camping and Hiking Gear -- 16034 -- Vintage or Not

39 -- Candles -- 46782 -- Yankee Candle VG

40 -- Carbide Steel Scrap -- 29402, SMD -- Drill Bits, tool ends, etc. Nice $$

41 -- Cases from Vintage Electronics -- 175741 -- Wood best, Audio Receiver Cases

42 -- Cases, Plastic [Empty] -- eBay -- Everybody wants these for storage, packaging

43 -- Caster Wheels, Vintage -- 162913 -- Sets of 4 if possible -$10-50

44 -- Catalytic Converters, Scrap -- 29402, SMD -- From autos, worth $20-150

45 -- CD Cases [Empty] -- 307

46 -- CD/DVD/Media Racks -- 22653 -- Easy to Find, Can be sold on Amazon

47 -- Chainsaw Parts -- 85915 -- Bars, Chains, Guards, Cases

48 -- Cigar Cases/Tubes [Empty] -- 156508 -- Cigar Display, also used for crafts

49 -- Clothing, Vintage -- 91235, 91244 -- Old Ties, Suits, Dresses = Big Bucks

50 -- Computer Board Gold Fingers -- 29402, SMD -- Trim off w/wire cutters, shears

51 -- Computer Boxes -- 175690 -- Plus boxes for Accessories and Computers

52 -- CPUs Processors -- 164 -- Sold Single or lots, can be scrapped for good money

53 -- Computer Games, PC -- 175690 -- Floppy Disks, Cassettes, etc

54 -- Computer Motherboards -- 1244, e-Scrap Sites -- Sold as replacements, or scrapped

55 -- Computer, Logos -- 175690 -- Emblems, etc -Old Apple, Commodore, etc

56 -- Computer, Manuals and Paperwork -- 175690

57 -- Computer, Outer Cases -- 175690

58 -- Computer, Software and Disks -- 175690

59 -- Computers, Circuit Boards -- 175690 -- For Parts, Rebuilding Computers, or Scrap

60 -- Computers, Components -- 175690 -- Cords, Joysticks, Mice, Disk Drives, etc

61 -- Computers, IC Chips -- 175690 -- Scrap for Gold, or Collectible -Some Big $

62 -- Computers, Memory -- 175690 -- Scrap Value, or for additional Mem for PCs

63 -- Computers, Parts -- 175690

64 -- Computers, Vintage -- 171957 -- Working or Not

65 -- Containers, Prescription Drug -- 83893, 44912 -- 57736 Used for Craft, Fly-Making Holders

66 -- Containers, Skin Care [Empty] -- 11862 \-- Used for Making Travel Kits, Refills

67 -- Cookware -- 20628 -- Old Cast Iron items VG

68 -- Copper, Scrap -- 29402, SMD

69 -- Cords, cables for Electronics -- 14961 AZ, SMD

70 -- Corks, Wine -- 71177 -- For Crafts, Wine Making Get from Local Bars/Restaurants

71 -- Cornhole Toss Game Bags -- 79791 -- Easy to Make, Easy to Sell

72 -- Coupons -- 172010

73 -- Coupons and Gift Cards -- 172008

74 -- Croquet Items -- 117210 -- Vintage Balls $10, Wicket Sets $10, Posts, Mallets

75 -- Crosses, Decorative -- 75570 -- Altered Art, Collage, Steampunk Art

76 -- Darts, Dartboards -- 26328

77 -- Decoys, Hunting -- 36249 -- If you see cheap decoys, buy them!

78 -- Decoys, Hunting Accessories -- 36249 -- Duck decoy anchors, hooks, lines

79 -- Dice -- 7317 -- Used for Crafts, Scrapbook, Jewelry

80 -- Dinnerware, Serving Pieces -- 36027

81 -- Doll Parts -- 75570 -- Altered Art

82 -- Dominoes -- 2555 -- Collectible, or Mixed Lots used for Crafts

83 -- Door Hardware & Knobs -- 37911 -- Glass Knobs, Ornate Knobs VG

84 -- Door Hardware, Parts -- 41976 -- Knobs, Hinges, Locks, Handles, Locksets

85 -- DVD Cases [Empty] -- 617

86 -- Eyeglass Frames -- SMD -- Vintage Frames were Gold-Filled

87 -- Fabric, Vintage -- 28162 -- Anything from old drapes, upholstery, etc

88 -- Fabrics, Vintage -- 38000 -- From Bolts, Furniture seats, Blankets, etc

89 -- Face Plates, Vintage Audio -- 175741

90 -- Fasteners, Screws, Nails -- 20600

91 -- Feet, Vintage Electronics -- 14998 -- Cushioned Feet from Audio best

92 -- Film Containers -Empty 35mm -- 4201 -- Lots of 10+, also used for crafts, beads, flies

93 -- Fishing Accessories -- 72603

94 -- Fishing Lures -- 31689, 36153

95 -- Fishing Lures - Broken, Parts -- 165931 \-- Especially from Vintage, Lips, Bodies

96 -- Fishing Lures, Empty Boxes -- 31689

97 -- Fishing Pole Parts -- 62153 -- For Pole Repair, Building -Guides, Handles, Parts

98 -- Fishing Rod Guides, Handles, Parts -- 62153 -- Take from Broken Fishing Rods

99 -- Fishing Sinker Containers, Spinning -- 83893, 44912 -- Used for Beads, Fly-Making Supply Holders

100 -- Fishing, Fly -- 23810 -- High $ Items -Rods, Creels

101 -- Fishing, Freshwater -- 36145

102 -- Fishing, Ice -- 36152 -- Can be worth more than regular fishing stuff

103 -- Fishing, Saltwater -- 23821

104 -- Flash Cards, Number Cards -- 75570 -- Altered Art, Collage

105 -- Flatware, Silverware -- 20693 -- Older are Silver-plate, scrap value

106 -- Football Gear -- 21214

107 -- Frames, Picture -- 21214

108 -- Furniture Parts, Pieces -- 162913 -- Handles, Arms, Legs, Rails, Trim, etc

109 -- Garden Decor -- 20498 -- Chimes, Flags, Sun Dials, Water Items

110 -- Garden Supplies -- 2032

111 -- Garden Tools -- 29515

112 -- Gears and Cogs, Metal -- 75570 -- Altered Art, Steampunk

113 -- Gears, Sprockets -- 75570 -- For Altered Art, Collage Crafts

114 -- Glass, Polished and Smooth -- 163778 \-- Beach polished better

115 -- Golf Balls -- 18924 -- Used lots, or vintage balls worth $

116 -- Golf Club Head covers -- 18930

117 -- Golf Clubs -- 115280 -- Singles, or Sets -Drivers VG

118 -- Greeting Cards [Vintage] -- 121833 -- For Scrapbooking

119 -- Grill, Gas Parts -- 20724 -- Knobs, wheels, grills, elements, burners

120 -- Guitar Parts -- 159953 -- Part out broken guitars for good money

121 -- Guitars -- 159953 -- Complete or Broken can still sell

122 -- Gun Parts -- 73943 -- Magazines, Choke Tubes, Barrels easy to sell

123 -- Handles, Drawers & Cabinets -- 20601 -- Vintage, Glass, Brass

124 -- Handles, Plumbing Valve & Faucet \-- 37911, 75570 -- Cast Iron, Aluminum

125 -- Heaters, Furnace Parts -- 41987

126 -- Horse Shoes, Tossing -- 79790 -- Singles or Sets

127 -- Hunting Accessories -- 52502

128 -- Hunting Clothing -- 36239 -- Camouflage clothing -Army Surplus

129 -- Hunting Knives -- 42574

130 -- Hunting Reloading Supplies -- 31823

131 -- Hunting Taxidermy -- 36271 -- Worth VG $ -Actually see this quite often at sales

132 -- Jelly Jars [Empty] -- 28114 -- Canning, Making Candles, Storage

133 -- Jewelry Costume -- 500

134 -- Jewelry for Parts and Repair -- 168176 \-- Can get good money for lots of broken jewelry!

135 -- Jewelry Pieces, Parts from Broken -- 164353, 168176 -- For Jewelry Making, Repair

136 -- Jewelry, Loose Beads -- 488 -- Can also sell beads from Old Furniture, Lamps here

137 -- Kitchen Tools, Gadgets -- 20635

138 -- Knobs, Furniture Handles -Antique -- 20635

139 -- Knobs, Vintage Electronics -- 14998 -- Especially from high-end Audio -Bakelite

140 -- Lamp Parts and Pieces -- 13865 -- Filial, Knobs, Hanging Hardware can be Sold!

141 -- Lawn Mower Parts, Accessories -- 82248 \-- Sell the Wheels, Seat, Blades before Scrapping!

142 -- Letter Tiles, Scrabble [Wooden] -- 19097, 71178 -- For Crafts, Scrapbooking, Lots of 100 best

143 -- Logos / Emblems -- eBay -- From old Electronics, Cars, Bikes, etc

144 -- Luggage and Travel Bags -- 16085

145 -- Magazines -- 280 -- Print Ads, Articles may be worth more

146 -- Make-up and Accessories -- 31786 -- Includes Vintage Make-up

147 -- Manuals / Instructions -- eBay -- Sell in Vintage Electronics, or Item Category

148 -- Media, Blank -- 64627 -- Reel to Reel, Cassettes, All Kinds

149 -- Metal, Alloys, Scrap Metal -- 29402, SMD

150 -- Microwave Parts -- 150138 -- Sell Glass Trays $20+, Magnetrons, Motors

151 -- Motors, Electric -- 175741 -- Can sell small Motors as Lot, or Lg Separate

152 -- Motors, Electric Scrap -- 29402, SMD \-- Also copper windings and breakage

153 -- Music CDs, Vinyl Records, Tapes -- 11233 -- Sell as singles or in lots

154 -- Musical Instruments, Brass & Parts \-- 16212 -- Usually parts are better than Brass Scrap value

155 -- Nail Polish and Accessories -- 11871 \-- Sell in Lots

156 -- Nails, Square (Vintage) -- 162930 -- Crafts, Vintage Restorations

157 -- Number Tiles, Rummikub Game -- 7317 -- Used for crafts, scrapbooking

158 -- ORV Parts and Accessories -- eBay Motors

159 -- Outdoor Holiday Decor -- 117416

160 -- Outdoor Power Equipment and Parts -- 29518 -- Blowers, Edgers, Weed Whips, Hedgers

161 -- Oven / Range Parts -- 43566 -- Knobs, Motors, Elements, Handles, Burners!

162 -- Oven Burners / Elements -- 43566

163 -- Oven Racks -- 43566 -- $20-40 for good condition

164 -- Paint Brushes, Vintage -- 28110

165 -- Paper Dolls and Clothing -- 75570 -- Altered Art, Collage

166 -- Patio Furniture Parts, Pillows -- 20716

167 -- Perfumes and Colognes, Vintage -- 26396 -- Can be worth more than you would think

168 -- Photographs, Vintage -- 14277

169 -- Ping Pong Paddles -- 36277

170 -- Plumbing and Parts -- 20601 -- Parts or Scrap

171 -- Plumbing Fixtures, Handles, Faucets -- 167948 -- Antique Brass, Cast Iron, Ceramics

172 -- Pool Toys -- 159921

173 -- Portable Audio, Headphones -- 15052 -- Even vintage Walkman

174 -- Posters and Prints -- 41511

175 -- Pottery Pieces, Shards -- 18875

176 -- Power Strips, Surge Protectors -- 67779 -- Or scrap for copper value

177 -- Push-Up Pop Containers -- 102391 -- Used for Making Cupcake Shooters, Jell-O

178 -- Railroad Ties -- Local, CL -- For Landscaping

179 -- Recipes -- 20475

180 -- Reel to Reel Tapes, Empty Spools -- 14998 -- VG

181 -- Refrigerator / Freezer Parts -- 71259 \-- Handles, Racks $20-40, Drawers $20

182 -- Remote Controls, Electronic -- eBay, AZ -- Old Remotes can be worth $25+

183 -- Shoe Boxes, Vintage [Empty] -- 163628 \-- Old Nike Boxes have been sold for $75!

184 -- Shoes, Vintage -- 163628, 74976 -- 80s Tennis Shoes, Old Wing Tips Women Shoe

185 -- Shotgun Shell Boxes [Empty] -- 71116 \-- Used for Reloading

186 -- Shotgun Shell Hulls [Empty] -- Reloading Sites, CL -- For Reloading and Christmas Lights!

187 -- Showerheads -- 71282

188 -- Skateboard Parts -- 159073

189 -- Skateboarding Clothing -- 159077

190 -- Skateboards -- 16264

191 -- Sleds and Tubes -- 59892

192 -- Snow Plows and Parts -- eBay Motors -- Hoses, Lights, Control Pieces Easily Removable

193 -- Speakers, Vintage or Not -- 50597 -- Even emblems from Speakers worth $

194 -- Spikes, Railroad -- 95163 -- Used for Coat Hooks, Knife Handles

195 -- Spools, Empty 620 Film -- 167943 -- For Vintage Film reloading $7/Pc

196 -- Spools, Empty Thread, Wooden -- 14083

197 -- Spools, Ribbon [Empty] -- 71224

198 -- Spools, Wire [Empty] -- 100180

199 -- Sporting Goods Equipment -- 382

200 -- Sporting Goods, Used -- 159043 -- Almost anything has value if it works

201 -- Spray Dispensers [Empty] -- 1277 -- Used for Making Gift Baskets, Potpourri

202 -- Telephones and Parts -- 3286 -- Entire Phones, Batteries, Battery Doors

203 -- Tennis and Racquet Gear -- 159134

204 -- Thermostats and Parts -- 115947

205 -- Tools, Hand -- 3244

206 -- Tools, Power -- 3247

207 -- Tooth Brushes, Used -- For You -- Use for Cleaning Collectibles, Guns

208 -- Toy Parts -- 1198 -- Vintage Tonka, Metal Parts, Part out old toys!

209 -- Toys, Broken and Parts, Vintage -- 1198 -- Pieces & Parts of old toys, cars

210 -- Tractor, Agricultural Parts -- 160934

211 -- Transformers, Power (electronics) -- 175741

212 -- Traps, Animal -- 71108 -- Good $$

213 -- T-Shirts, Vintage -- 28022 -- Rock Concert Shirts, Character, TV Shows

214 -- Tubes, Cosmetics [Empty] -- 88433 -- Lotion Tubes, etc -Clean, $7 for 20

215 -- Tubes, Plastic -- 159046 -- Lidded, Used for Geocaches

216 -- Tubing, Aluminum, Copper, etc -- 29402, SMD

217 -- Tupperware Containers -- 20625 -- Especially pre-1980s

218 -- Turntables for Records, and Parts -- 48649

219 -- Turtle Shells -- 71129

220 -- Typewriter Keys -- 75570 -- Old Flat Keys Best -Altered Art, Steampunk

221 -- Vacuum Parts, Vintage -- 42146

222 -- Vehicle Air Cleaner Assemblies -- EM

223 -- Vehicle Body Parts -- EM -- Can lot of $

224 -- Vehicle Buttons, Controls -- EM -- From Radios, Heaters, Dials, Displays

225 -- Vehicle Catalytic Converters -- EM,

SMD

226 -- Vehicle Cup Holders, Storage Acc. -- EM

227 -- Vehicle Floor Mats -- EM

228 -- Vehicle Gas Caps -- EM

229 -- Vehicle Gauges, Displays -- EM -- Can be VG from old cars

230 -- Vehicle Glove Box Doors -- EM

231 -- Vehicle Headlights and Rings -- EM -- Easily removable and sold

232 -- Vehicle Hub Caps, Rims -- EM

233 -- Vehicle Instrument Panels -- EM

234 -- Vehicle Interior Door Panels -- EM

235 -- Vehicle Interior Upholstery -- EM

236 -- Vehicle Light Bulbs, Ext & Int eBay Motors -- EM -- Can be good $ from working vintage lights

237 -- Vehicle Lighters -- EM -- Easily Lost and Sold

238 -- Vehicle Logos and Hood Ornaments -- EM \-- Highly Collectible!

239 -- Vehicle Mirrors -- EM -- Easily Broken and Often Ordered from eBay

240 -- Vehicle Motor Parts -- EM -- Or scrap out the copper wires

241 -- Vehicle Parts, Vintage & Collectable -- EM -- Any salvageable parts from old car bodies can be sold

242 -- Vehicle Pedals and Pads -- EM

243 -- Vehicle Seat Belts -- EM -- Easily sold

244 -- Vehicle Spark Plug Wires -- EM -- Easily removable and sold

245 -- Vehicle Tire Caps -- EM -- Yes even these can be sold off old tires

246 -- Vehicle Towing Accessories -- EM -- Hitches, Balls, Wiring Harnesses, Receivers

247 -- Vehicle Trim and Chrome, Vintage -- EM

248 -- Vehicle Turn Signals & Light -- EM

249 -- Vehicle Visors -- EM -- Easily removable and sold

250 -- Vehicle Wheel Lug Nuts -- EM -- Single, or Sets are better

251 -- Vehicle Wiper Assemblies -- EM

252 -- Vehicle, Door / Window Handles -- EM

253 -- Vials, Centrifuge / Lab -- 159046 -- Used as Geocaches - 10/$8

254 -- Video Game Cases [Empty] -- 1249 -- Especially Newer Console, Portables Cases

255 -- Video Game System Parts, Cords -- 54968 -- For any console

256 -- Video Games -- 1249

257 -- Wall Decor -- 38233

258 -- Wall Decor, Metal Art -- 38233 -- Good Place to Sell Detector Finds, Metal Crafts

259 -- Wallpaper -- 42135 -- Even Vintage Rolls

260 -- Washers and Dryers Parts -- 71256 -- Handles, Belts, Motors -I've Seen Knobs for $15

270 -- Washers, 2.5" -- 79790 -- For Washer Toss Yard Game -Set 16 $10

280 -- Watch Faces -- 160645, 75570 -- For Beading, Altered Art

281 -- Watch, Clock Hands -- 75570 -- Altered Art

282 -- Watches and Parts -- 14324

283 -- Wedding Items -- 11827

284 -- Weed Whip Parts -- 71278 -- Guards, heads, hardware

285 -- Window Parts -- 63514 -- Finials, Tie-Backs, Rods, Hooks

286 -- Windows, Screens, Parts -- 20592

287 -- Wine Charms -- 31591 -- Easy to make, Sell well

288 -- Wine Glass Holders -- 159901

289 -- Winter Sports Gear -- 36259 -- Skiing, Snowshoe

290 -- Wiring, Cloth-Covered Copper -- 175741 \-- Used for rebuilding Vintage Electronics

291 -- Yarn -- 36589 -- Especially vintage, with Label

