Student turns £15 boot sale gem into juicy profit

Most folk dream of a turning tat into profit. For one student, a garage sale, a box of trading cards and her Student Loan came up trumps.Pokemon characters

We’re not taking the Pichu – you just never know when your cards might come up. As student Cassandra Grützner found that out recently, after stumbling across a rare Pokemón trading card at a garage sale. She went on to sell her lucky haul for ten times what it cost her, and nabbing plane tickets to boot.

Grützner, a first-year at Stirling University – told Save the Student she came across the sale by accident and decided to splurge some of her Loan money.

£15 of mine went into a box of old Pokemón cards … mostly for nostalgic reasons. Turns out a near mint, holographic base set Charizard card was included.

While luck played a part (“I didn’t expect the garage sale in the first place”), Grützner’s a long-time Pokemón fan.

Seeing as I still play a lot of Nintendo games and buy them online, I was pretty aware that some merchandise could sell for quite a high price to collectors.

After a bit of nifty Googling to check the value, she went on to sell the rare card on eBay within days for £150.

Not only did she turn her £15 into 10x as much, Grützner used the extra cash to net chocolate, books, two tickets to Germany, “and … well, a Pokemón game”. Not a bad day at the office!

How Grützner got the best price

Cassandra Grutzner

Credit: Cassandra Grützner

I Googled the cards to find the exact year they were released, as well as their rarity and how to describe their status. Cards can be ranked from Mint to Poor – check out forums for an idea.

I then checked eBay’s sold listings, to get a rough idea what to expect.

If anyone is looking for the cards on forums, they may be willing to pay a little more, but in the end I listed the Charizard card at a fixed price on eBay, and had it sold in a couple of days.

I sold the less valuable ones together, labelled as a bunch of old Pokemón cards, and got a few pounds more than they were worth individually.

Fancy turning a profit yourself?

pokemon-ashYou don’t need to get lucky to make a tidy profit: just have a clear-out. Off-loading stuff you don’t need, want or use any more can leave you with a nice earner in the long term. Check out the full eBay guide if you want to make it pay. Or, if you want to invest in tomorrow’s big-cash earners, check out the hush-hush Disney Vault right here.