Playboy Magazines Bargain

Last weekend I went to an estate auction. Nothing really unusual there for me as I go to around ten a year at a local very well run auction house here in West Virginia (Mountaineer Auctions at Clendenin for anyone who is interested). What was unusual was that this was an auction at the estate itself. The first I had been to of this type. They were selling the house as well that day so it obviously made sense. Especially as the contents of the estate were not huge and probably not worth carting off to the auction rooms themselves.

The auctions I had previously attended at the auction house were usually quite big affairs. Probably an average of four to five hundred people attending. This was on a much smaller scale. I’d say there were no more than sixty people there at most. The items up for auction were pretty much what you’d expect with most estates. With one exception.

And it’s the exception I want to talk about. About half way through the sale a box of Playboy magazines all dated around 2002-2003 came up for sale. Nobody bid. I could see all these guys in the audience looking around. Most were with their wives and the thought struck me that they were all scared to bid in the company of their spouse. I too was with my wife. The difference was that I heard a “Go on. Bid,” coming from her direction. She knows me so well lol.

Now as it happens I am not a Playboy fan. But a lot of guys are and I knew from my travels around the Internet that there were serious collector sites. So I thought “What the hell,” and bid $5. Not a peep out of anyone else and so I found myself the proud possessor of 26 Playboy magazines for five bucks.

I went looking today to see what they were worth. It had never been my intention to keep them but to sell them on and hopefully make a little profit from them, which is what my auction visits were mostly about anyway.

Well to cut a long story short, having looked at three or four different collector web sites it seems that my $5 investment was actually valued at around $600. So if anyone from that auction ever reads this blog… boy did you ever miss out.

I will be listing them shortly at one of my other web sites which is currently under construction – www.adrianas-attic.com. They should be on there within the month.

I started Adriana’s Attic because I was fed up with the cheapskates on eBay and ebay itself. That’s another story of course – which I will go into another time – suffice it to say that ebay sucks and I am far from alone in that opinion. I am also far from alone in leaving their market place. Just as an aside, but as I am talking about eBay, if you are one of the many that still use them for God’s sake shop around. I gave up buying on eBay long before I gave up selling there. Amazon is always cheaper.