I was a bit of a hoarder and had all these car magazines from the 70's and 80's. Most in mint condition. We were moving house, had grown out of the car phase, so I chucked them all in the recycle bin. Had too many for one bin so had to do another load in 2 weeks time.
Now surely nobody would want old 1970's and 1980's Wheels, Modern Motor, Motor Manual and similar magazines? Mate of mine popped over and I mentioned that the bin was so heavy and I couldn't fit them all in. He let me know his local council fined him when he did the same thing a few years earlier as his bin was way overweight. So I hauled them all out of the bin. A few days later another mate saw the mags there in the corner of the lounge room waiting to be dumped and suggested that I try selling them on eBay as he reckoned they would be worth some decent $$$.
So I put them up in year lots. Got crappy prices or no bids at all and was still going to recycle bin them over a few months. Got a nice member to member email saying to sell them individually. A pain to do them individually, but he said I'd get much better results.
Well, around $2,000 later I had sold every magazine and was hooked. I got huge prices for one mag with a Ford GTHO, another with the Batmobile in it, and another with a specific Ferrari in it. The last two were mainly from USA and Europe, with a USA buyer and a Finland buyer respectively who went auction crazy.
There you go!
