About a year and a half ago, my father-in-law, Jeff, gave me a studio flash kit. You've seen them; the white umbrella-flashes that photographers have. Well, Jeff had one that'd been sitting in storage for years. It looked like it had never, ever been used. So one day he offered it to me and I accepted. I thought, "wow, this could be really fun to play with." I could setup a little portrait studio for a costume party or something... Awesome.

So I brought it home, put it away, and never got it out again, haha.

Fast forward til this Christmas - Kari got me a fancy new camera. Shortly afterward, I dug through storage and got the flash kit out. Once I got it all setup and figured out it worked like it was brand new I thought, "wtf would I ever use this for?" Sure, it's cool, but why do I need studio flashes? ...Aha! I could trade this in for accessories that I'd actually use!

So I researched it bit and found out that my kit originally sold for over $700. I immediately cleaned it up and took it to the local camera shop, Christian Photo. Christian Photo was super impressed with with my kit; they said it looked brand new. Yesss. They should give me prime dollar for this.

The guy at the counter said they were interested in buying/trading, so I had him get out some accessories I was interested in - the Canon Speedlite 430EX II (flash) and the Canon EF 50mm F/1.8 II lens. The accesories added up to $420 there. If I could get them to do a clean swap for those 2 accessories, that'd be amazing.

After waiting around a bit, the guy who does the actual buying/trading came out. "Well, we'd sell this flash kit for $300... so we'll give you $200 for it." Huh... That only covers half of my accessories. But he said he was gonna sell it for $300?? Alright, I'll go do the same.

So I left, wrote up a fancy description, took some photos, and put my flash on ebay. 5 days later, my flash sold for $400.

So I got my professional quote in person, sold my goods online (for more money), then bought new goods online (for cheaper).

By doing everything online I was able to trade the old studio flash for that new flash, new lens, and a fancy new camera bag. Had I done everything at the local shop, I would've had to give up the flash plus $300 for the same things.

I admit - I sort of hate bargain shoppers. And I feel like a real dick when I "bargain shop", but getting all this stuff for "free" by trading in some junk and using the internets was really satisfying.

I hope I have more old junk that's worth more new junk.