Selling Baseball Gloves from Thrift Stores on eBay for Profit

Can you make a profit by reselling baseball gloves found at thrift stores on eBay?

As I learned, you can, in fact, make a very good return on investments reselling these gloves. As a former baseball and softball player, I can tell you from experience that a lot of times, it’s better to purchase a glove used rather than brand new. Why? Because it’s a pain in the rear to break in a new glove.

Whenever you purchase a new baseball or softball mitt, the new leather is hard and stiff and it can take weeks to break it in well enough for game use. This is why hundreds of people are searching on eBay to buy gloves that are in good condition but already broken in and game-ready.

Lucky for us, we can find said gloves at our local thrift stores for cheap and make money by reselling them to these individuals on eBay.

How much are they going for?

It really just depends on the make (brand) and model. For instance, some of the lower-end gloves are selling for as little as $10, however, if you find one that’s more in demand, it can sell for hundreds on end.

Here are a few examples of some gloves I found that are selling well today. I found these by doing a search on eBay for the completed listings:

As you can see, the used baseball gloves/mitts sell very well. And the ones photoed above are some of the lower-priced ones too. If you dig a little deeper into the search archives, you can find them selling for much higher prices.

Brands to look for?

Although, as I mentioned earlier, it really depends on the model and condition, here are a few of the top selling brands to keep an eye out for:

Rawlings
Wilson
Nike
MacGregor
Nokona
Louisville
Mizuno

Since the variance is so high (meaning there are thousands of different models of gloves), the good thing is, if you find a glove at the thrift store, all you have to do is use your phone to do a search for the completed listing of that exact model to see how much it’s selling for. Then you will immediately know if it’s worth buying or not.

Tips to keep in mind?

Here are some things to remember when looking for resellable baseball gloves from thrift stores:

It doesn’t have to be in perfect condition.

Let’s say you find a glove with a broken leather lace. No worries! If it looks nice, go ahead and check the prices on eBay. If its worth enough, you can still buy it and sell it “as-is”. People will happily replace a leather lace to get a good deal.

Keep an eye out for catcher’s mitts and first baseman’s mitts.

These are hot sellers! Every time I find one of either, I do a little happy dance because you can bet it probably going to resell for over a hundred bucks. Not always, but more often than not.

Here are a few examples:

Look out for left-handed gloves.

These are for the lefties of the world (the glove is worn on the right hand for the left-handed thrower). Obviously most people are right-handed, so that makes the left-handed gloves all the more rare. This means they usually sell for more too.

Vintage is king.

As with most items, if you can find a special vintage baseball mitt, you could have a huge sell on your hands.

Just for fun, here are some of the vintage super-sellers:

Conclusion

So now that you know how easy it is to buy these old gloves from thrift stores and resell them for huge profits on eBay, I just have one request for you: Stay away from my thrift stores!

Just kidding, just kidding.

In all seriousness, I hope you found this information to be helpful and I hope you can profit from baseball gloves such as these, as have I. Happy hunting!