Hi, my name is John Prinz and I live in the South Texas area. I currently work in the oilfield and when I am off I look for new ways to make money. I would like to ultimately get into realestate development for myself. However for now I am looking for ways to put my money to work in making gains worth putting my time into. I have been thinking of things I can do on my offtime or from work to make those gains. As of recently I have been considering buying and resaleing things I obtain from general auctions that are of collector value, but I am so new to buying and resaleing things in order to gain a turn around profit that I am a little nervous on knowing for sure what would profide me with a good solid investment. Such as knowing the true value of what I am buying in order to know if I can make a gain off of it... and if so how to go about resaleing it. I am a little skeptical of buying things from local auctions and then resaleing them on ebay. Do people actually make substantial gains off items they sale on ebay and such sites? Also what is the best way to go about getting a true solid appraisal on the item your investing your money in? I know there is websites that do appraisals, however the ones I have looked into tend to charge like high fees and you dont know for sure if you are getting your moneys worth. Alot less than that of someone who locally appraises I suppose.

I have also considered trying to get my auto dealers license here in Texas so that I can go to the dealer auctions where you can bid on good deals in which dealers only can bid on, as it is a dealers only auction (such as manheim auctions). Not sure if the dues involved outweigh what little saleing I could do per month however. I know there is other public car auctions for the general public to go to when it comes to vehicle auctions, I just dont know if you could actually make good money off them if the general public is allowed to such auctions. I would think that the auctions would not consist of such good deals as the dealer only auctions.

So I am on this site to pick up on new business ideas such as buying and resaleing or other ideas in order to put what hard earned money I make to work for me in faster returns then your traditional low return investments such as bonds, cds ect. I know I am a complete amature obviously, but you gotta start somewhere and I am willing to take the gamble with first educating myself more in the proper direction... So any comments or ideas ect. are much appreciated. I am just looking for ways to make extra gains with the hard earned money I make, so that maybe eventually I can move into investing in larger things like housing.