Most thrift store BOLO lists are somebody's opinion. This one is built from our database. I pulled the sold eBay listings we track across video games, movies, CDs and vinyl, kept only items with at least 20 real sales behind them, and took the median sold price for each. Medians, not the one crazy auction someone screenshots. This is the July 2026 edition and I will refresh it with new data.
The short version: old cartridge games are still the highest paying thing you can find in a thrift store, and it is not close. The top item on this list has a median sold price of $229.99 across 637 sales. Meanwhile the item everyone tells you to look for, the Disney Black Diamond VHS, has a median sold price of $10.62 across 1,634 sales. That gap is the whole point of using data instead of folklore.
Video games worth money: the 8 to check first
These are median sold prices from our video game database, with the number of sold listings behind each one. Loose cartridges count. Most of these sell fine without a box.
- Pokemon Emerald (Game Boy Advance): $229.99 median, 637 sales
- Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness (GameCube): $180.00 median, 668 sales
- Pokemon HeartGold (Nintendo DS): $175.58 median, 619 sales
- Conker's Bad Fur Day (Nintendo 64): $174.99 median, 538 sales
- Pokemon Crystal (Game Boy Color): $159.99 median, 680 sales
- Pokemon SoulSilver (Nintendo DS): $154.87 median, 986 sales
- Pokemon Platinum (Nintendo DS): $140.67 median, 1,132 sales
- Tomodachi Life (Nintendo 3DS): $97.00 median, 732 sales
A few more that clear $85 with solid volume: Super Metroid on SNES at $89.99 across 454 sales, Pokemon Stadium 2 on N64 at $88.88 across 439 sales, Paper Mario on N64 at $85.49 across 397 sales, and Zelda Majora's Mask on N64 at $84.99 across 408 sales. Mario Kart Double Dash on GameCube sits at $69.95 with 954 sales, which is the highest volume item in the whole group.
Tomodachi Life is the one people miss. It is a 3DS life simulator, it looks like a kids game, it usually sits in the bin with the sports titles, and it has a $97 median across 732 sales. Nobody grabs it because it does not feel rare.
Movies and DVDs worth money (and the one that is not)
The movie shelf is mostly a dollar bin, so you need a filter. Three things in the title actually move the number.
- Steelbook editions: $24.00 median, 3,940 sales
- Criterion Collection releases: $19.38 median, 1,245 sales
- Anime DVD and Blu-ray: $19.20 median, 4,856 sales
Steelbooks are the easiest to spot from across the room because they are metal and they catch the light. Criterion has the spine number and the distinct cover art. Anime is the sleeper of the three because thrift stores price it like a regular DVD and it has almost 5,000 sales behind that $19 median in our data.
Now the Black Diamond VHS. It is the most repeated thrift tip on the internet and our data says the median sold price is $10.62 across 1,634 sales. That is a real number, not a rumor, and it means most Black Diamond tapes are a $10 item before shipping. Some rare ones do better. The typical one does not. Stop filling your cart with them.
CDs and vinyl records worth money
CDs are cheap to buy and cheap to ship, so the filter matters more than the volume. Two title keywords carry the category. Box sets have a $19.99 median across 1,997 sales. Japanese imports have a $15.98 median across 8,789 sales. Sealed CDs only reach $12.04 and promo copies $12.00, which surprised me because sealed usually gets treated as an automatic grab.
For vinyl, the classic rock names still hold up. Pink Floyd has a $32.99 median across 1,387 sales, Led Zeppelin is at $29.99 across 2,307 sales, and the Beatles at $24.95 across 3,935 sales. Anything with Blue Note on the label sits at $25.00 across 759 sales, which is the one I would train your eye on because jazz pressings get priced like junk at most thrift stores.
Why books are not on this BOLO list
People ask about books every time, so here is the honest answer from our Amazon data. Across roughly 28,000 books we track with a live used buy box, the median used price is $6.44 for paperbacks and $6.49 for hardcovers. Books are a volume business. They sell steadily and they can absolutely make money, but no single book belongs on a list of things worth grabbing on sight. You find book money by scanning a whole shelf, not by spotting one title.
How I built this list
Everything above comes from sold listings in our own database, not asking prices and not guides. For the games I matched sold eBay listings to specific titles and required at least 20 sales per title, then cross checked each one against independent sales volume data so nothing on the list is a thin sample. Every price is a median, which means half the sales came in above it. For movies, CDs and vinyl I grouped by keywords in the listing title because that is how you actually identify these things in the wild, standing in an aisle, reading a spine.
One caveat I want to be clear about. Median sold price is what the item sells for, not what you keep. Take off eBay fees and shipping before you decide something is worth your time.
What to do differently on your next thrift run
Walk the game bin first. Every one of the top items on this list is a small plastic cartridge or disc that gets priced at two or three dollars because it looks like an old kids game. Then hit the DVD shelf and look for metal cases, Criterion spines, and anime. Then flip vinyl for Pink Floyd, Zeppelin and anything on Blue Note. Skip the wall of Black Diamond tapes.
The bigger point is that a BOLO list only gets you the items you memorized. Most of the money at a thrift store is in the stuff you would never think to look up. That is why we built Flippr around bulk scanning. Take a photo of a whole shelf and get values back, instead of trying to remember which Pokemon game was the expensive one.
I will run these numbers again next month. Prices move, and a list like this is only useful if the data behind it is current.