Yes, I agree that profit IS a good thing.
I must say that I have found some great deals, too. Most of them were from people who just wanted to get rid of the "clutter" in their house and are more-than-happy to have someone come in and cart it off for next to nothing. Many times, the profit, in their eyes, is that they don't have to pack the stuff up again and haul it to the Good Will store....or to the dump! They don't care about Ludwig, Rogers or Gretsch. They don't want to bother with researching the value of every object they put up for their yard sales, etc. They just want stuff to be GONE!
Sometimes, I see a drum -like a nice Tama snare drum in the case in almost like new condition. "How much do you want for the drum?" "Oh, I don't know....is $20.00 too much?" "Well, I was thinking more like $10.00." "Welll......OKAY, DEAL!"
See, I don't want a Tama snare drum, so I put it up for auction. I'm going to ask $150.00 for it.
If it doesn't sell at that price, then I'll drop the price to $125.00....and so on, until it sells.
At the end of that road, someone is going to get a good deal on the drum and I am going to have a decent profit in my pocket for when the time comes that I'm at an estate sale and see that Gretsch bop kit or see that Jazzette kit or that Black Beauty snare drum.
At the same time, when the neighbor kid was getting started on the drums, I gave him an old pedal I had. It was nothing to me, but as far as HE was concerned, it was the greatest thing that ever happened (that week). So, I'm not just a greedy profiteer. I know there is a time and a place for doing business and a time for being cool.
