I've tried my best to make use of all my wins, either using it myself or handing it off to a friend or family member (seriously, everyone likes free) but every now and then there comes something that just doesn't fit. When that happens there's always our good ol' buddy eBay.
Earlier this year Marlboro ran their "Find Your Frontier" Sweepstakes - free to enter (as are all the sweeps I ever enter) they offered a great number of kind of frontier themed prizes; grills, sunglasses, golf clubs, tools, tents and my win... binoculars.
I didn't receive any notification that I had won (as far as I know... one hazard to "sweeping" you have to have a junk email account that you sort of watch sort of trash daily) but all of the sudden a fairly large box showed up on my door. "Marlboro? What the heck am I getting mail from Marlboro for?" The inside of the box was red as can be and there, neatly tucked away was the first "big" win I'd ever won a pair of Canon 10 x 30 Image Stabilizing Binoculars. They had some weight to them and being a photography man myself I knew weighty lenses were often good lenses.
Still, what use did I have for binoculars? At the time I lived in West Philadelphia not exactly a bird watching part of the country. I jumped on the computer, did a little search and found that these had an ARV (Average Retail Value) of near $500.
At the time I wasn't set up to sell on eBay just yet and the site was flooded with the buggers anyway (Marlboro gave away 50 of them surely I wasn't the only one selling mine) so I held on to it and sold them just this past week for $275 bucks plus shipping. The buyer got a fair deal on them and I get something much more useful to me - cold hard cash.
Thank you Mr. Marlboro Man.
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