Rob Lammle
Get Rich Quick: 6 People Who Accidentally Found a Fortune
by Rob Lammle - August 6, 2009 - 11:18 AM

We’ve all been there—a week until payday, the rent is due, and you’re rummaging in your parents’ attic to find Dad’s Mickey Mantle rookie card. If you’re in need of some quick cash, here are six stories of people who found a fortune when—and where—they least expected it.

1. Lose a Hammer, Find a Horde

hoxne_coinsIn November 1992, a farmer living near the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, England, lost a hammer in one of his fields, so he asked Eric Lawes to use his metal detector to search for it. While looking for the hammer, Lawes happened upon something else of interest – 24 bronze coins, 565 gold coins, 14,191 silver coins, plus hundreds of gold and silver spoons, jewelry, and statues, all dating back to the Roman Empire.

As required by British law, the so-called “Hoxne Hoard” was reported to the local authorities, who declared it a “Treasure Trove,” meaning it was now legally the property of Britain. However, the government is required to pay fair market value for a treasure trove, meaning the farmer and Lawes split a cool £1.75 million. The Hoxne Hoard is now on permanent display at the British Museum, drawing thousands of people every year.

Sadly, there is no word on whether or not the hammer was ever found.

2. Arkansas is a Girl’s Best Friend

W.O. Bassum found a giant of a gemstone in 1924 – a 40.23 carat diamond. It might surprise you to hear that he wasn’t digging in one of the famous South African diamond mines at the time, but was near Murfreesboro, Arkansas, at a site that is now the Crater of Diamonds State Park. Sitting on top of a volcanic pipe (a geologic tube formed by an ancient underground volcanic explosion), the park is the only diamond site in the world that is open to the public. Best of all, the park’s policy is: “You find it. You keep it. No matter how valuable it is.”

Bassum’s big find – nicknamed “The Uncle Sam Diamond,” the largest diamond ever discovered in North America – was later cut down to 12.42 carat and sold for $150,000 in 1971 (About $800,000 today). But his wasn’t the last valuable rock dug out of that Arkansas soil.

strawn-wagner_diamondIn 1964, “The Star of Murfreesboro” was discovered at the same site, weighing in at 34.25 carat. Then, in 1975, came the 16.37 carat “Amarillo Starlight Diamond.” The 6.35 carat “Roden Diamond” was found in 2006. And the crown jewel of the park has been the “Strawn-Wagner Diamond” (pictured), a comparatively small 3.09 carat diamond, that was dug up in 1990, and expertly cut down to 1.90 carat. Despite its smaller size, the Strawn-Wagner stands out because it was given a “Perfect” rating by the American Gem Society – the first diamond to ever receive such a high grade.

But don’t think this list of big gems means the site has been tapped out. On average, two diamonds are found every day at Crater of Diamonds. They’re not all as big as The Uncle Sam Diamond, but maybe you’ll get lucky. There’s only one way to find out…

If getting your hands dirty isn’t your idea of fun, maybe you should start hitting garage sales and thrift stores to find valuables buried among the castoff bread machines and Members Only jackets. Sometimes, one man’s trash really is another man’s treasure.

3. The Declaration of (Financial) Independence

declarationWe’ve all heard of the man who bought a $4 painting at a garage sale, found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence inside, and sold it for $2.4 million. A once-in-a-lifetime story, right? Not so much, actually.

Michael Sparks was visiting a Nashville thrift store, where he bought a candleholder, a set of salt and pepper shakers, and a yellowed print of the Declaration of Independence. Sparks figured the document was a worthless, modern reprint, so he paid the asking price – $2.48 – and headed home.

After looking over the document for a few days, he wondered if it might be older than he initially thought. So he hopped on the internet to do some research and soon realized he had purchased one of only 200 official copies of the Declaration of Independence commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820. Of those 200, 35 had been found intact; he had number 36.

It took a year for Sparks to have the print authenticated and preserved, and then he put it up for auction, netting a final sale price of $477,650.

The salt and pepper shakers, on the other hand, were still worthless.

4. A Good Heade for Bargains

headeOne day, an employee at a tool-and-die company in Indiana spent $30 for a few pieces of used furniture and an old painting of some flowers. When he got his new stuff home, he decided to strategically hang the picture to cover up a hole in the wall that had been bugging him.

Some years later he was playing a board game called Masterpiece in which players attempt to outbid one another for artwork at an auction. Much to his surprise, one of the cards in the game featured a painting of flowers that looked a lot like the one he had on his wall. So he went online and found that his painting was similar in style to the work of Martin Johnson Heade, an American still-life artist best known for landscapes and flower arrangements.

Through his research he found the Kennedy Galleries in Manhattan, which handles many of Heade’s works, and asked them to take a look at his painting. They agreed and were able to verify that the piece of artwork covering the hole in his wall was a previously unknown Heade painting, since named Magnolias on Gold Velvet Cloth. In 1999, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston purchased the painting for $1.2 million dollars.

I emailed the Museum to ask if the painting was covering a hole in the wall, but I didn’t get a reply.

As you go in search of your nest egg, keep in mind the old adage: “It’s only worth what the market will bear.” Sometimes finding treasure is the easy part; finding someone willing to buy it can be the real challenge.

5. It’s nice, but it’s no Middleham Jewel…

hannaby_pendantEvery Sunday afternoon for the last seven years, Mary Hannaby had gone for a walk with her metal detector. She’d never really found anything of value, but she liked getting the exercise, so she kept at it. On one Sunday in June 2009, her detector beeped, and she bent down to dig up what she thought was going to be another common coin or old nail. Instead, she uncovered a postage stamp-sized gold pendant featuring an intricate carving of the crucifixion of Jesus. Maybe she had finally hit the jackpot.

Upon inspection by the British Museum, the pendant was described as “an important find,” and they estimated the market value to be around £4,000. Still, they decided not to purchase it for their collection, so Mary took the pendant to Sotheby’s. The experts at the auction house felt the piece was much more valuable, because it was believed to be one of only three similar items known to exist. Their initial estimate was £250,000, but said it could easily sell for as much as £2.5 million thanks to its resemblance to another English treasure also found with a metal detector, the Middleham Jewel.

But as the saying goes, “Never count your millions until the auctioneer bangs his gavel.” Sotheby’s put the pendant up for auction on July 9, 2009, making it the highlight of a large lot of antique sculptures. Clearly the expectations were high. The bidding started at £30,000, but as the final call was made, the best offer was only £38,000 – far below the reserve price to make a sale.

6. A Possible Pollock

pollock

In 1992, Teri Horton, a retired truck driver, went to her local thrift store to buy a depressed friend a gag gift. She found a rather large painting – 66” x 47” – that she thought was pretty amusing because it was, in her opinion, so ugly. When she asked the thrift store employee the price, they said $8. She haggled and only paid $5. In the end, her friend didn’t want it (she, too, thought it was ugly, plus it wouldn’t fit through the door of her trailer), so Teri took it home and tried to unload it at her garage sale. A local art teacher saw the painting and suggested it could very well be a Jackson Pollock. In response, Teri famously asked the teacher, “Who the f*** is Jackson Pollock?”

Since that day, Teri Horton has been struggling to prove that her thrift store treasure is a lost piece of artwork potentially worth well over $100 million. However, due to the painting’s lack of verifiable history of ownership (called “provenance”), the piece is disputed by many fine arts experts as simply another artist’s work inspired by Pollock. To find proof of Pollock, Teri had the work examined by a forensic specialist who claims to have found a fingerprint that matches one in Pollock’s studio. But even the fingerprint evidence has been disputed by the art world, leaving the painting, as yet, unsold.

Teri, her painting, and her battle with the art world elite became the subject of a 2006 documentary called, appropriately, Who the *$&% is Jackson Pollock?
* * * * *
Have you ever found buried treasure like these folks? A gold nugget in your backyard? A Honus Wagner card in your great-grandfather’s basement? Maybe a rare first edition book at your local thrift store? Or a shoe box full of Buffalo Nickels under the floorboards? Tell us about it!

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Comments (69)

  1. I found in my local consignment shop a copy of the book Seduction of the Innocent, by Fredric Wertham. This is the book that nearly destroyed the comics industry in the 1950s. Finding a copy with all pictures intact is very difficult (the pictures are the first thing torn out or defaced) and the bibliography in place (the book was recalled and the bibliography torn out soon after printing, so having the bibliography puts it into the rare status), with a dustjacket even, was sheer joy. I spent $2 for a approx $400-800 book. BTW, it’s not the best thing to laugh and yell “I’ve found Seduction of the Innocent” in a church consignment shop…

    posted by ErikaF on 8-6-2009 at 11:31 am

  2. Our Marching Band volunteers decided to fully organize all of the sheet music for the band. The high school had been built during the depression, so it had been around a long time.

    Volunteers found an arrangement hand written by John Phillip Sousa. The conductor’s copy as well as each band member’s copy were written by him, and were given to the band’s original director. Apparently, Mr. Sousa was a long time friend of the high school’s first band director.

    posted by emily on 8-6-2009 at 11:38 am

  3. I came across a couple boxes of baseball cards at an auction when i was still in middle school. Sifting through the cards, i noticed they were complete sets of ’89, ’90, and ’91 cards. I started recognizing some names, and asked my mom to get them for me. She got the final call for only eight dollars and i went through each card when we got home. There were some big names in it, including a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card (valued now for $80 on cardboardinvestor.com). I still have those cards around somewhere, and will look for them tonight thanks to this topic. I’m curious to know what other names are worth anything, such as a skinny Barry Bonds in a Pirates uniform. or Mark McGwire in A’s clothing.

    posted by Steven on 8-6-2009 at 11:54 am

  4. It was actually a buddy of mine who was tooling around at a garage sale and came across some books. He was going through them and found a couple copies of first five books in the Wizard of Oz series, all first addition. I think he was able to get all of them for like 5 bucks. He has them in a safe deposit box somewhere.

    very appropriate reCaptcha: chunkier $126,488,000

    posted by Nathan on 8-6-2009 at 12:02 pm

  5. My mom went to a thrift shop and bought a framed photograph, because she liked the frame. When she removed the back and took out the picture, she discovered a watercolour painting behind it: two aboriginal Canadians paddling a birch-bark canoe through tall bullrushes. The signature was Frederick Verner 1877. Turns out that Verner was one of the first artists to travel with the Hudson’s Bay Company into “undiscovered” territories and record what he saw there. He also painted a portrait of his mentor, Paul Kane, another artist renowned for his depictions of early aboriginal life. Verner’s works are in numerous galleries, and depending on the subject and quality of the painting, obtain thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars in auctions, sales, etc. It’s a beautiful watercolour, and quite a nice score on my mom’s part!

    posted by Kikadee on 8-6-2009 at 12:33 pm

  6. My grandmother’s house is a treasure trove. I have no idea of the value of anything, but I do know that there is a fantastic collection of money dated throughout US history, from money brought back during WWII, to Civil War coins to a $3 bill printed by the Bank of Wilmington in NC in 1801.

    posted by Hastings on 8-6-2009 at 12:39 pm

  7. I have been to Acres of Diamonds as a kid. We were moving from Dallas to Nashville and my parents thought it would be fun to stop.

    It is dirt as far as the eye can see, and several dozen people with rented plastic gold pans all near the entrance. I believe 2 people a day find small diamonds there, but we paid a small fortune to get in and my brother and I were done digging in the dirt after 15 minutes. I think my parents were too. Tourist Trap.

    posted by Witty Nickname on 8-6-2009 at 12:47 pm

  8. My son purchased a box of baseball cards for about $8. His find was a Barry Bonds rookie card.

    Similar to the diamond mine, you can pan for saphires in the Missoula, Montana area. They closed the actual mines due to liability. But they bring out bags of dirt that you can pan and see what you come up with. It’s been years since I was there so forget the exact location. But it was a fun exercise for the kids, and… imagine this… they did heat treat the saphires and turn them into jewelry for us! (For a fee, of course!) I have to admit, it was probably the best tourist trap gift shop I’ve ever been in!!! ;-)

    posted by Hyacinth on 8-6-2009 at 1:10 pm

  9. Teri should burn that embarrassment of a “painting” (I know, I know. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all.)

    Fantastic article though, the Crater of Diamonds Park sounds like a lot of fun. I always used to go to T.J. Max and look at their jewels and minerals because they are phenomenally bad at distinguishing between them. I found a sapphire for 5$ there once, completely mislabeled. They thought it was colored glass. Money in the bank

    posted by Griffin Patterson on 8-6-2009 at 1:32 pm

  10. It’s odd that I read this article today. I was just helping my mom look up some really old books we have found in our storage. We believe they were printed in the 1880′s, possibly as early as 1874! the publisher is Belford, Clarke & Co. There are two books, we believe they belonged to our fathers grandfather. No one knows much about them though and we have almost gotten rid of them at a garage sale. It is very difficult to look up this type of information online, nothing we found helped us much and we were unsuccssful in actually fining anything like what we have. They are part of a series of Thackeray’s Works, one book titled The Adventures of Philip Etc. & the other title escapes me now. (dang it!)
    They apear to be in pretty good condition being as old as they are. They are definatly not reprints and i believe to be 100% original 1st edition prints. I just dont know what to do with them now! We watch antiquies Roadshow and we saw a simular kind of book from the Victorian Era like we believe this one to be and it had the charictaristics that the appaiser was looking for in the book in the show. i guess we need to take a trip to the Antiques Roadshow!

    posted by Krystal on 8-6-2009 at 1:37 pm

  11. A friend and I went to the diamond fields in Arkansas. We had a blast! We didn’t find any diamonds, but our skin received wonderful moisturizing from digging around in the volcanic ash!! I can’t wait to return!

    posted by Programmher T on 8-6-2009 at 2:20 pm

  12. I had the same experience as Witty Nickname when I was 15 and my mother dragged me to the Arkansas diamond mine. Digging in the middle of a dirt field in the middle of the heat of summer was fun for about 15 minutes but my mother’s determination lasted all day. I had imagined cool caves with flowing streams to be sluiced for diamonds.

    posted by Endeavour on 8-6-2009 at 2:32 pm

  13. My husband found a first edition Huckleberry Finn with illustrations by Norman Rockwell while shopping in a used book store. I don’t know if it’s worth anything appreciable, but we certainly treasure it!

    posted by Erin on 8-6-2009 at 3:45 pm

  14. I found a Gutenberg Bible once, but I didn’t think it was worth anything so I got rid of it. It had been written all over by some Martin Luther guy.

    posted by Liar Liar on 8-6-2009 at 4:30 pm

  15. Those tourist traps are still better than the gem mining in the Smokies.

    You buy a bag of dirt labeled either small, medium or large gems. Dump it in a pan in a trough made to looks like it has a functioning water wheel, wash off the dirt and bag your “gems.”

    Ugh! But the kids had fun.

    posted by Karen on 8-6-2009 at 4:31 pm

  16. My partner’s mom recently bought two signed limited edition prints by Salvador Dali for 7 dollars each at the local Value Village! They’re from a gallery in CA that doesn’t exist anymore. Dali also did some signature doodles, including his famous Don Quixote, on both prints. They are part of his Floral Suite.

    We did some research online and found these prints being auctioned for a starting price of $9000. She has decided to hang on the the prints for now.

    posted by marim on 8-6-2009 at 4:33 pm

  17. My first great find was in a Value World resale shop when I was 16–a Wallace Nutting hand-tinted photo for 95 cents (worth about 75.00 today) Most recent was a small crystal vase found last year at the local Kiwani’s sale–paid a quarter, turns out it’s a signed & numbered Iitem worth about $50….not exactly *treasure trove* but fun finds!

    posted by a2veeness on 8-6-2009 at 7:48 pm

  18. I once went to an estate sale and bought an Air France poster for $5 because it looked crazy, turns out it is by Lucien Boucher and fairly collectable. I still like it cuz it looks crazy.

    posted by Heather on 8-6-2009 at 8:14 pm

  19. I attended the 1984 NBA all star game and was an early arriver so received a packet of cards. Though I didn’t collect cards until years later, I had tossed them into a drawer where they remained forgotten. Eventually I discovered it had all the participants including Michael Jordan his rookie year. I don’t know the value but still have the cards.

    posted by Jim on 8-6-2009 at 9:06 pm

  20. My dad found this really cool coin when he was a kid. He kept it and just thought that it was a neat thing to have. Fast forward 30 years and one summer we decided to take up coin collecting. He showed me the coin he found as a child, we researched it and discovered that it was an ancient Greek coin dating back to 530 B.C.!! It’s in a lockbox now, and we’re not sure what to do with it!

    posted by KerriD on 8-6-2009 at 10:12 pm

  21. I found some Civil War diaries in my grandparent’s garage. They owned a house built by the diary’s author’s son in the 1950′s – my grandparents moved about a dozen times between then and when I found them in 1982…

    The author served as a chaplain and was captured on the battlefield at one point, while he was ministering to the fallen. The Confederates thought he was a spy.

    He got out of Libby Prison and went back to his company eventually.

    posted by Dianne on 8-6-2009 at 10:59 pm

  22. I worked at a grocery store a few years ago and we had some wine that didn’t have a UPC label and we didn’t know what to do with it. Finally someone marked it down to $1.99. I figured it had to be worth at least that much and so I bought the four bottles of it. Turns out it was $100 bottles of Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon that I bought. Before I knew what they were I gave a bottle away to someone that mixed it with Sprite and made wine coolers with it!

    posted by D-Hizzle on 8-7-2009 at 1:23 am

  23. my fiance found a barber quarter from 1908. he looked it up and it’s worth up to several hundred dollars. the guy running the register at a store he went into asked if he would mind a ‘canadian’ quarter. he said no because i collect foreign coins, then when he took a good look at he realized what it was.

    posted by jenni on 8-7-2009 at 4:04 pm

  24. my dad also found a teapot type thing (i forget the actual name) for $2 or $3 at a yardsale, then found out it was worth a little over $30.

    posted by jenni on 8-7-2009 at 4:06 pm

  25. My grandfather found a mint, first-edition copy of Gone With the Wind from I believe 1936…worth around $500 today! Lucky find in the inheritance from great-grandma, God rest her soul!

    posted by BJ on 8-7-2009 at 11:51 pm

  26. I’ve always been something of a garage sale junkie, but the best find I’ve made in the past few years is probably when I found a rather large collection of 1970s and 1980s Star Wars toys, and picked up all of it for $10. Eventually I figured out I had quite a few complete sets in there, and although the condition wasn’t all that great, I ultimately managed to get over $200 on eBay for the stuff.

    Another favorite one was the time I got a highly sought-after discontinued Nerf gun as a present in a white elephant gift exchange one Christmas, and managed to eBay it for $96 a few months later.

    posted by Brian Lutz on 8-8-2009 at 5:20 am

  27. On a recent trip to TN, my brother picked up a LBJ election pin. And a friend was able to pick up a 1934 Chicago World’s Fair brochure (about the thickness of a Reader’s Digest), complete with a telegram postcard! I believe that someone else bought the original soundtrack, on vinyl, of Jesus Christ Superstar.

    They might not be worth a whole lot, but they’re pretty awesome to look at.

    posted by Kendall on 8-8-2009 at 9:43 am

  28. My best find was a PEZ that I found at a garage sale for $.10. It was neat looking to me because I had never seen one that looked like Pinocchio. So I poked around the internet and found it was a serious collectors item. I sold it on eBay for a little over $300.00.

    posted by Alice on 8-9-2009 at 12:46 am

  29. My first cello teacher moved with her family as a teenager and found a quality hundred-year-old cello in the attic.

    posted by jealous cellist on 8-9-2009 at 2:27 am

  30. i have a 1965 comic book of JFKs life dont know whats its worth but int not in mint condition and would love tofind out what it is worth

    posted by wayne on 8-10-2009 at 3:01 am

  31. In 1994 I found a beautiful woman in a local restaraunt. Twelve years later we had a son. I don’t know what that is worth to the world, but it is worth the world to me!

    posted by BryansDaddy4 on 8-12-2009 at 4:58 am

  32. im afriad to say that ancient greek coins are only worth about £12 or $20… although that’s what the coin shop says never treally trust them if they are willing to buy it off you and go to other to make sure they are not trying to cheat you. For example they might buy these cions for £12 and sell them for £200… ;)

    posted by to kerri d on 8-14-2009 at 12:10 pm

  33. My dad has a navajo sand-painting by a famous navajo artist who died in the 1950s- an art museum in New Mexico did an exhibit on this particular artist and displayed the only works they knew of- but my dad has number 3, which the museum STILL doesn’t know of, signed and everything.

    posted by Ashley on 9-8-2009 at 10:12 am

  34. my grandmothers best friend has a floating chair in her dining room. its grey and gold and just floats there for as long as I can remember. Im 40 now so a long time. with no moving parts it just defies gravity. thats gotta be worth something.I sit in it everytime i stop buy still amazed by it. she was married to a man who worked for the research and development department for howard hughs in the 30s. I think she calls it the newton chair.

    posted by randy johansen on 10-26-2009 at 4:16 am

  35. Michael Sparks has a remarkable story. I will definitely pay more attention at thrift stores now. It’s a sign that fortune can smile at you even at most unexpected times.

    posted by Donald on 10-28-2009 at 7:23 am

  36. It is a remarkable story, but its extremely unlikely that it’d happen just because a person pays more attention to thrift stores hoping to get lucky. If you really wanted to do something like this, start hitting up flea markets and learning more about older junk that collectors might be interested in. That way you can spot the golden nuggets if and when you see them.

    posted by Marcus on 10-28-2009 at 5:54 pm

  37. Sometimes even a dirty pile of rust is valuable.
    This is slightly different but certainly a lucky find that made one man a billionaire. (Cut & pasted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_Hancock )
    Hancock returned to the area many times and, accompanied by prospector Ken McCamey, followed the iron ore over a distance of 112km. He soon came to realise that he had stumbled across reserves of iron ore so vast that they could supply the entire world,…

    posted by Galvo on 10-28-2009 at 11:56 pm

  38. I have been visiting tag sales ever since I was taught to drive by my parents. It has been a fun hobby because every discovery is an opportunity to learn, laugh,and amaze regardless of the value. Take a look at my finds and the stories behind them:
    http://videomartyr.blogspot.com/

    posted by Greg VA on 11-14-2009 at 7:07 am

  39. This post reminded me of finding my mother-in-laws copy of the Playgirl with Brad Pitt in pristine condition and called her and since its worth a few thousand if I can find a buyer, we’ll split the money!!
    Hello college education for the kids!!

    posted by kokopeli420 on 12-22-2009 at 6:42 pm

  40. Just saw that there are quite a few for sale. Down to $150 wamp wamp :(

    posted by kokopeli420 on 12-22-2009 at 7:08 pm

  41. The first story inspired a song: “Eric the Gardener” by The Divine Comedy. The song opens with the sound of a metal detector.

    posted by Stefan on 1-5-2010 at 4:43 am

  42. My father found a 1738 coin on a construction site during some diggings. He found no more, and today it is a cultural centre over the place. But I bet with a metal detector and some luck you could still find something in the surrounding area. I live in Portugal :)

    posted by leorolim on 1-5-2010 at 2:51 pm

  43. That Jackson Pollock story is exactly why abstract art sales are all bullsh*t. “If it’s a Jackson Pollock, it’s worth $100 million. If it’s someone else, it’s worth nothing” It’s still the same painting! Regardless of who made it, it’s the same piece of fabric covered in paint. If it were say, 500 years old, that would explain some of its value. But in this instance, it’s the theory of, “This guy was the first to do this, so its special.” Dumb, du-dumb dumb DUMB!

    posted by Eric on 3-13-2010 at 12:02 am

  44. My sister, brother-in-law, and I were at an auction. Several boxes of books were up for bid, with no takers. My BIL bid a couple dollars on them, and got them. Later, as we sorted through to see what we had, we found a book that had been in a cabin on the Lusitania. It’s basically like a flight magazine, with ads for hotels, info. about the ship, etc. I took it to “Antiques Roadshow” a couple years ago, and it’s not worth a lot, but as a history buff, it’s really cool!

    posted by Tammy on 3-19-2010 at 8:43 pm

  45. This was a while back> 15 – 20 yrs ago. During a Family Christmas gathering at my Aunt’s house. I noticed 2 paintings hanging on her wall. They are painted on burlap (16″ x 24″ aprox.) they are Mexican folk art style – Hombres in ponchos taking a siesta with cacti in the background. They are similar looking – a set probably. Being an artist I recognized this style right away, I inquired with shivers running up and down my spine. “How did you get these?” “Can I have one or both if you don’t want them?” The story goes>> They belonged to my Grandmother’s Partner, he didnt like this particular style of art, so he gave them to my Aunt.
    He failed to recognize the painted signature in the corner which read -

    D. Rivera

    She still has them, but she is in an authentication battle with them.

    posted by S Anderson on 3-20-2010 at 1:04 am

  46. What always blows my mind is how nobody ever sells these things. You always hear, “Oh, I’m holding onto it for now.”

    If I find something for $2 that turns out to be worth $10K…dude, in a HEARTBEAT. I don’t care if it “might” be worth $20K in 20 years. Take the sure thing now.

    Everybody kept their Beanie Babies that were “worth” $100 because they “might” have been “worth” $1,000 someday, too. Awful lot of “0 bids” action on Ebay for those these days.

    Now if it’s an honest-to-gosh family heirloom, that’s one thing. But hoarding something you picked up at Goodwill just doesn’t make sense to me.

    That said, I’ve got some extremely old inherited iron cookware that would probably be worth a couple hundred bones, but I use it almost every day. It’s good stuff.

    posted by clint on 3-22-2010 at 11:53 am

  47. I have a lovely oval dark wood table, that has a eagle with spread wings carved in the sunken center, the top is sort of a clean scalloped shapeed rim over a sheet of glass. It used to belong to my great aunt. I remember she used to put (silver) silver dollars between the glass and the table. I have had to have it repaired, and it is quite lovely to look at. Not really looking to sell it, but would sure like to know some history on it.

    posted by Missy on 5-6-2010 at 11:15 pm

  48. I collect weird Victorian books, and my favorite haunting grounds are estate sales. With yard sales, people have an emotional connection to the stuff, so it’s often harder for me to find gems.

    At one estate sale, I was pawing through the old books and found something neat-looking called “Emblems of Mortality.” I picked it up for $3, because it interested me. (I’ve scanned the whole thing and put it on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/isara/sets/72157602273896664/ )

    After I got it home, I did some research and found some auction catalogs from around 1900. Turns out the book is extremely rare, and is probably worth around $800-$1000 today.

    I also managed to pick up another rare set of first editions of this set of weird books, “Sammy Tubbs and the Troublesome Monkey Sponsie”: http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-01-06/art/spanking-the-monkey/1 (it’s really worth reading the article). I think I spent $100-150 to acquire the set piecemeal, and it’s probably worth about $1000 together.

    posted by Isara on 6-3-2010 at 8:54 pm

  49. How about minor league baseball player Matt White. He bought property from his grandmother for 50K so she could afford a nursing home. Turns out this land is worth about 2 billion dollars due to the rock under it. Not bad.

    posted by Turtle on 8-4-2010 at 1:50 pm

  50. I was friends with an older fellow from my church. He was a retired pastor, and he and his wife had served as missionaries to China in the 1960s. One day I was at his house, and he asked me to help him move this heavy object to the curb, for the garbagemen to take. It turned out to be a Chinese typewriter, with boxes and boxes of characters that could be inserted.

    I said it was too cool to throw out, and he said I could take it. A few years later, my wife wanted me to throw it out. Instead, I put it on eBay. Sold it a week later to a collector in France for more than $400.

    One man’s trash…

    posted by Will on 8-5-2010 at 2:43 pm

  51. About a year ago, my grandma told me about a place she went in NYC when her and her first husband got married, called the Latin Quarter. It was owned by Lou Walters, who is Barbara Walter’s father. It was a good memory for her because they went there after they were married and even had a couple (who they didn’t know) pay for their dinner since they were on their honeymoon.

    This past summer, we were yard saling and came across a yard sale that I thought would be just junk. The guy was weird, he had a lot of christian tattoos (a LOT!) and was playing old 1950′s music, but must have been in his 40′s. I looked around a table and there was a program from the 1940′s from the Latin Quarter! I got all excited and showed it to my grandmother who was overwhelmed and so happy. I thought the guy would want a lot of money for it, but he only wanted 10 cents! I don’t know if the book is worth anything, I looked on eBay and wasn’t able to find one of it’s kind. But it’s very good condition and an epic find for my grandmother.

    Now that I think about it, the creepy guy had a lot of really old stuff he was selling for dirt cheap, I should have picked up some more just to see if it was worth anything!

    posted by Courtney on 8-13-2010 at 1:41 pm

  52. At my local used bookstore I found a first-edition copy of Foundation by Isaac Asimov. May not be worth much, but it’s immensely satisfying to have.

    posted by Logan on 8-17-2010 at 1:28 pm

  53. I got a first edition copy of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood at Half Priced Books for about $5. He’s one of my favorite authors, so I was tickled pink! Might not be worth anything but it is to me :)

    posted by jane on 8-24-2010 at 2:16 pm

  54. When searching through my great-grandmother’s stuff, my dad found a book of photographs from World War I. The publication date: 1916! I’m not sure what it’s worth, but he still has it.

    posted by Jamie on 10-14-2010 at 12:08 am

  55. I have spent the last several years searching for a toy from the days of my youth.

    Am interested in hearing from purveyors of antique snow-sports equipment.

    posted by Charles Foster Kane on 10-27-2010 at 11:40 am

  56. Oprah had some people on years ago that had made amazing finds in places like thrift stores and garage sales. One guy in particular I recall found a very rare and coveted map slid behind an ugly painting he found in a thrift store. He bought it for a few bucks. When he found the map he took it to a university professor to verify its authenticity. The professor offered him $50K on the spot, but smartly the guy demured and held on to the map. He ended up forming a corporation, licensing it and making $20M+ on the licensed copies to museums and various map collectors – and he’s held on to the original, very valuable map all along.

    posted by boethius on 11-9-2010 at 10:17 pm

  57. Those tourist traps are still better than the gem mining in the Smokies.

    You buy a bag of dirt labeled either small, medium or large gems. Dump it in a pan in a trough made to looks like it has a functioning water wheel, wash off the dirt and bag your “gems.”

    Ugh! But the kids had fun.

    ****************************************

    YOU KNOW when I was in college I worked for a similiar place like that where people cold buy “pails” of dirt from supposedly mines at the property. Guess what my job along with 3 other young men were. We would take little plastic bag filled semi-precious gems and then “MIX” them into the dirt and put them in the pail. TOTAL rip-off. The tourists paid $7.50 per large pail and got stones that the owner of the so called mine paid a dollar for, yeap $1 dollar. He threw the dirt in for free,LOL. So he made $6.50 per pail of dirt. People are so gullable sometimes

    posted by Art on 3-13-2011 at 12:43 pm

  58. A very good friend of mine is one of those people who collects every single piece of garbage that turns out to be mildly interesting. By now, he already found a fully-working porn DVD, two Shakespeare books in Brazilian Portuguese(1st f***ing edition) and a magnetic tape recording of a german radio advertising, dated around the WWII.

    Nothing of HUGE value, though.

    posted by TiagoR2 on 3-29-2011 at 1:34 pm

  59. These stories are fun, if you buy what you like, it will always have value- and once in a while you’ll get lucky. Just a few little tips from someone who has dabbled in the ‘field.” Never refinish, polish or fix anything you -think- is at least 100 years old- you can dramatically lose value by ‘cleaning it up’. Most good auction companies will give you a ‘free’ internet photo appraisals, some do ‘Appraisal Days’ for local charities, where they give free verbal and most auction house will give you a pre-sale estimate when you take something into consign or sell. It’s always good to have a good idea of the value of what you have, if you think it has value (to someone else), check it out. Remember almost anything of value had been copied- either as knock offs, or as commemorative- does not mean it’s not worth money though!
    Buy what YOU like, never pay more than you can afford, browse the net for stories and sales in the genre you enjoy, and as you learn about and enjoy your ‘collection’ you can hope you get lucky.

    posted by sandy01301 on 8-23-2011 at 10:29 am

  60. i’ve been collecting antiques for years, from telephone to drink cans to chairs. None of it is worth more than $100 except for one item which i sold for $225. That item is a china procelain bowl which is believed to be from some dynasty.

    posted by best blenders on 9-14-2011 at 1:24 pm

  61. OK this isn’t exactly a fortune, but I think it might make a few people laugh and it was found (and under-valued) accidentally.

    In the UK there’s a popular comedian called Paul Merton and in the 90s he wrote a book called “My Struggle”.

    I found a hardback copy in a local secondhand bookstore, but it was reduced in price because it said it was a “Damaged Book – Not to be resold as new”.

    It certainly appeared brand new with no damage, but it had been signed by the author!

    posted by Paula on 9-15-2011 at 4:59 pm

  62. My ex was at a garage sale in southern Ohio and bought a dingy old picture that she said she decided to pay the $3 for because it ‘had personality’. I personally thought it looked like a dingy old picture that should have been left to be tossed out.

    Fortunately for her, she didn’t do as I would have done… It turned out to be picture by Aubry Bodine that he experimented a new developing technique with and gave to a Johns Hopskins doctor whom had treated his mother.

    We found out about his daughter having an exhibit in Baltimore of her father’s works, and upon showing it to her, she about fainted. Her husband said, “that discovery probably just paid for your kid’s college.” It’s now in a museum quality protective frame hanging on her wall. Appraisal is in the $20-$40k range.

    posted by Joseph on 9-23-2011 at 4:35 pm

  63. After my grandma passed away, we the grandkids got some trinkets passed out to us. I might have been the only one to get anything vaguely valuable. They found an old watch in one of her winter coats and it was given to me.
    Mom took a look at it and sais it was a good brand. I did some research, the brand might’ve been from our country but the watch was most likely swiss made, before the company moved their operations to china. It’s a windup ladies miniature pocket watch. I’m going to keep it, maybe have it cleaned and if I can find an actual clock smith, have the clockwork checked out. (don’t want some battery changer salesman opening the back and having the springs explode)

    posted by P.K. on 10-3-2011 at 3:36 am

  64. Two years ago I went through the McDonalds drive-thru in Enola,PA and got the blue Park Place piece in their Monopoly game. Thinking it was pretty cool, I put it in the ashtray in my car (a convertible). Three weeks later I stopped at another McDonald’s in Bloomsburg,PA, and found that I had the matching Boardwalk piece. Unfortunately, I was driving on I-80 with my top down, and as I put the matching piece in the ashtray, it flew out the window. For two days I scoured a 5-mile stretch on I-80 between Bloomsburg and Mifflinville looking for the missing piece. Yes, for a brief couple of minutes, I was a millionaire. I’ve told this story a thousand times, and it never gets any easier to tell. Especially now, since there’s an ad on this page for the McDonald’s Monopoly game. FML!

    posted by Marlin on 10-4-2011 at 2:23 am

  65. My wife bought a bunch of stuff I thought was crap at tag sales. We had someone look at the stuff the other day.

    I was right.

    posted by Lazybum on 11-27-2011 at 3:20 pm

  66. my dad found an original 1894 copy of the wreck of the titan at a libary. got it for 50 dollars. it is signed and the cover needs restitching back onto the pages but right now its in a lockbox until i get the money to have it restored.

    posted by tylor on 1-4-2012 at 1:27 am

  67. My partner and I were hitting garage sales about 13 years ago in West Seattle when he got visibly excited. He rushed up to a table and grabbed what appeared to be a very odd-looking, geometrically shaped candlestick. He managed to get it for $10. Turns out it is a signed piece from a particular design movement and is valued at $3000. It’s in a box in the garage, along with 100s of other finds …

    posted by btbaby on 1-23-2012 at 2:24 pm

  68. My mother-in-law bought some frames at a thrift store for just a few dollars. Inside the frames are *signed* (in pencil, with his signature doodle below the name) Salvador Dali prints that, after some online research, look to be worth around $14,000 each! She knew their potential value when she bought them but the sales clerk had no idea who Salvador Dali was. :)

    posted by embersoul on 2-1-2012 at 7:43 pm

  69. At a church flea market once, I found a nice old tweed coat marked at $2. I put it on, was happy to see that it fit perfectly and walked up to the cash register to pay.
    Out of old habit I put my hand in my coat pocket to get my wallet, and to my surprise found a $5 note and a bunch of coins. I was tempted to give the cashier the coins (it was more than $2) and tell her to “keep the change”, but changed my mind and gave her the $5 instead. Since I found the money in the pocket of the coat I bought, I felt it would be wrong to take the $3 change, and told her it was a donation to the church’s fund for good deeds.

    I came out ahead though; although most the coins from the pocket were ordinary coins from the early 60′s, there were a couple silver dollars and a few other coins from the 19th century which turned out to be quite valuable.
    Since I always lose my change, I sold the coins and used to money to pay for college.
    No, it did not cover the cost of my degree, but he coat lasted through college.

    Best value I ever got for a few minutes at a flea market!

    posted by Marina on 2-7-2012 at 6:43 pm

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