If you’ve ever been to a garage sale, you’ll know just how many hidden gem type of items you can find. Whether it’s something you forgot you needed or wanted, or it’s something you see and instantly think, ‘I need this now.’ garage sales can be the best place to find amazing items at even more amazing prices.
Of course, you’ll find that some items look like they’re in the right place – at the bottom of a plastic tub in the corner of a garage sale, but there have been times where people have found some truly remarkable items, and when we say remarkable, we mean historic and incredibly expensive.
You might have caught part one in this series – if you haven’t, please go check it out now so that you know what kinds of items we’ve already covered!
The Declaration of Independence
Well, at least a copy of it anyway. This find got a lot of media attention over in the states, so you might have already heard something about it. If not, the story goes something a little like this: Guy buys a retro looking, weathered looking copy of the Declaration of Independence at a garage sale, then stashes it away for years. Guy gets engaged; they have a clean out and end up selling the thing to a thrift shop. As it turned out, it was one of the official 200 commissioned copies of the Declaration of Independence – a commission given by the none other than John Quincy Adams himself!
Bought for: $45 – Sold for: $477, 000
Stock Certificate
Whenever one finds an item which is clearly from a certain era in the past, they might be more inclined to buy the item, no matter what it is based solely on the fact that it’s an historical artefact – like owning a piece of history itself! Well, that’s exactly what was going through a California born and raised man when he picked up an old stock certificate at a garage for $5. It turned out that the certificate was for a company called Palmer Oil Co. Which might not ring any bells – but if we told you that Palmer Oil Co., was a predecessor company to Coca Cola, you’d realise just how excited this man must have been.
Bought for: $5 – Sold for: $130 million
Denim Jacket
Here’s one that wasn’t a lucky find, but more in lue of someone’s bad luck. From the same state as the man who struck gold (or he might as well have), one woman sold a denim jacket at a garage sale last month for just over $20. That was until she realised she’d tucked away a pair of diamond encrusted earrings worth $18,000 in one of the pockets. Of course, she must have felt more than silly once she’d realised what had happened and as a result put a message out to all media outlets in the hopes that the person who bought the jacket would ignore the worth and give the earrings back.
Paid: $20 – Worth: $18,000
Frankenstein Poster
Posters from old movies are the classic garage sale find, especially as people were collecting posters as far back as two generations. However, original film posters can be some of the most sought after memorabilia for collectors – especially when they’re an old item. That’s what happened when someone found an old Frankenstein poster in the projection booth of an old theatre. It was originally estimated that the poster would sell for about $200,000 but ended up racking in a whopping, $358,500!
A Camera
This one is utterly beautiful, as if the universe directed this kid toward this find. We’ll keep this one brief because there really doesn’t need to be anything more told than what he found. A couple of years ago, a 13 year old boy bought a Polaroid camera from a garage sale and when he got home and removed the cartridge, he found a photo of his uncle, who had died in a car crash 23 years earlier. Something out of a film right there!
So, when you’re next at a garage sale of some sort, it might be worth having a real good poke around – you never know what you might find!
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