Did you ever find something valuable and get it cheap?

One of my exes bought a box of books at an estate sale without going through them. As we were organizing them, we realized that one of them was a book safe. I picked the lock and found an amethyst bracelet, diamond earrings and a pearl ring inside.

OP, he left it in there by accident. Have you no conscience?

I bought a Robert Rauschenberg signed/numbered serigraph at an estate sale for $450. Saw one of them for sale later for $11K.

No R2 I don't.

He was selling off an estate so I doubt he even knew the watch existed.

I was paying 120 Euros for a J. E. Rhulmann buffet at a charity shop when a seething slithery dealer saw what was happening and ratted me out to the cashier, who snapped back "Et bien tant pis pour vous, monsieur."

Ruhlmann

r5, that should be "Eh bien".

I bought a box of tools at a garage sale of a deceased hoarder and found a very grubby but valuable Gold Fob Watch with original chain and 14 gold watch chain charm spinner things. Kachinggg!!!

My father bought an old, ornately carved desk at an estate sale. While refinishing it, he turned it on its side and heard things sliding around, but all the drawers were empty. Then he realized it looked "deeper" than the number of drawers let on. Turns out there was a secret drawer at the bottom, you had to feel in the drawer above it for a switch to open it. It was full of jewelry and old coins. Being the annoyingly honest person he was, he went back to the house he bought it at, but it was now empty and for sale. He contacted the realtor who told him to not worry about his find, the sale was due to the death of an old woman, and her kids were quite happy with the proceeds of the sale. He paid $700 for the desk and the contents of the drawer he later sold for $8000 total, not including the pieces he kept.

I bought a pair of slightly dented sat and pepper shakers in sterling on eBay for a couple of hundred dollars. They were the large long neck size of a pretty rare set of R&B Francis I.

I bought them from a pawn shop. Pawn shops sometimes only want to get silver melt plus a little and do not do the homework for rare silver.

When I opened the package, inside were two shakers in a large size I had not seen nor ever saw recorded before in R&B inventories.

I have seen the ones I THOUGHTt I was buying for $2K+. In thirty years of collecting, I have never seen these. I wouldn't sell the pair for less than $4K.

R10 - MARY!

[quote]No [R2] I don't. He was selling off an estate so I doubt he even knew the watch existed.

But shouldn't you have contacted him and told him?

You only paid for the pens.

That's not the way estate sales work R12. Seller and Buyer beware.

R12, if he couldn't be bothered to actually look inside the box, why should I contact him and hand over a watch worth several thousand dollars?

The God's looked down on me that day and smiled.

In 2003 or thereabouts I bought Ford stock at $2/share which was before the bailout. I had opened a Roth IRA and needed to move the funds out of the general account. I bought something like 800 shares. At its highest point the stock was at $22/share or something like that and while it's not anywhere close to that it's never gone back to the price I bought it at.

[quote]OP, he left it in there by accident. Have you no conscience?

Cheap people often suffer from mental illness.

I’m with you, OP, on the watch.

OP is enjoying the watch, which was made to be worn and enjoyed, and its something he could never afford. What's so bad about that?

Have you had it valued, R14/OP?

(I'm slightly activated by this story only because my father promised me his 60s Cartier Tank watch if I gave up smoking, then I did but he still didn't give it to me - then it was stolen).

[quote]The God's looked down on me

Oh, dear.

I went into a charity shop and they had a genuine Louis Vuitton handbag (purse) for sale for about $5. So I told them it was genuine and she said take it for $10.

This was years ago and long before ebay, so I just left it. Even so I would have felt bad taking it for $10

Hell yeah, I’m a lifelong thrifter and estate sale shopper! Love it 😍

I was with a friend at a church sale in Nyon Switzerland when she found a quilted classic black Chanel handbag. 12 francs. And then, the next year's sale, she found another! She still has them, needless to say, and was thrilled.

I don't think I've been to an estate sale. Do you go to the premises?

I love these stories. I once heard of a woman who found 3 Hermès Bags in a thrift store; don’t remember the prices but something like $5 each.

I bought a pair of genuine '60s Gucci shoes - for ladies, in a junk shop. Hardly used. I thought I'd sell them on ebay for fun. No one bought them.

Bag of Matchbox cars for $5 that went on ebay for a total of $600.

Star Trek script for $15 that went for $1650.

Limited Edition pop-up book fished from trash sold for $2000. Undamaged ones were selling for $3500-4000.

I found three barely worn Paul Stewart suits that fit me perfectly when I was just starting in New York in the 80s. It wasn't at an AIDS shop but I figured it they must have belonged to some tall young guy who died quickly of AIDS. I was grateful for them.

Yes, but I didn’t actually “find” it.

I ordered a one ounce platinum coin from some company. They charged my credit card $1250, but maybe ten days elapsed and I never received the coin. I called and asked about it, saying that most companies don’t charge for a product until it ships. A few days later, I got the coin.

Then another five days later, I got a second coin. I figured they would contact me in another week and or so, but they never did.

Save your fingers, I already know I’m a bad person.

115 Lee Moorhouse 3inch x 3inch glass slides of Native American scenes of the Mille Lacs tribe. Quite rare.

Bought them at a thrift store in the 70s for $2.50

Appraised value? About $15,000

And I only bought them because I liked the oak box they were in.

r11, make that a double MARY, one for each shaker.

I found this statue in a recycling place when I took my neighbor to cash in his 10 million beer cans. I paid $10,its worth several 1000.

r31, It is weird but it is all about the photographs. R&B FF is a SCALED pattern. The FF 3" nut cup, the 8" candy bowl and the 11" round vegetable bowl all photograph THE SAME. My recent steal was an ORIGINAL 13" 1908 soup ladle with the "helmet" bowl. It photographs like an ordinary 6" cream sauce ladle. The ladles are scaled versions of each other. I have seen two of these old style soup ladles in thirty years and they are easily worth $1500. With a bad picture and heavily tarnished I snagged one for $195. Again from a pawn shop.

r10

OK r10/r33, I retract my double MARY, as I would like to make it a MARY SQUARED!

Not in the league of the above treasures...but I scored a solid brass Tiffany & Co. mantle clock (identical to the one shown) at Goodwill for $5. In searching for the attached photo to include in this post, I see it's valued at $150.

I collect vintage NYC travel posters. A friend told me that there were two framed ones he thought I’d like at a local charity shop so I went over. I already had one, but the other, a 1960’s United with a stylized UN Building was one I always wanted. The poster gallery I usually buy from listed this poster at $1,400; charity shop price was $300.

I told the people at the shop that it was ridiculously underpriced. They replied they’d never get the full value at this kind of shop - it was priced at the high end of what they could sell it for. So I bought it.

I love hearing these stories!

Back in the 80's I bought a first edition paperback of Star Wars from a used bookstore for 75 cents.

🙅 Wait until "the guy" discovers his missing watch.

It could really suck to be you.

Apparently Amazon had a glitch on their site for Prime Day, and was accidentally selling items that cost thousands of dollars, for only $95. It will be interesting if they honor the purchases or not.

I've gotten some amazing deals on Ebay - a Louis Wain panorama book for $100, worth at least $1500; several pairs of vintage Cartier sunglasses for around $200, worth $700-1500; some antique French gold jewellery which are pretty much museum pieces, worth up to $4k, for $300 total. But I also got ripped off buying a fake Louis Wain chalk pastel.

I did not find these letters myself, but I got photocopies. I don’t think I’ve posted this one before.

Someone found letters dated about 1800 from my 5th great aunt in a Baltimore flea market, addressed to her sister and niece. We aren’t from Baltimore, so go figure. They are now in the Stanford rare papers library.

She refers to her husband as Mr. Hopkins or The Doctor. I don’t know if she’s being funny or if that’s the custom at the time. Probably the custom. Most of the letters are from her step son about settling The Doctor’s estate.

I bought this 1929 banknote for a grand, but it’s perfect. Crisp, clear, and no tears. It seems to have no defects. It’s a coincidence that it’s from my hometown [italic] and [/italic] it has the bank charter of 666, which makes it valuable.

It’s so perfect I took it to the Federal Reserve across town and asked them if it’s counterfeit. Their answer was funny: “It appears to be not ingenuine.”, I think is how they put it.

It’s hard to get a deal as a amateur collector. One trick the pros use is starch to make a floppy note crisp. I bought one note that I returned for that reason, and boy was that seller mad!

I have thought that one could make a killing making counterfeit notes to sell to goobers on eBay. The reason being that the note is typically examined by the buyer, then put away in a collection for years, probably, instead of circulated and exposed to many people.

[quote]Oh, dear.

I didn't find a copy of The Blue Book in the box R20.

Thank you R18.

R19, I spoke with a friend who collects Cartier watches and he did some research and said market value was around $3500 to $4000.

I actually tried to find a 60s Cartier Tank to replace the one my father promised that was stolen, but couldn't find one...anywhere. I've since bought a couple of modern ones from eBay - I sold the first one to a dealer and still have the second one, but don't really like it...and now I more or less don't care about having one anymore.

Is yours square with quite a small face? Does it have the original shiny alligator strap with a gold clasp?

The modern ones have bad straps. I think they're leather. Dull finish.

R45 this one didn't have a strap or the original gold buckle unfortunately. It's a men's size but small by today's standards. It's solid gold which is a plus as many were Vermeil (gold plated silver). It's a hand wind Cartier 78-1 movement. It's identical to this one.

Yes, that's exactly my father's watch. Late '60s. He had an oval before but he left it in a New York taxi, I seem to remember. How do you leave a watch in a taxi?

I want one now.

Actually, I remember I DID buy a vintage one (not as good as yours) but it lost time even after I had it serviced. This would make me nervous about buying a vintage one again.

Another eBay story:

As you probably guessed, I am a TTQ, a table top queen. I was a regional buyer for a major retailer in gift-ware and table top.

If you hang on eBay and watch your searches closely you will eventually find some sale listings that are simply weird. Plus these weird listings will recycle un-bid for YEARS like eyesores you cannot get rid of. One eyesore listing was for a complete 12 6 piece place sets of china with a huge assortment of serving pieces AND 12 five piece crystal sets in the same pattern. Christian Dior Gaudron Marbre Rose, with the Gaudron Gold stemware. It was listed for $3K one year, $2K the next year, and $1k the year after. It appeared to be a wedding present for a marriage that went south. Finally, like the six years later, the price was dropped to $400! with one drawback; it had to be a local pick up. $400 for all of that was a true below wholesale I-do-not-want-to-look-at-this-shit-collecting-dust-for-a-daughter-who-dumped-the-bastard firesale listing. [In perspective a water goblet alone is sometimes listed for $50. A dozen $600.] On a whim I looked up the location, made an offer and took possession in the parking lot of the Red Rock Casino, here, in Las Vegas. We barely spoke during the transfer as I could tell he was not happy with ANYTHING connected to these pieces.

But it was GREAT purchase.

r10 / r33

God save our Table Top Queens.

And those who sail in them, R49

I never FOUND anything of huge value. When ebay first came out I bought a breitling pilot watch that was new from a retailer at about half or less than regular price. I have had it in for a new watchband strap a couple of times over the years and I know from jewelry store experience its the genuine article.

Also I inherited a small amt of money and most of the furniture and contents of my aunts interior design and personl residence about 35 years ago. One item was a crystal shade floor lamp..........Instead of a shade it had hundreds of crystal prisms in the shape of a lampshade......it is a little over the top but its the only thing in my house that is over the top oppulent so I can get away with it........anyway I had it repaired a few times over the years and the base and the pole of the floor lamp turn out to be 14 K gold...............worth a whole hell of a lot of money. If my other relatives knew the value of that item there would have been a real fight over it.

Back in the early 90's I had a part time job at a thrift store one summer - unloading the trucks and pricing the items. You wouldn't believe how many times we would find stashes of money, and porn magazines in stuff like old luggage.

My best eBay buy ever was an 18' by 9' brand new oriental rug that a soldier had brought back with him from Iraq. I got it for $450 and it's probably a $9,000 rug. He was apparently happy with the amount he got.

[r14] Was the god smiling at you Satan, Op?

Just joking, your situation does sound more complex. Most likely, the seller did not even know? Was it a family member selling, or third party? Is there a way to go back or call to find out some information to clear your conscious, other than is this your expensive Cartier watch? Also, people think watches are worth more than they are? Is it in mint condition?

this shit never happens to me. Do you have any antiquing tips? I want to experience the thrill of the hunt and hit the jackpot.

R14, not the spelling gods, apparently.

There are no spelling gods, only the spelling trolls.

Some Ebay tips... you have to know your stuff, and even then you can get burned. Use Ebay email alerts for the things you know about and want. You can specify a low start price in your alert parameters and with luck, the auction will whiz by so fast, canny collectors will not have noticed it. As mentioned above, if you keep a certain non-selling item in your watch list, you may notice the price being reduced. Six years must be a record, however!

Tip no 2...use an auction sniper. Don't needlessly drive up the price of the item by bidding early.

Tip no 3...ask a lot of questions regarding authenticity, measurements/weight if applicable, condition and provenance before you bid. On a high priced item, ask if they accept returns on that basis.

I once returned a damaged Waterman pen to a dishonest seller. He claimed there was nothing in the box and I lost my money! I have since learned to video myself in the post office placing the item to be returned in the box, sealing it, addressing it, and sending it. If there's a long queue behind me, people get annoyed, but too bad.

Tip no 4...remember that you can't win them all. Some Ebay wins will end up being a disappointment or failure for one reason or another. I've been cheated, disappointed or lost money about 5 times in 20 years, about 1% of the time. But the other 99% have been very rewarding.

Bad karma with the watch. Perhaps my conscience barks louder than yours OP. I still would have returned it even if it was a [italic] les must de Cartier [/italic] with the quartz movement. When odd things happen like this, I feel it is a test or a learning experience of sorts. FAIL.

I found an 18k gold chain and pendant at the zoo. I sent the zoo an email saying I had found an object of value. If anyone came in claiming they had lost something, they were welcome to write to me, and if their lost item was the same as what I found, I would return it to them. So far, no replies!

Not sure if this relates to this thread. I bought a newly-constructed house in 2003 for a little over $200K and sold it in 2006 for $450K. The previous house I bought for $136K in 1992 and sold it in 2003 for $425K.

r61, anyone who surfed the real estate bubble before the bubble burst qualifies for this thread.

Went to the dump once with my dad to throw out some green waste and we found an almost brand new gas powered pressure washer (priced over 1,000 dollars) The dumbasses who threw it out were using deisel gas instead of regular gas ..so they thought it was broken.

Years ago I was at a nightclub in Milan while touring Europe and found an expensive Baume & mercier watch on th floor of the nightclub. My Italian wasn’t the best yet but I had a hot local boyfriend. I was afraid of just turning it in as back then there was tons of corruption there, hardly any Italians had credit cards (1987) I sold it to said boyfriends Mom for cash which I lived off for 11 months in Italy..moving in with the boyfriend cut down on rent and other expenses😜

I got a Weller matte-glazed jardiniere circa 1905, for $6 at Goodwill. The same one sold at auction for $840.

I also bought a Shipley horse painting for $15 at Goodwill. Similar works auction for $700-$1600. It was just coming in as a donation and I asked the manager if he could price it and sell it to me immediately.

I don’t plan to sell the things. I just get pleasure from spotting them in the wild and bringing them home. They’re lovely things that I enjoy owning.

R61/R62 I'm in complete agreement profit on properties relates more to this thread's title than the OP's story. You paid a price for a given item, which appreciated in value. He didn't pay a price for a tank watch, he paid for old pens, and took advantage of the seller by not being honest about finding the watch.

Um, R64 -- there's no such thing as a very expensive Baume et Mercier -- it's the low end brand of its manufacturer, and most are worth less than $2000. You must have had very, very low living expenses.

I bought a KLH Twenty Plus stereo - the turntable/radio section is in one box, the speakers on two others and all three sit on Saarinen-style tulip pedestals - for $25. The woman selling it only had the record player part out on display, but happily went into the garage to get the speakers and the stands. I spent about $200 having the electronics serviced and a couple of hours cleaning up the teak boxes, but I see them selling on e-Bay for $2000 and up. It's hardly the greatest stereo from the 1960's but it's gorgeous and very collectible.

Not quite the same price/value differential, but I bought a real Herman Miller Eames leather lounge chair (not a knock-off) at TJ Maxx for $600 in 2002 because there was a scratch in the veneer on the lower back. The back of the chair faces the wall, so I don't care. (I filled and stained it so's to be less noticeable anyway.) Eames chairs are usually sold as a chair and ottoman set and depending on the wood and the leather, start at $5300 for both. I bought a used ottoman for $400, meaning I paid a $1000 in all. $4300 off for a scratch? Deal. When I saw it in the store, I sat in it until they sold it to me - I wasn't taking any chances someone else would buy it.

Um, r67 -- R64 only said "expensive," not "very expensive."

So eat shit, you [italic]very[/italic] prissy cunt.

R69's mother forget to give him his medicine today.

Upthread guy..here are several $7K Baume & Mercier watches

I like r69 and his number!

i want to hear more of these stories...

[quote] when I opened it there was a 1960s solid gold Cartier Tank watch inside.

OP/gurl, I went to Burlington Arcade in London and asked around. Apparently they're very hard to find. No one had any. A few ladies ones. That's all.

Many years ago I went to a local auction house to view their weekly general auction. There were a lot of paintings on view, and I noticed a very nice city scene by Mary Fairchild Low. I knew it was out of my price range, but I noticed that there were several other paintings that had French art supplier stamps on the reverse, and I noticed one portrait in particular of a bearded young man, but it was unsigned. I knew Mary F. Low had been married to Frederick MacMonnies, who was primarily a sculptor but also a painter, and I thought this was a portrait of him by her. They had lived in France for many years. The day of the auction I was nervous and things were going my way when this idiot I knew (and he was an idiot who knew nothing about art) sensed I was on to something and started bidding against me. I finally won the painting for about $250.

I contacted a prominent American art historian I had sold books to and he very kindly told me he thought it looked more like Frederick's work than Mary's, and gave me the name of another art historian who was a specialist. Long story short, she told me that the painting I had was a self-portrait he had done on his honeymoon with Mary in France. I was in no financial position to keep it, and an art dealer I knew gave me $4000 for it. This was about 20 years ago.

I just did an internet search and actually found the painting.

Start your own thread R66, you pissy pants baby.

R76 As I'm not the sole and lonely voice of reason here, others have called him on it, respond to all of us in fairness and state why this is acceptable. Calling out gonnifs and oppurtunists does not a prissy-pants make. If OP cannot deal, he should not have put it out here. His rationalisations are classic low-level moral reasoning. He assumes no one knew it had existed, etc. Taking advantage of older people, and keeping an heirloom such as this from its rightful heirs is not respectable behaviour. Do unto others... I don't for a minute believe anything good comes of such dishonesty.

Many years ago, before the advent of huge flat-screen TVs, I went to Kmart to buy a clock radio that was on sale for something like $15. I noticed a very large 27" RCA console TV on display, with a sign on top of it that said $169. It was obviously a mistake, because that model set should have cost at least $600, and even on sale it would have been around $400.

"How much is that TV?" I asked the salesman.

He glanced at the TV. "$169," he said.

That can't possibly be right," I told him. "It looks like someone took that sign from somewhere else and put it on that RCA."

The salesman couldn't have been less interested, and he made it clear he didn't want to double-check the price, because it would have meant that he actually had to do something.

"So if I write you a check for $169 right now, I can buy that TV?" I asked.

"Well, plus tax, of course."

So I wrote the check for the TV—and the clock radio—and went immediately to my buddy's house, where I borrowed his pickup. We went back to Kmart, loaded the TV into the truck, and it wound up serving me faithfully for many years. A couple of weeks later I was at Kmart again and noticed an identical TV to the one I had bought, on sale for something like $450.

Unfortunately, there was no similar cock-up when I bought my big-ass 75" Samsung flatscreen from Fry's a couple of years ago.

And FWIW, I've still got my $15 RCA clock radio and it still works great.

R77 is exhausting.

I found a working Roland SH-101 in good shape at a weekend market for $40. It's worth around $800-1000.