Whenever I hear that famous story of the guy who bought a picture frame for $5 only to find a copy of the Declaration of Independence tucked inside, focus is always on that guy’s great fortune. I can’t help but think about the poor sap that sold the frame to him.
My story is nowhere near that bad but a few years ago, my house and the houses around me decided to all have a garage sale. Amongst other things, I decided to get rid of some paperbacks I knew I would never reread. My neighbor looked over my stuff and since he loaned us the table we were using he asked if he could take some of the books, I said fine since it was more about getting rid of things plus he had done us the favor so he took a particular trilogy I had out. I found out later this particular trilogy had gone out of print quickly but was popular on the after market and the books were going for up to $40 each (I was selling all the paperbacks for a dollar or two each).
I’m not angry, although I am sure my neighbor knew the books’ value when he took them, because if he didn’t take them, someone else would have bought them and I could have easily took the time to look that stuff up before hand but I felt a tiny bit like the guy who sold the picture frame.
Anyone else have similar stories? Have you sold or given something away only to find it was worth something?
When I was very young, I inherited a half-a-dozen rings, all gold.
I was embracing the Wiccan/Pagan community and wanted nothing but sterling silver pentagrams, faeries, and dragons.
A “friend” of mine owned this *objet d’art *store and had what I thought was a stunning sapphire cocktail ring; 50-some stones set in “shiny white metal” (turned out to be sterling).
I traded him my six gold rings for that one silver one. He knew full well the value. I only found out later when my parents came to his store and saw their family heirlooms for sale… Broke my heart, but the deal was done.
A Gibson acoustic-electric guitar from the late '50s or early '60s, with an amp.
Sold the pair to a friend who wanted to learn guitar, for $60, not having a damn clue what it was I had on my hands. (To be fair, she didn’t know what it was worth, either, so it’s not like she cheated me.)
I gave a 1950s Boy Scout knife, fork, and spoon set in the original leather belt holster to a the son of a friend. Never gave a thought to the collector’s value, but I learned later it wasn’t insignificant.
Oh, well, the kid who got it loved it.
I’ve given away near mint condition comic books, Star Wars memorabilia, and old hot wheels to kids of friends many years ago, but since I discovered eBay a few years back, I’ve been raiding my own childhood toys for fun and profit. I doubt any one thing was worth all that much, but collectively I probably gave away a few hundred dollars worth of stuff.
I haven’t, but a childhood friend raided his dad’s coin collection and, despite my warnings about their value (I was a coin collector), spent five or six Carson City silver dollars on junk food. His father damn near killed him.
I bought a 1959 Cadillac for $25. I literally destroyed it, even blowing out the windows with a home-built bomb. A few years later, a collector told me the parts would have brought a small fortune. The windshield alone, he said, was worth $1500.
When I was a kid, my father had a collection of 19th century silver dollars. One day I stole them and spent them, at face value. Oh shit, did I catch hell for that!
But my mother did something worse: When I was away at college, she sold our baby grand piano to the lady next door . . . for $100.
Please tell me you were making a movie. Or doing performance art. Or protesting our dependence on foreign oil, or something, anything other than destroying a 1959 Cadillac for the sake of it.
When I was working as a cashier in a C store, I’d buy the silver coins and silver certificates that came into my register. Usually, people would know that they were spending silver, but they NEEDED their cigarettes or booze. I had a pretty decent collection, the coins and bills generally weren’t in the greatest shape, but it was nice to have them.
Then my husband was out of cigarettes and out of money. So, you guessed it, he raided my silver stash, KNOWING that they were silver or silver certificates.
Sometimes I wonder why I let him live.
Oh, and he also pitched out my grandfather’s collection of magazines, various science fiction magazines and a set of Playboys…including the first edition.
My sister sold a pair of Henry Bertoia Bird chairs that my parents had given her, similar to this at a garage sale for $60 dollars. They’re worth around $1000 each these days.
It wasn’t unknowing, but I once sold my 1998 Martin DCM acoustic guitar for about $300 so I could pay my rent. The guitar is worth about $1000. The guitar dealer knew he had me by the balls and wouldn’t let me leave the store until I agreed to sell it.
I sold a Mickey Mantle baseball card to some kid for about $10 back in the mid 1980s. It was sitting in an empty ice bucket on my parents’ bar a while after my folks got divorced. I was maybe 12 or so at the time. I also had no concept of cards having any significant value or interest in baseball.
I only vaguely remember what it looked like and trying to match it on Google for this thread was more depressing than what I felt like dealing with. I’ll comfort myself with the knowledge that the kid who bought it from me probably put it through the wash or something.
Strangely, no one in my family (from either side) ever asked about it so perhaps it was a replica or something although it looked legitimately worn and aged.
When the Army took my great-grandparent land outside Killeen for Ft. Hood, they resettled on 200 acres in Cleburne. A little while back that generation had all passed so Dad sold the land to a couple that could barely afford it for next to nothing, less than 200K. Within a year the Barnett Shale play came into its own and Cleburne was right in the middle of it. That couple is now getting over $1,000,000 a year in oil revenue from that cow pasture. Heh, bummer.
I took a number of items to a flea market once trying to clean house before a move. Some of it was from Grandmom who’d owned an antique store. One thing I was going to sell for probably $5 or 10 was this bowl with a lip cut out of it. It had a crack in it and it was glued together incorrectly. A gentleman stopped, told me antique shaving bowls shaped like that were very rare and it was probably worth $600 or so. I thanked him, removed the price sticker and carefully placed the bowl back in my car.
Oh. My. Any number of guitar models that could’ve been - if you remember what it looked like, I would be curious.
Nothing similar to post - I sold some X-Men comics, including Giant-Size Issue #1 and issues 94 - 120 or so (as well as 40 so of the earlier series, including the Neal Adams Sentinels) when I was 18 to get a guitar amp…they are worth a lot more now, but I knew what I was doing…even thought I should’ve gotten a much better amp
**lieu **- you maintain a balanced perspective in light of your story.
It looked like, well, a guitar. Wooden body, yellowish brownish color fading to darker brownish color on the sides. I don’t remember anything particularly decorative on it. It must have had “Gibson” on it somewhere, because I at least knew it was a Gibson, I just didn’t know what that meant, monetarily! It was built like an acoustic guitar, only you could plug it in on the side to amplify the sound. Sorry, I know *nothing *about guitars, obviously! :smack:
I promise you that took a little effort and time. Had I known he was thinking of selling, I would have counseled he keep the minerals. And that’s essentially how I rationalize the loss, that I get from it the knowledge to ALWAYS consider and lean in that direction with the land I own or will inherit. At least there’s that, some semblance of a lesson to be learned.
WhyNot, any chance you’re still in touch with the friend and could ask to buy your guitar back?
