Featured What is the best deal you have ever gotten?

that looks hand signed......yowza!!!

 

I got this for a quarter
http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/301767620925?

 

I went to a vide greniers, the French equivalent of a car boot sale, near where I live and it was tilting down with rain. My wife wouldn't get out of the car as she said there was no point as everyone would have gone. I was there so I got out. Walked around the corner and noticed a few die hards had taken shelter under the covered walkway. The last guy at the end was packing up but he still had a box on the floor with two sconces in it. They looked nice so I picked one up, it had a ticket price of 75 euros and I was about to put it down again when he said I could have them for 50 euros. I told him that that was a problem as I didn't have 50 euros on me, in fact I had 37 euros and some small change. He thought for a moment and then told me I could have them for the 37 euros. My step son was with me so we quickly picked up the sconces but the dealer said 'That's not all of it' and pulled back a tarpaulin to reveal a matching chandelier. All antique toleware with 10 Murano glass shades. I recently sold the set for just under 1000 euros. I love rain.

 

Wow, I've had a few good ones, but one of my favorites was when I was at a flea market, and one of the vendors decided to get out of the business. She had boxes, totes and trunks full of 'stuff' for a quarter. There was a huge mob digging, but in one box I saw a book with what looked like hide binding. I grabbed it, paid for it. It turned out to be a German book on Martin Luther, printed in the 1670s. A cool detail was inside the covers, where the names and dates of each family member it was passed on to was written. It sold on eBay for over $400. This was sometime in the late 1990s.

Around the same time, I worked for a wealthy elderly woman who wanted me to help her with 4 storage units full of stuff she wanted to sort through. I stood in the hall while she went through the boxes, and she kept telling me to throw things into trash bags and toss them. There was antique clothing & shoes, paper goods, books, all kinds of things. I asked if she was sure she wanted to trash it all. She insisted, and said "you want it, take it!" That potential trash supported me for at least a year. There was a book on a woodcut artist from the area, and also a hardbound exhibition catalog for a charity event displaying Dali's jewelry. They brought about $200 each.

The most surprising sale out of that bunch was about a dozen packages of printed Dennison holiday crepe paper--St Patrick's Day, Easter, Christmas etc and all in their original wrappers. I put them in lots on eBay, and made about $300 on them. A guy who ran a museum in Kingston NY just happened to have a room in the museum dedicated to vintage ephemera and bought it all. Pure luck, that was I miss the "good ole days" lol

 

I like it alot!!!!!

 

WOW !!! so beautiful.

 

Beautiful !!~! I wouldn't know they were until now, thanks for sharing.

 

BONUS time !

 

AAAAAAND.........here is YOUR nappy so YOU don't ruin the keyboard!!!!

 

It doesn't show, but the price looks mighty fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hi,
My best was back in 1985, I found a wonderful American Empire book case with desk. It was 9½ feet tall and 5 ft wide. It was in the junk store for over a year. No one had the space for it. I had just moved into a Brooklyn brownstone with 10 foot ceilings. I bought it for 225 dollars. Luckily it came in three sections, the book case, the desk and the bottom cabinet. Found several "hidden" drawers and spaces. One small drawer had a Geo Washington letter. Another larger one had 14 British gold sovereigns wrapped in a cloth bag. I thought I hit the jackpot with those two pieces. A few weeks later I was polishing my "gold mine" and the fat pillar on the base came loose and I pulled it open. It had a sterling set of flatware service for 10, 80 pieces. My 225 dollar bargain bought 1000 bucks when I sold it six years later. I still have the Washington letter. The gold and sterling sold for over 10k. The junk store had no record of whom it belonged to or were it came from. As far as I know the piece is still in that Brooklyn house.
greg

 

OMG!!!!

 

Greg, what a great deal! This is one of the best stories ever --

 

1942 zippo found whilst picking back in the 90's , box is a marriage, i found a few years later for it .

 

I got this vase at a house call, paid $50 for it hoping, but not really believing, it was Loetz. When I got it home I did lots of research and found, after talking to a Loetz collector society in Switzerland, it is indeed Loetz.

It sits happily in my hutch, I'm not selling it. The silver decoration is engraved in two places "MF 1909", MF are my initials

 

One of the best deals I bought and kept is a Silver and Tortoise Shell pin cushion C.1830.
It was in a cabinet at an Antiques centre, Its was £32.50 and its worth around £250-300.

I knew as soon as I saw it that the dealer had no idea of its value.
It is SO rare and I absolutely love it.

Unfortunately things like don't happen very often.

 

A few years ago my deceased wife's step mother gave us some "stuff" she didn't want anymore. I was looking through it and there was a George Jensen Sterling item. Been so long ago I can't recall what it was(pretty sure it wasn't a large piece) but we told her that one of the pieces was sterling and offered to give it back. She tried to tell us it wasn't sterling and to keep it. Sold on eBay for a little over $1k

 

Bought a Vermont colonial coin for 35.00 years ago a local flea market, sold on Ebay about 4 yrs ago for just shy of 30.000$, Bought a box of various dolls and doll clothes at auction, Box contained old Ginnys which is why I bid, but also contained a No 2 Barbie which sold for 2.750,

 

My Picasso painting for five dollars , appraised at $35,000 as is ,priceless if i get a 3d image out of it when/if i finally get it spinning hee hee , and i hazard to guess, when i get the paperwork.

 

Mine was my most recent purchase a Hornsea
Pisces Vase i paid only £2.49p for it and since
have learnt that very few were made and it is
estimated to be worth between £300-£500