Featured The Sleeper Thread- Treasures & Ultimate Scores...

We all dream of finding that one thing that we could never afford at retail prices. As a collector, you seek out that one treasure that evaded you for years or may get lucky finding a real gold brooch in a pile of costume jewelry at the thrift shop for $5. I LOVE finding sleepers. It doesn't happen every day. You could search for years and never find a sleeper, but then one day you finally score and your ship comes in! I will start off by telling you my sleeper stories, and then I want to hear yours...

I was bored one night and couldn't sleep. I was scrolling through ebay at 3 a.m. and saw an antique diary listed in a category nobody would bother to look in. The buy it now price was $100 and the seller's pics were lousy. 3 blurry pics of the book, but something told me I needed it. To tell the truth I was nosy. I wanted to read it because I am a snoop, lol.

The listing had a make an offer button and just for shits and giggles I made an offer of $50. The next day I saw "pay for your item now" and so I did. When I got it, I nearly fell off of my chair because it was an antique Mormon diary of them settling in Hawaii. The seller also had the same person's Mormon Diary that was the rare Hawaii edition and he sold it to me for $10. I knew nothing about Mormon history. Around the same time that I bought the two books from the ebay seller he also found her sentimental hair pocket watch chain that was found in the same box! He got all of these items at a storage auction. He sold the chain to me for $25. It had miniature mother of pearl binoculars called a stanhope with bible images inside of it.

I ended up contacting a rare Mormon book dealer and asked him about these items. I was not knowledgeable when it came to these sort of things. He told me the lot was worth $8,000.

The dealer offered me $5,000 because he said he would be re-selling it. I decided to not be greedy and agreed to sell the book dealer everything as a group for $5,000 and received a payment via a bank wire transfer the next day and shipped it to him! Score! God only knows what he resold it for. I may wind up watching it on Antiques Roadshow one day, lol.

The next sleeper was found on a whim. Before I went into work, I went into a local multi dealer antique mall. I saw a beautiful glass box sitting on the counter. I asked the guy working behind the counter how much? He said the dealer who owned the booth wanted $150 for it. It said vaseline glass box on the tag. I am not a glass expert, but something about it screamed quality. It was all hand enameled and it had gold ormolu feet and a lock and key. I said "I'll take it". I handed over my credit card and he said, "I don't know how to operate the credit card machine". "You will have to come back tomorrow when the owner of the booth is here so they can process your payment otherwise you can pay with cash and take it home now". I had no cash.

I was like oh, hell no, lol. I was a cashier at the time and said "I know how to process payments on those machines". He let me behind the counter and I ran my credit card, and it spit out the receipt, I signed it and I took it home. My husband started yelling at me for spending $150 when I showed it to him. He told me I was an idiot for spending so much money on a glass box.

Right after that, I found out it was a rare antique Moser glass casket box and sold it to a man online for $1,850! The man wanted it to place his wife's ashes who passed away from breast cancer in the box. I was humbled by that.

Now tell us your stories....

 

I don't have a photo scanned of my biggest sleeper of all time. My dad had all of his old lead soldiers from when he was a kid, and they were one of the first things we sold on Ebay. He was cheering us on. There were some non-soldier in with them that Grandma bought for no good reason. They were never played with. One was a butt-ugly jack and jill figurine. It was a sort of teal green mostly. It sat my dad's old house until he got married in 1965, and then in a box here. It turns out that no one liked this figure and they didn't sell, so they were pretty rare. Mom and I put it on Ebay in 2005 and sold it for about $1200. Not bad for something Grandma bought for about ten cents!

 

Wow! What a cool story! Glad to hear they sold so well.

Your story reminds me of when I was a kid. One day I was making mud pies (I was a tomboy, lol). I was playing in the dirt and digging it up with spoons and a little shovel. All of a sudden I felt something metallic in the ground. Buried under the ground was a whole bunch of antique lead soldiers. There were beautiful glass marbles and ivory dice in the hole too. I am kicking myself because I reburied everything thinking it was nothing interesting.

The house was built around 1915 and I have a feeling that those were from WWI. I wish I could go back to my old house and dig them back up now, lol.

 

I bought a Mission Basket at auction....a few hundred..
It was reasonably large , in excellent shape , & you could just make out the word MISSION woven into the basket all around the outside.....it was indeed antique.
I listed it on eBay , and a woman who was starting up a collection for a Mission Indian Museum .... had to have it...and blew all the other bidders away , topping out at $ 5000.

 

I was waiting for a story from you and once again you did not disappoint! Awesome story!

 

I bought this off a highly respected dealer...who became a kinda friend / mentor...
I kept it a long time.....& had a grand in it, & knew it was special.
I sent it back to a BC auction several years ago....
it took down $ 16,500 .... & the buyer...got not only a great deal...but also a solid investment !!
( & I never say that when it comes to art ! )

 

Holy smokes! What kind of stones are on the top? Is that labradorite?

 

I wasn't finished yet !! Heehehehe!!!!!!!!

 

Paua shell....& real sea lion whiskers !

 

Keep them coming. I want more. To be honest I was having bad anxiety tonight and not only are your stories entertaining, they are better than xanax and just what the doctor ordered : )

 

Going to go down the Google rabbit hole now and look up Paua Shells. More stories pretty pleeeeze

 

I looked up Paua Shells. They are so pretty. Is that basically the same thing as abalone? I collect abalone antique opera glasses and love that iridescent look.

 

similar , yes..... but one color, where abalone has several.

 

Thanks for the clarification. I learn so much here. I also wanted to thank you for being so nice to me when I started posting here recently. You were one of the first people that welcomed me and you made me feel like part of the antiquers family. Thanks so much for your kindness to me. This forum has the nicest people!

 

I'm now waiting for a story from @Bronwen. Bronwen where are you? I know you must have a gem of a story to tell us... ; )

 

My rep is quite different than that......you just seemed nice !

There's a SCAMMER running loose on the board now......
DON"T CLICK ON ANY LINKS !!!

 

Thanks for the heads up in regards to the scammer. You have a rep?! Well I like you and don't think you are one of the baddies, lol. (((Hugs)))

 

I'll throw out one more quick one.............

I bought a well known Inuit artists sculpture from a dealer friend.....for $1000....
He made money....but it was a low price for such an artist.
It was though....very different than what he was famous for....& maybe the dealer just didn't see the wondrous beauty in the carving.!! I did !
It was at least 16 inches tall.....a human woman , transforming into a walrus.
( the only piece I ever had, that I regret not taking a photo of...)
But I didn't have it for long !!!
I sold it to a male Hollywood movie star, for $ 7000 .....& he got every cent of value for his money !!!

 

Starting this message even as you asked.

I don't know what you would call the sorts of things I find. I have no tales of large monetary payoffs from shrewd purchases, largely because I don't part with the really interesting stuff. Not sure what some things might realize at auction, but I have at least a handful that various museums would love for me to give them. Many of them have appeared on the forum, in brief or at length. These words will find some of them in a search: 'Olenin'; ; 'Achilles'; 'Talani'; 'Capparoni'.

 

For cantankerousness. But we love him anyway.