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

Real Antiquers, don't kiss and tell !!!!

 

Can't anyway; if you're close enough to kiss you're close enough to need to wear a mask.

 

I also bought a box of old souvenir spoons for $10. There was at least 60 of them and I knew I could make some money In the box was a Chicago dog tag, yes for an actual pet, from the late 1800s. I knew nothing about it and was happy to put it up for $29 on auction. It blew up overnight and I got almost $900 for it!

Then my second surprise, in the same box, was a very large suffragette pendant in 14k yellow gold. It was almost 2" and had the right color combination of stones I had no idea A friend on another board recognized it I sold it for $1475!

I had not seen either of these pieces in the lot when I bought them. I love to hear these stories. Thank you for sharing!

@verybrad I'm off to look up that vase! I have never heard of them

 

About 10 years ago, an auctioneer from Texas brought a truck load of furniture to an auctioneer friend I did some work for here. Neither one wanted to deal with the 12 boxes of glass he had picked up from a deceased dealer's estate. I took them off of him for 10 bucks a box plus 1 box of 'china'.
The glass was beautiful, some French but most older USA, like Carder pieces - sold all but about 10 pieces I still have and made about $5k on the glass. That was when glass sold. I offered to split the proceeds with the auctioneer, but he said that he was stupid enough to sell it for a 'song.'
Even better in the bottom of the china box was a vase with some broken petals on it. I put it up for auction and it sold for about $350. It was like this one:

 

Uhmmm, broken links. Darnitt. First we hear about things we wish we'd found and then there are links to photos we can't see.

 

Some folks might remember this, I picked up 2 black and white framed photographs at a yard sale, one of a Shell, one of a Bell Pepper for $5 each. sold them through Christie's, made 25k

 

My "Sleepers" are...


Ball Railroad Chronometer Pocketwatch (Ca. 1950).
RRP: $500 - $1,000+, depending on where you get it from.
I paid: $150.



Montblanc Meisterstuck No.149 "Diplomat" fountain pen. Ca. 1985.

RRP: To buy one brand new right now, where I live, is $1,300. $1,400, if you throw in a custom nib-job.
I paid: $250.00.

And the matching inkwell: $1,500 brand-new (these were a limited edition, they're not made anymore).
I paid: $500.00. Not as much of a bargain as the pen, perhaps, but the inkwell IS. MUCH. RARER.

 

@Taurus1975 Did you know beforehand what you were getting? That’s amazing!

 

I bought a "Bear Safety Service" pith helmet in an antique store in San Jose , out of a barrel of hockey sticks, baseball bats , crutches and the like , it had 52 pencil signatures all over it .... kept it in a closet in my old mobile home for 15 years in a pillow case and once in a while would take it out to try to decipher all the signatures..... turned out , it belonged to a pit inspector at Indianapolis and he had it signed over the course of two years : On the sweet spot on top, the actress Carol Landis, one of the last signatures before she killed herself.... on the side brim, Clark Gable .... Spider Webb, Joie Chitwood , Ralph Depalma, a couple of drivers that died during the 47 / 48 races ( if I remember correctly) , it was like an Indy Car collectors dream.... when Ebay first started, I sold it to a dentist who was an Indy nut for $600 , he was so excited he won he called me at 1 in the morning after the auction......lol...he had a special glass cabinet made for it .....

 

More recently a few years ago , here in Santa Cruz, I bought an early "fixed bail" WWII helmet from an old actor here who did community theatre, at his garage sale ,for $5.... it was marked USCG in weird white paint, had the original fiberglass lining, it turned out it was an actual D-Day landing helmet worn by the Coast Guard Members that piloted the landing crafts and I sold it to the D-day Museum in France via Ebay for $600 ..... I miss the flea market and garage sales !!!!

 

Wow! Awesome story.

 

@SYNCHRONCITY , sometimes you just get a "feeling" about certain things , and I love the thrill of the search for information.... I have a real doozie of a story about a boy who died in Manila in 1898, had his body repatriated in 1901, and is buried at the Presidio in San Francisco. His name was William Doran and they called him "Searchlight" as he was pale and freckled and red headed Irish . He was an Orphan from Oregon. He went as a mascot for the 10th Pennsylvania Volunteers when they sailed from San Francisco, was there during the Fall of Manila, met Admiral Dewey and sailed with the other mascot to Hong Kong where Deweys Flagship Olympia was drydocked for repairs , returned to Manila and died of ??? at the end of 1898, and was buried in his "sailors suit" the men of the Olympia had sewn for him. He left one sibling, a sister when he died, living in Oakland or San Francisco, I have yet to find out her name or if she married and had a family. ... it all started when I found an article in a childrens magazine from 1899 when I was so sick I thought I had pneumonia..... It had some special meaning to me as I have been going to the Philippines since 2002 and had walked in places he was at , and my first wife and my current wife are from the Philippines , and my Boy of course is half filipino and pale and white just like he was ....lol... many years of research, I need to reveal this to the folks at the Presidio and have yet to do it ...all his tombstone says is "Wm. Doran, Civilian" ....lost history.........


https://www.google.com/books/editio...ran+searchlights&pg=PA975&printsec=frontcover

 

What an amazing young man and a very interesting historical story. This is why I love this forum. This forum is quite addicting and I find myself spending hours here reading the coolest and most amazing stories. Thanks for sharing this with me. I am so glad to have met such lovely people like yourself here.

 

Kokomo-Do you have a gallery,and who sculpted the beautiful mask with the sea lion whiskers ? Extremely refined carving and modeling.

 

Kokomo appears to be no longer a member.

 

I think bosko meant to address @komokwa.

 

Komokwa-Deepest apologies getting your name wrong,love that Mask.Too bad no pic of the woman sculpture.
Tauriels- Those two photographs are by Edward Weston. Were you a little breathless when you found out who the artist was-Major League 20th Century American Photographer (ie: Ansel Adams,etc).
Best 'Art Find' I've seen on this site so far,but I'm sure with more study I'll find more.
WOW!!!
Picking Art can change your life,at least $ wise.

 

Komo will do just fine...

the carving is a frontlet by Dempsey Bob ...
pictured below in wolf war helmet by his own hand..


from 1990 to 2002 I owned the finest contemporary Northwest Coast Indian art gallery on the eastern seaboard.

 

Komo- We live in the Pacific NW and think the PNW carving some of the finest ever produced (on a level with our old home's basketry- Pomo,Miwok,Hupa). That Mask was sublime. Every now and then we get up to B. Columbia Canada-think one of the most amazing mask displays I've ever seen was in the Royal Victoria Museum.I don't even bother to shop for these treasures anymore (too much $$$ for me)-retired & maybe movin' out of the US.Wish i had dual US/Canadian Citizenship.
We spent some time in the Gulf Islands off Vancouver Island.That to me is the real Pac Northwest-pure... Tree,Eagle,Water.

 

Many years ago I was able to attend an estate of a retired gynecologist in La Jolla, California. The man had no heirs. He was quite the collector. I bought 2 pieces of folk art by Joe Norris known as the Matisse of folk art in Canada. I paid $160 for the two pieces, hammered down at $6800. I bought several A/P prints by Bev Doolittle including Pintos and an original watercolor. A rare tombstone radio and several other pieces of art. I invested 6k at the sale, all said and done I profited 54k from the sale. I have had 1000s of great finds in 25 years.
Another sale in La Jolla, I bought a miniature triptych Russian Icon from 1700 by a famous artist. Paid $275, sold to a top collector in the Netherlands for 14k.
What great adventures we have had.