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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;SYNCHRONCITY, post: 2145370, member: 6283&quot;]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&#039;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...</p><p><br /></p><p>I was bored one night and couldn&#039;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&#039;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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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 &quot;pay for your item now&quot; 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&#039;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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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 &quot;I&#039;ll take it&quot;. I handed over my credit card and he said, &quot;I don&#039;t know how to operate the credit card machine&quot;. &quot;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&quot;. I had no cash.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was like oh, hell no, lol. I was a cashier at the time and said &quot;I know how to process payments on those machines&quot;. 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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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&#039;s ashes who passed away from breast cancer in the box. I was humbled by that.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now tell us your stories....[ATTACH=full]251968[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]251969[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]251968[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]251969[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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