This could be something that you bought for a higher price than what most people would guess based on the item, or it could be something you bought for a normal price that has gained significant value as time has gone on.
What made me think of this question is a LEGO minifigure I got with my “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” disc. It is Bilbo Baggins in a blue coat that was apparently only sold in that movie box only at Target stores. Even considering the exclusivity, I would have guessed maybe $10-20 for such a tiny piece of plastic, but there are sold listings on eBay from $80 to $225. I could possibly even get towards the higher end of that number since I still have everything in the original box in good condition. It’s not worth a ton compared to some other items people may own, but I think most people would not expect nearly that amount.
I went to a Hotel Furniture liquidator for some new furniture. Saw a good looking office chair and they only wanted $20 for it.
Brought that bad boy home and only then did I find out that they had sold me a new Herman Miller Aeron for only $20. Completely insane.
I’ve heard those chairs are super nice and super expensive. Great find!
I’ve sat in one. It’s a nice chair, but… well let’s just say office chairs are very subject to diminishing returns. I’d definitely buy one for $20 though.
Yeah. New they’re like 900+. Used, early 300+
Nice! I just paid $300 for one of these used a month or so ago. Found out it’s a little small for my height so I’m going to have to resale and find the bigger version or just get an expensive office chair and stop trying to be cheap
A good chair is worth a lot of money. A good back can help you for a lifetime.
I had a free book reward from Thriftbooks, which I used for a copy of Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams. When it came, I was kinda bummed that some kid had scribbled on the title page, but eh, it was free. At least it was a first edition in otherwise good condition, I won’t complain.
As I was reading, I got a little itch in the back of my mind, and it of curiosity looked up his signature. Turns out, it looks like some kid’s scribbling
Probably why no one realized.
So I got a signed first edition, which goes for about $200, totally free.
WHAT. That’s crazy! What a story- great find!
The single most expensive item I own is a gold coin from Imperial Rome, an Aureus of emperor Antoninus Pius. I bought it about three years ago when I was just starting to collect ancient coins. I came across this particular coin on a “regular” gold & silver bullion site in my neck of the woods, for 3K. Not knowing too much about it, I bit the bullet (which is actually an incredibly stupid thing to do, akin to gambling). Turns out it’s very real, mint state, and worth about 2K over what I paid for it right now. I have since continued collecting ancients, especially Romans, and by now know the entire history of Rome and all its emperors in detail. Which again underscores how incredibly stupid it was to buy something so expensive without decent prior research. I was just incredibly lucky that an actual reputed bullion dealer apparantly had come across this coin and got rid of it far under what it was worth.
I don’t expect to be able to repeat this feat, but I’m definitely on the lookout…
That’s awesome! I’ve collected a few coins but none worth that. I only have one ancient coin of the Gallic Emperor Tetricus II that’s in rough condition, but I only purchased it for $10. The only surprising coin I have is an 1809 US Capped Bust Half Dollar that is apparently a rare variant with some markings along the edge, and PCGS says there are only an estimated 900 of that variant that are still around. Unfortunately, there was already a deep scratch on the front when I bought it that likely lowers the value to that of the normal variant, but I still love the history and rarity of it.
I had a friend over who complimented my teapot, I love it because it’s a nice color, good size and has a stainless steel infuser that fits inside. So I offered to get her one of her own only to find out that this particular color is highly collectible and worth 6-7x what I paid for it originally. Now I have a nice teapot I’m paranoid about anything happening to, haha.
If you never intend to sell it then value doesn’t really matter. It can be a fun story when someone is over for tea, but you aren’t losing anything if something happens.
What color is the teapot? Do you know if that color had a limited number or if it is just popular? It’s always a little funny to me when something is rare just because of a different color or something similar that doesn’t impact function compared to the normal item, but I get it all comes down to preference and rarity.
It’s by Le Creuset, and they apparently rotate out most of their colors. So you can still buy the same teapot in a different color, which is what I ended up doing for my friend. The one I got was a limited run, it’s a pretty rich purple they called “cassis”, if you search Ebay for anything in that color the prices are nuts!
Red currants :)
Edit - apparently they are black currants. Still tasty!
I have an old folder of pokemon cards from my childhood. Apparently, that folder is worth thousands. I have first editions of a lot of the first cards and they are all in near mint condition. Im not selling, as they have sentimental value + my local shops would probably rip me off.
I wish I had kept my cards. I had binders and lunch tins full of Pokemon cards when I was younger. A lot got sold at garage sales while I was growing up, but I may still have a few left somewhere.
If you ever do sell them, I’d recommend only selling to a shop as a last resort or if you need quick money. I usually start by trying to sell on Facebook Marketplace since you don’t have to pay fees or shipping and get the most profit. On the flip side, you usually need to wait longer due to the smaller number of local buyers, and you have to deal with annoyances like people haggling for obscenely low prices, asking you to drive far to meet them, or just not showing up to buy the item. After a while, I usually list the item on eBay which means less profit due to fees and shipping, but usually more buyers and a smoother experience.
Thanks! That’s too bad, it’s actually a fun game to play. I was one of the only ones in my neighborhood that played the game when I was a kid. So lots of dups and such.
I found a copy of “The Hunt for Red October “ in a bargain bin. It looked funny and had a version of the cover I’d never seen before Bought it for like $5
It was a first printing From the Naval Institute Press.
Worth like 200$.
Nice
I’m actually reading through Hunt for Red October now, but mine is a cheap worn-out copy I got for free with another book purchase at a flea market. That’s awesome to find a first edition!
A spectrophotometer - the sort used for display calibration and color sample matching. I paid about $180, which was extremely low; the current version from the same company is ten times that new. Colorimeters, which look similar and can also be used for display calibration cost far less.
I mainly use it for flashlight reviews.
What is the model of spectrophotometer that you bought?
X-Rite i1Pro.
I have been eyeing that model for a while now, nice to have some additional confirmation about it. Thanks!
That’s a neat item, and I never really considered what work would occur for reviews like yours. Was your spectrophotometer a great deal when you bought it, or has it just risen a ton in value?
It was an unusually cheap price on ebay.
My son has a stuffed animal in his bedroom worth about $5,000
He won a sweepstakes prize while we were collecting squishmallow cards. I built him a plexiglass cube to display it, but if not for the display, it’s a very unassuming stuffed animal.
That’s awesome! I agree that it doesn’t look all too special if it was just sitting with other stuffed animals.
I have a feeling these are gonna go the way of beanie babies and vinyl toys and be worth very little in 3-5 years.
But then again, I just dug out some of my old Matchbox cars for my 6 year old. Just for fun went looking on eBay, and if I had treated them better, a couple were worth over $300. So who knows.
That’s fine, I don’t think he’ll ever sell it. It means more to him than a pay day.
I have an old book from 1932 called “The Theory of Relativity” by Albert Einstein. It smells ancient and is worth a bit of change last time I checked.
Great grandpa was a woodworker, there’s been at least one in every generation, and some how got a hold of a late 1800s or early 1900s Stanley No.1 plane. I think it sells for around 2k to 2500. Its got wear, but it still works just fine.
I rarely use it, but it’s something that’s been in the family for over 100 years. I do a little woodworking, mostly utilitarian stuff like boxes and shelves, but I’ll never sell it. 3 generations of people used it to make a living.
It’s* got wear
I agree something like that shouldn’t be given up. It’s amazing that it’s made its way to you and still works. While they don’t take up nearly as much space as your plane does, I have a deed, some bank statements, and some letters from relatives that are 100-150 years old. They wouldn’t be worth much to anyone but my family, but it’s great having that history to hold onto.
A number 1 plane is actually tiny. That’s part of why they are expensive. They are small enough that demand was low since most people didn’t want/need them. They only really fit in child hands.
Now they are a collectors item since people want to collect them all, but they never made many.
A bit of a narrow audience, but I bought The id Anthology - basically a greatest hits collection of id Software’s games up to Quake.
I bought it for a laugh really a few months after it came out for about £25, and kept the cool trinkets inside it.
These days, it’s worth anything from fifteen times that to fifty times that, judging by eBay’s completed listings.
It’s cool, and I’ve no plans to flog it, but it’s nice to know that there’s a small holiday’s worth of funds tied up in it.
That looks awesome! Collector’s boxes of games can be really cool. I still have the collector’s edition of Skyrim (the original release), and it’s worth a good bit. I don’t really want to get rid of the cool Alduin statue though.
I have four tyres in pretty good condition on my car, that’s $1000 right there.
This isn’t a high price, but higher than what I expected when I first thought about it. Growing up, my family had this chrome GE Bakelite toaster. Very dependable, never broke. The very definition of “they don’t make 'em like they used to”. I took a liking to it, so my parents gave it to me.
I started getting the history of it. My father had bought it at a garage sale in about the 1970’s or 1980’s. Before that, it was sold in the mid 1950’s. I don’t know what this one would actually go for since it’s seen around 70 years of constant use, but similar toasters on eBay are going for $25-$70. Not bad, considering that people can’t even give away many newer toasters.
That’s really cool. Such a non-descript item that still holds some value all these years later.
I’m honestly not that surprised. It has a cool vintage look because it’s, well, vintage.
Nintendo DS Pokemon Soulsilver with the Pokewalker. Worth a few hundred.
I walked into a used game store a year or two ago and saw the price of older Pokemon games and cried a little on the inside. I had a lot of the older games when I was younger that I sold to buy new games. I had Red as the earliest and stopped playing Pokemon after Diamond, so quite a few of the games in that timeframe. I unfortunately sold them before those games had such high price tags, but I never would have anticipated that when I sold them.
Yes, Pokémon games, some Lego sets, and a few random niche books have all gone up in value in ways I couldn’t have predicted.
TIL I have like $300 of Pokemon games sitting ony shelf. I still play them sometimes on my childhood Gameboy
It’s so strange to see those cartages worth so much. But good on you.
Not worth near what yours is, but I have red, blue, silver, firered, platinum, sun and moon as well as several on the switch. I’d like to collect them all but it would be very expensive
I built a cube(a curated collection of cards made for drafting) of all the worst Magic cards ever made.
Most of the cards are worth around $0.05, however my copy of Urza’s Miter currently goes for $22 because of it’s rarity
That card is such a a potato lol. I’m very amused it’s got a price range that high
That’s an interesting collection of going for the worst cards, but it doesn’t surprise me with some cards being worth more. I collect some coins, and I know some people will pay high sums of money for a coin with a low official grading (the coin is naturally worn down to the point you can barely make out what type of coin it actually is).
