One man's junk, another man's treasure

Sometimes I really find amazing how things merit their value. How seemingly mundane objects or things suddenly become more expensive than your car or even your house. Case in point – Barry Bonds’ baseball (yes, the ball) that recently broke Hank Aaron’s all-time homerun record of 755 homeruns. For the uninitiated, like me, we’re talking about the baseball that broke the existing homerun record that stood for more than three decades. Yes, the ball itself, which some very lucky baseball fan snatched as the ball fell back to earth and into the stands. As of now, the ball may well be worth $400,000-500,000! What was once an ordinary baseball may very well put all of this guy’s future children through college and more. But that’s nothing compared to what Mark McGuire’s single-season homerun record baseball fetched when it was finally sold in 1998 – US $3,000,000.00! Baseball is big in the US, and anything related to it that has significance – or what the experts call provenance – is valuable. From the simplest of baseball bubble gum cards to the players’ uniforms and equipment themselves. You’ve got to love these Americans with their favorite pastime!

Normally, it’s the old, traditional stuff that appreciate in value such as paintings, vintage cars, currency and stamps. But with the advent of eBay, anything may well be valuable. According to a regular eBay member, anything may interest someone from overseas, like old records, old posters, old concert tickets, old programs of special events and the like. Records of certain artists like the Beatles and Elvis Presley in 78rpm format fetch good prices on the site. The old steel lunchboxes, again of the Beatles, Elvis, The Monkeys also have good value if the condition of the items are favorable. Even very old photographs where they used silver in the developing process have surprisingly good value. A quick look at the site fully illustrates what he meant. Right now, a whole collection of original, unopened Transformers toys was recently sold at a whopping $1,000,000! And you thought toys were a waste of time and money!

Comic books also command good prices. A Marvel #1 recently sold for $195,000! Other titles do just as well as long as they are old and well kept. I’m sure the familiar Spiderman and X-Men series will fetch good prices. There really is no standard as to what items will sell well, since there is always someone out there who just has too much money, and not enough “things” to own. For these people, making money is a lot easier than collecting some items.

Paintings of course, are always a good investment, especially the ones done by the masters whether locally or internationally. But even this trade is just as bewildering, as entertainingly portrayed in the movie “Incognito”. Here, an art forger ridicules the whole art world by forging a Rembrandt, which the whole world accepts to be an original, thereby fetching millions of dollars in auction. Its tagline – “How can the same picture be worth $10 million dollars or zip, based on what, a signature? That’s not art, that’s autographs.” Makes you think, doesn’t it?

So don’t just throw those old things away. They may well be worth something to someone out there. Antiques aren’t the only old things that are valuable anymore. You might even want to check out what you have and try your luck on eBay. Who knows, what’s garbage to you may be precious to another, especially if he’s just too rich to care.