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 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.

I have four tyres in pretty good condition on my car, that’s $1000 right there.

I discovered that a small strip of dead land at the side of my friends’ brand new house was available to buy for loose change from the original land owner (a once giant estate that had been broken up into parcels at auction) Fast forward three years or so later and the developer started stage two of the house building, another 850 houses. Guess whose tiny parcel of land was needed for utilities and access due to the terrain? We basically picked a number out of the air and the next day the cheque / check arrived. Paid off the mortgage, sold the house and paid about 90% the price of their dream home straight away and had a bit left over too. Can’t help but think that somebody somewhere lost their job/contract over that.

I have a hideous lamp that I hate that’s worth about a grand. It doesn’t look like it’s worth that much, just a heavy brass base and reverse painted landscape shade… but all antique and sought after.

My cats are probably going to break it so I should sell it but it was the last lamp my mom refurbished before she died (why it didn’t get sold and I got it in the first place)

I also have a brass fairy floor lamp that, with no shade, is worth about $1500, but that one looks valuable, and is very rare (and super cool)

I have a copy of X-Men #4 (first appearance of Juggernaut) signed by Stan Lee.

I also have a few highly sought-after lego sets. :)

I own a full size Batmobile model from a canceled game bundle Batman Arkham Knight: Batmobile Edition. It was canceled due to quality control issue and was shipped to select people before getting canceled. So that’s a pretty rare find. All the electronics still works and it can switch normal and battle modes with a remote. Had some people offering multiple thousand bucks for it, and I got it just randomly without knowing it’s rare.

Oh, I always win at Book Off in Japan. If you don’t know what that is, give it a search. It’s an interesting place.

I’ve bought several expensive camera lenses for 8-20$. Since they have no electronic components, they work fine. I use them to document work I do for various people or myself as a marketing too for my business. Worth every last one of those 8 dollars! Some are worth quite a bit of money.

There’s a vacuum tube on my desk worth a bit. I found it for 3$ in a junk bin. Turned out it worked, so I built a weird, cursed amplifier out of it as a joke, using some old Soviet scrap and mystery Chinese ICs. Probably not worth anything anymore! – but hey, it’s a tube amp that works entirely at 5V! So weird!

I have a beautiful set of unused old ink stones from a famous manufacturer in China. I paid around 10$ for it. These are actually quite expensive and worth hundreds of dollars. Certainly less than a thousand though.

I also have a singing bowl, made of cast bronze. I don’t know much about it, except it’s old enough to predate modern machining (it was clearly sand-cast). It’s probably also cursed – someone sold it to me by accident for a few dollars when I asked for something else. Then I didn’t notice until I got home. It’s probably worth some money to the right person, but few people value such old things in my country and I don’t want to sell it to an overseas buyer.

Oh and I have one of the original victory fliers from when the Japanese defeated the Russians in 1904. In perfect condition. I have no idea what it’s worth, but certainly much more than I paid for it, haha. I should probably find a museum for it one day.

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…

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.

One Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me an unopened bottle of whisky they had in their cabinet for a while. It was some of the best whisky I’ve ever had. About halfway through the bottle on Boxing Day, I took a moment to look up the cost (it’s since gone up in price, but you’ll get the idea)

https://dekanta.com/store/suntory-hibiki-30-years-old/

I. Was. Horrified. I have exactly two ounces left, that I will probably consume with my wife on my deathbed.

10 years ago or something I bought a collection album from an artist I liked. I just did it because I like collecting CDs and I liked his music, but it turns out that it was a limited edition and only 1000 were made, each one had a unique number on it. I’ve seen them go for a few hundred on discogs a few times. I don’t intend to sell mine though, it’s in a pretty used state because I didn’t really realize the value. I’d also rather have it than have a few hundred euro’s.

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.

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

My two most valuable records are the Katamari Damacy vinyl from Fangamer & the Sonic Adventure 2 vinyl from Brave Wave. I got both for $40 at different conventions and they’ve never been re-pressed so they both go for $250 sometimes, even used.