Outside of a few comics, one of the unexpected items I have is Lego Wall-E. Even unboxed, it goes for several hundred. Don't underestimate retired sets.
That's a cool set! I am currently trying to sell a few retired sets (mostly Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Bionicle) and some surprise me in value. A few are about the price they originally cost, while others have tripled in value.
Not me but my mom. Her great grandmother gave her her "mad money" stash that she'd saved over the years, all in silver dollars. She didn't think much of it, just kept it as a memento.
Turns out it's 300 silver dollars minted between 1900 and 1905; some of them are worth over $1k by themselves.
The most valuable thing I own is my pokemon card collection. I was obsessed when I was kid, but unlike everyone, I kept going through Rocket, Gym heroes and challenge, all the way to Neo Destiny and Legendary Collection. Possibly the rarest cards I have are two 1ed foil discovery Tyranitars and one 1ed foil Blaine's Charizard. My cards are very well loved and things have calmed down since the pandemic, but it was very weird, especially considering I got a booster box of Neo Discover for 50 bucks in 2009
I have quite an extensive book collection between my wife and I who are both avid readers, turns out due to limited printings even unassuming non-“collector” books appreciate quite well. I have several books purchased for 20-30$ that are now worth hundreds if I wanted to part with them since the company just didn’t print many and doesn’t do reprints.
I also have a decently sized book collection, but none that have gone up in value like that. Do you collect any specific types of books, or just whatever you think looks interesting?
I switched to ebooks a long time ago, but had quite a collection prior to that, and was also the recipient of goodies from my mom's massive science fiction book collection, including a first edition Dune (Chilton, 1965). My favorites are my signed Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams books, though.
None of them are going anywhere.
I buy and sell used books. I came across one nondescript worn hardback in a box and for some reason decided to research it. It's worth five figures. Cost about 25c.
Okay. What is it?
Tell us the details
Was it very old? Signed? Good condition?
Moderate condition, ex-library so there are stamps and labels. However it's about 120 years old and a first edition. There was one for sale last year, now there are none for sale anywhere in the world, AFAIK. It was the first book of its genre and is recognised as influencing the later masters. Think Poe influencing Conan Doyle. I'm reluctant to mention the details because I don't want it showing up in a search. Sorry to be so cagey! I'd be annoyed by this post myself if I read it.
No worries don't doxx yourself, I'm happy you got to enjoy this book, I can see how happy you are when you talk about it.
I have a Lego ninjago mask that's worth like $80 with both parts of it. I didn't know how expensive it was until checking my collection a couple days ago.
I have an autograph of Jeremy Bulloch as Boba Fett I got when I was like 6. Still framed in my bedroom.
The 10th anniversary Sonic the hedgehog crystal cube. Bought it on a whim back then, honestly don't even remember what website I got it on, and when I got it I pretty much just kept it in the closet because I never wanted to put it out because I figured one of my cats would knock the damn thing over.
It was actually only a few months ago that I was talking about it when Sonic the hedgehog came up and I decided to Google it and I found out they only made 500 of the fucker.
I have season tickets for the Raiders. I had them in Oakland, and we got 1st priority when they moved to Vegas. I jumped at the opportunity bc I knew by Mark Davis moving the team to a tourist destination that there would be demand from both fan bases at every game. My theory is that the extra demand would allow me to sell most games for profit, and I could go to 1-2 /year fully paid with the profit. So far that's worked swimmingly well. I paid the PSL off in year 1 with the profit, and now make ~$3-5k / year selling tickets.
The PSL ran me about $4500/seat and I got 2 seats. They are selling at $30k apiece rn. It's very tempting to sell them for profit, but I enjoy having the ability to go to a few games and making a bit of profit selling the rest.
Yes, I realize I'm a scalper. Yes, I realize I'm part of the reason our home games have so many away fans. Having said that, I really don't care. Mark Davis made a business decision to move the team out of Oakland where we had die hard fans like myself going every week to instead moving to a tourist trap 10 hours away. In turn, I made a business decision to profit from that move.
My pocket knife costs 200€ but you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at it. Obviously it's not that valuable anymore especially now that it has my name and the purchase date engraved on it.
I have a Halo 4 gold Master Chief Funko that was exclusive to Blockbuster. My favorite thing about it is that it was before Funko switched to their current style. They used to have details and were cool.
I've seen that before! I got a Halo 3 Master Chief Funko bobblehead from my local Blockbuster when they were closing. He is sitting on my desk next to my gaming PC right now with my Atlas and P-Body Funko Pops from Portal 2. My Master Chief has gone up in price, but not nearly as expensive as yours seems to be.
I have a game boy game that was worth over $30 (which was fairly high for a game boy game at the time). AVGN made a video on the game and it shot up in price more than tenfold. Though it may have cooled down since I last checked.
That's cool. I wish I had kept some of my old Gameboy games, either to play or to sell. A lot of the games I had have jumped in price in recent years.
My copy of Iron Dragon by Mayfair would go for 225 on ebay. It's probably almost at the price point where they'll reprint it... which would be wonderful because it's probably the best Mayfair railgame and I'd love to see it surge in popularity.
I own a Planet Arlia Vegeta Funko Pop. Currently worth approximately $5000 USD.
Because my wife liked it and wanted one. We got it many, many, many years ago before it cost that much. I think it was around $100 when I bought it. I had just got a new job that was paying me way more than I was being paid before, and it was her birthday, and she had been talking about how much she wanted one for years. I figured if $100 makes her happy, why not? It wasn't until shortly after that that the price started skyrocketing, and hasn't really stopped since.
I collected Marvel cards back in the 90s and I'm pretty sure I have at least a few that are official "collectors items" now. I've never looked into it very thoroughly since I just kept them in baseball card pages with no other particular protection from the climate, etc, but who knows?
I have some football cards at my parents house that are in the same boat. Maybe take a look through them to try to estimate prices and protect the expensive ones. IDK about Marvel cards, but I know there are apps for some other trading cards where you can just scan a picture of the card and get an estimated price based on recent sales.
Nothing crazy relative to some cards but I didn't expect this to be worth much.
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