Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Combing through our stuff with a fine-toothed comb

We need to do some considerable downsizing before I retire and we move on to someplace else; however, I'm going to be extra careful before getting rid of anything:
Someone in Romania thought he'd made a fair amount of money when he sold an old typewriter for 100 euros at a flea market. He was wrong.

The "typewriter" was, in fact, a German Wehrmacht Enigma I, a World War Two cipher machine, and the collector who bought it put it up for sale at the Bucharest auction house Artmark with a starting price of 9,000 euros ($10,300). On Tuesday, Artmark sold it to an online bidder for 45,000 euros.
Hmm. Let me see...Pez candy dispensers...M&M knicknacks...a box of rocks from Arizona...a Junior Johnson commemorative pocket knife...a Hickory Crawdads baseball cap...a, um, uhhhh, don't know what the hell this is...a box of really old news clippings ("Don't Believe the Kaiser's Lies!")...some WWII-era Chinese currency...

Rats! No enigma machines.

6 comments:

rinardman said...

...a, um, uhhhh, don't know what the hell this is...

I hate to point out the obvious, but that's what cost that Romanian fellow a lot of cash!

And, if you ever watch that show "Antiques Roadshow", you know the old saying is true: one man's junk can be another man's treasure.

bruce said...

Junior Johnson set is worth $225 says ebay. In original box and all.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bill-Elliott-Junior-Johnson-NASCAR-Case-Knife-Set-Bud-Limited-Edition-221-/322476707086?hash=item4b151c0d0e

Hope you didn't use it as a screwdriver sometime.

RebeccaH said...

I feel your pain. I have a house full of three generations of jun--- I mean, antiques, and I have no idea what they're worth, but I sure would like to get rid of most of it.

Deborah said...

Maybe those American Picker fellas would be interested.

Deborah said...

Paco, that Hickory Crawdads baseball is a keeper. I'd like to have one of those.

Jonah said...

I've got a Crown Beer poster with a Korean bikini babe from 1983, fresh off the wall of the 409 Club outside of Camp Humphries.

Priceless.