Wednesday March 6th, 2013 – Fox Lake, IL/? WI
My idea to start picking antiques wasn’t the worst one I’ve had. I’ve been doing it regularly for a while now, and it’s turning out to be the perfect part time job. I can do it whenever I have a free amount of time from half an hour to a full day. I’ve been making a point to work on my picking eye, and I stop at every thrift store, pawn shop, antique mall and flea market that I happen to see.
Today I had some errands to run, and ended up in a small town in Wisconsin I’ve visited many times before. There are a couple of decent thrift stores there, but I didn’t find anything today as I took my obligatory lap. Sometimes there is all kinds of stuff to buy, other times it’s a total zilch.
There’s also a small antique mall in the town, and I’d never been to it before. I wasn’t really up for any more junk hunting, but that little voice in my head told me to take a lap in there so I went right over. I’m learning to listen to that voice, as whenever I do there’s always a positive payoff.
I walked in the antique mall and immediately knew I was going to find something good. I don’t know how I knew that, but I did. I scoured the place from top to bottom, and there were three full floors to go through to do it. It took about forty minutes, but I wound my way through all three of the floors and found absolutely nothing. I was ready to go home when something caught my eye.
It was in the very last booth of the very last row in the basement, but there hung a small plastic bag. In it was a 1954 Topps Eddie Mathews baseball card, and those are right in the golden years as far as desirable sports collectibles go. They can fetch a hefty shekel when in prime condition.
This one was not. There were a few bits of Scotch tape on the front of the card, and that sucks the value right out from a fanatical collector’s standpoint. Those people are way intense. They’re anal to the point of obsessive, and they all need to lighten up and relax. Life is too short for that.
Still, the card had nice eye appeal and I estimated the resale value to be at $20 - $25. There was a hand written $6 price tag on the plastic bag, so I snapped it up noticing there were two items of interest I’d never seen before. One was a circular patch made of felt with Mathews’ picture on it.
The other was a piece of cardboard with a photograph of Mathews that was designed to be used as a standup display. I’d never seen either of those pieces before, but I knew since I was only out my $6 initial stake I could afford to gamble and if nothing else I wasn’t going to lose any money.
As luck would have it – in my favor for a change – those other items are quite rare and after a couple of calls to sports collector friends I knew I made a nice haul. The standup piece is from a set issued by Milwaukee area dry cleaner Spic and Span circa 1955. There is ONE listed on Ebay at a price of $1200, but that’s in mint condition. Mine isn’t, but it’s not horrible either. Jackpot!
There’s also one listing of the felt patch and it had an asking price of $450. Mine is close to the same condition, and it blew my mind to see such high dollar value on both items. I’m not saying I’ll be able to get full retail asking price for the items, but for six bucks I made a fantastic score.
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