Reminds Me of Dana - Thanks To Flicker
I am sure that over the months you have bought a box lot or two at an auction only to find that there really wasn't much of value in it after all. This has happened to me more times than I would like to tell. I usually look through all the box lots and if there is something that catches my eye I bid on the lot. Yes I have been fortunate enough on occasion to find a pearl, but most of the time I end up just making a few bucks.
My friends have often been more successful than me in buying box lots, like the one young lady that purchased a box lot filled with knick knacks and a few Indian items. Most of the box's contents were of no value but the Indian moccasins sold for over $7000 and there was a knife sheath that also brought big money. Perhaps the best item that I missed in a box lot was a little book of signatures from here in Chicago from the early 1800's. If I remember right there must have been 50 or 60 of these signatures. The box sold for less than $300 and I was the under bidder. I was interested in how many people lived in Chicago at the time when the signatures were collected so I did some research once I returned home. That was when I discovered that there were fewer than 500 people living in Chicago at the time. What famous names do you think could have possibly been in that book? I guess we will never know but believe me that could have been one fantastic treasure.
But you are asking why am I writing about box lots today? My daughter called me yesterday and said that she had purchased a collection of Civil War Books for her husband who is a Civil War historian at auction. The auction house wouldn't let the bidders buy just one or two books. They had to buy a car load of boxes filled to the brim with books or take none at all. Dana, my pride and joy, stayed at the auction all day but her persistence paid off and she was the successful bidder. Returning home with her car loaded down, her husband asked what she was thinking. When she told me that I kind of felt sorry for her but after she gave me the names of some books on the list, I ran them through Abe Books and guess what, she has thousands of dollars worth of books and their total price was $70. In fact, I will be researching several of them because they are autographed and this could make her find even more valuable. Trying to do something nice for someone can prove profitable after all wouldn't you say?
Isn't it funny when you think about it, you know there were dealers at the auction that had tons of knowledge that probably left with nothing of value but Dana just wanting to buy her husband a gift left with the real treasures. I want to encourage you not to feel defeated if you're not successful at every sale you attend because it is only a matter of time before your ticket is pulled and you're the one that has a story to tell for the rest of your life about the treasures that everyone else passed by.
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