Ever thrown out or lost something that later became a true collectible?

[brentspeak]

Maybe the biggest one in my case was when my father put out to the curb my Star Trek Enterprise Playset. This was a toy that could fold up and be carried around like a briefcase. Unfolded, it contained dolls of Spock, Kirk, etc., "rooms" of both the Enterprise's bridge and a teleporter (spin it with a doll place inside, and the doll "vanishes").

Today, versions of the Enterprise Playset sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay.

[BikeWriter]

1. Sure, my Mom threw out my first edition Superman, Spiderman...

Batman, Green Hornet, Wonder Woman comics and others. All while I was in VietNam.

[brentspeak]

2. Sheesh. That is a huge loss.

[BikeWriter]

24. Yes, it was. They'd be worth a fortune now. I'd buy a dozen...

of the same issue and read only one. The others were carefully inserted in Manila envelopes and sealed in unread condition.

[brentspeak]

27. Urrgh

Arrrgh. You name it...

Parents have a certain talent for inadvertantly throwing out the wrong things.

[brentspeak]

3. The Enterprise Playset:

[ThomCat]

14. I had one of those.

I wonder when it got thrown away...

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

4. Yes...some rare vinyl records.

I actually inherited them when my dad died. Anyway, my mother got pissed off at me a couple years ago, threw me out of the house (I wasn't even living there, I was just there and we got into a fight), took everything I owned that was still at the house, and put it in the garage (which floods). Needless to say, it rained heavily for a few days and they were all destroyed. Not only were they of monetary value, but also sentimental value. Go mom... :eyeroll:

[ThomCat]

15. Oh, that hurts.

I'm very sorry. And I hope your Mom was too.

[bmbmd]

5. Sad to say

I glued my Mickey Mantle rookie card to the wall in my room, just like the article in Boys Life said to do.

[radwriter0555]

6. My maid's fukcing thief 'best friend' stole this from me 2 years ago...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Disney-Toy-Story-Bo-Peep-3-Headed-Sheep-Figure-Rare_W0QQitemZ6060127495QQcategoryZ19223QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Mine was perfect, MINT, brand new, never opened, in the box..

I paid retail for it, $12.99 the year the movie came out..

I'm sure she let her kids play with it and ruin it.

[leftofthedial]

7. Mom ditched all my baseball cards

(1959 through 1964)

and all my comic books (same era)

[brentspeak]

19. Be a bunch of invaluable Mickey Mantles and Hank Aarons

and you-name-its among those.

[Hugin]

8. I'd be a brazilianaire if had all the stuff back I threw away over ages.

:eyes:

Yup... Yup...

I had a toy Jaguar XJs made from old sardine cans in Japan. It had a friction
motor and rubber wheels. A big box fell on it in storage and smashed it flat.

*sigh*

[u4ic]

9. My father threw out

my entire hockey card collection (from the early - late 70's). I even had a Wayne Gretzky one. x(

[brentspeak]

21. I had basketball cards from the late 70's

They were about twice as large as normal trading cards. I don't know what happened to those.

[u4ic]

25. A friend of mine

had written to Charles Schultz as a kid (early 70's I think it was) and had gotten a letter back from him with a drawing on it, and of course, his signature.

His mother chucked it out. x(

[brentspeak]

26. Somewhere, there's a garbage man

who owns a million bucks worth of comics, trading cards, and autographs.

[catmandu57]

10. Everyone's mother threw stuff out

I had hundreds of Baseball cards, Nolan Ryan rookie, Tom Seaver rookie etc etc etc they went to the landfill, no wait they were burned. Back then we were still burning the trash.

[commander bunnypants]

11. My perpetual motion machine

I would be a brazillionaire otherwise

CB

[Indy_Dem_Defender]

12. I'm young enough, to have saw how

stuff out of the 50's, 60's and 70's skyrocketed in value about 15 years ago so I kept anything of my childhood from the 80's that I thought would be worth something. I still have a few things like baseball cards, but action figures such as GI Joes, Heman, thundercats, transformers and teenage turtles all went on eBay about 3 years ago and I easily maded double or triple what the stuff cost new. I figure that is a good profit since I got my use out of the stuff as a kid and I still make money on the stuff.

[brentspeak]

28. Question about selling on ebay:

How do you determine how much to charge for shipping? I've bought stuff on ebay, but I figured it's about time to start selling, too.

[Indy_Dem_Defender]

34. I determined it by multiple ways

I would usually started out by estimating the weight of the item and go to http://postcalc.usps.gov/ and using a west coast zip code to determine what is the most the cost of shipping an item would be with them. I would usually add 50 cents or a dollar to that price for my gas cost of driving to the post office for when I ship something off. I determine the S&H cost before I list an item so there is no dispute of the S&H cost between me and any sellers, also I state on the ad I only ship to the mainland 48 states. I do this so I don't have someone from Europe bidding and thinking they only will have to pay like 4 dollars for something from the US midwest. I probably lose a few bids by only shipping inside the US, but it's easier than trying to figure international S&H and lowers the chances of the package being lost. Another cool thing about using the US postal service is they provide boxes for free if you ship priority mail.

[seemunkee]

13. Xmen #1-50, Spiderman #1-??, Avengers, etc

Brother loaned to a girlfriend and then broke up with her and never got them back.

I had a basement flood in the fall and lost about 1000 comics. My brother is making up his earlier indiscretion by giving me all of his Cerebus comics to replace mine.

[brentspeak]

18. Good grief. Just the #1 of X-Men

is worth a ton.

My brother lost a bunch of comics (among them some of mine) in a basement flood a few years ago. First ten issues of the original Ghost Rider, the Spider Man where Gwen Stacey is killed by the Green Goblin...

[Sequoia]

16. Couldn't give away the first "Interview With the Vampire"

in Los Angeles when I moved 4 years ago. You know the one with the gold foil like cover. Moved to a little rather hick but so-called progressive town and in the old books section, in a glass case no doubt was the very same book (not mine of course) selling for $500.

That Enterprise toy I would've love to have had and those Superman Comics, I mean they were the best! I knew a gal who had stacks of them and we'd spend hours on rainy days reading them and from time to time one of the stories will come back to me.

What's wrong with parents?! My garage is full of my kids toys and stuff and I hate parting with it because of these very reasons.

[grasswire]

17. as an antique dealer, I am here to tell you...

...to NEVER throw away anything that might have collectible value without checking eBay first. I deal primarily in paper items and have made many surprising sales worth hundreds and in few instances more than a thousand dollars on items that I had no idea were even being collected by anyone. Generally I know if something has value to collectors, but once in a while something I've priced at ten bucks sells for hundreds. Who knew? A racing program, a particular piece of sheet music, a travel brochure.....

[brentspeak]

20. My one real collectible...

a first edition hardcover of the Bush biography, "Fortunate Son", by Hatfield. I'm going to hold onto that one for a while. One of the benefits to working at a bookstore.

[grasswire]

23. that's a good one (eom)

[DS1]

22. Nope, none of them turned out to be worth a damn

:D

[trof]

29. All my old comic books. Circa 1940s.

Have no idea what happened to them.

[elehhhhna]

30. no but i took the tag off a stupid beanie baby that WOULD have been worth

2K. Still have it. Bought it for my first baby.

Once found a beauttiful alligator clutch bag in the trash in old apartment bldg., buried under someones collection of hideous old purses. Still have that, too.

edit oops also tossed the Beatles first album (in pristene condition) in the trash about 20 years ago duh

[Gato Moteado]

31. just a couple of original picassos and a van gogh or two....

....they didn't go with my new living room so i dumped them off at goodwill.

[donco6]

32. When I became a Fundie . . .

. . . I destroyed my entire collection of vinyl records. Even back then it had to have been $100s. Queen's original first LP imported from Britain.

Sniff.

I got better.

[driver8]

33. My Hot Wheels "Snake and Mongoose" set is thrashed.

I see them selling for hundreds of dollars on ebay.