Check your attic — a Rembrandt may be gathering dust.
It’s Groundhog Day this weekend. I’m praying Wiarton Willie does not see his shadow. Does Mr. Willie accept bribes? Sir, I have a box of carrots, leafy greens and hickory nuts, all yours if you feign blindness on Sunday.
We deserve an early spring this year. And if the rodent meteorologist foretells it to be so, my plans are set for when the snow melts: I’m hunting for treasures at garage sales.
We all need a get-rich scheme. My idea to make a fortune by inventing a talking bed that reads children’s stories has sputtered. So garage sales it is. Maybe I’ll be as lucky as the guy in Minnesota who spent $50 on an oil painting that experts now say is a Vincent van Gogh worth $15 million.
That’s a 29,999,900 per cent return on investment. Try that with memecoin.
The 18-by-16.5-inch painting, titled “Elimar,” is a portrait of a pipe-smoking fisherman. Per CNN this week: “It was made by Van Gogh during his stay at a psychiatric hospital in the south of France in 1889, experts commissioned by art research firm LMI Group International have said after analyzing the canvas weave, paint pigment and other characteristics.”
How does a Van Gogh end up in Minnesota next to a leaf blower?
Now, I’m not expecting to stumble upon a Dali or Picasso outside an East York bungalow this spring. But it is possible. Other reported finds have included a Jackson Pollock that went for $5 at a thrift store and an Andy Warhol sketch estimated to be worth $2 million.
But don’t just be on the lookout for famous artists.
At a flea market in Philadelphia, a guy once bought a $4 painting of a bucolic countryside because he liked the frame. But pressed between the frame and canvas was a copy of the Declaration of Independence. The manuscript was authenticated and auctioned by Sotheby’s for $2.4 million, or roughly what Elon Musk paid per day this summer to tip the election for Donald Trump.
Other momentous finds include Ansel Adams negatives, a Northern Song Dynasty bowl from the 10th century, a James Bond watch from “Thunderball” replete with Geiger counter, a Velvet Underground demo, and a bed experts later confirmed was the sleeping place for Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.
How does a four-poster royal bed get dumped in a parking lot? I’ll tell you how. Most of us do not know the value of anything that predates our birth. All these material possessions of yesteryear fall under the rubric of “junk,” which is why folks have garage sales in the first place.
That tacky bronze cat is an Egyptian statue, circa 500 BCE? That ratty old sweater once belonged to Vince Lombardi? That $10 costume ring next to the Pet Rocks contains a real 26-carat diamond worth more than $300,000?
Now I know why there are eagle-eyed mercenaries who hit up, like, 20 garage sales a day. Now I know why there is a book titled “The Garage Sale Millionaire.” And now I know why sellers may wrongly believe Grandma’s old tin of pearls contains nothing but marbles.
I need to get my hockey card collection appraised before it ends up on my lawn. And the two vintage Underwood typewriters my late mother-in-law bought me at yard sales.
Another good reason to be a buyer and not a seller this early spring? It’s way less work. My only yard sale experience came in 2009. Our twin daughters were three and that summer my wife descended into manic declutter mode. We needed space, she said. Stuff just had to go!
She went room by room, affixing yellow Post-it notes to anything deemed superfluous. She jotted down arbitrary prices. It was curious how my old stuff was deemed “junk” and her old stuff had “sentimental value.” Before we opened for outdoor business, I glanced at my Sony Discman sitting forlornly near the door and was quite shocked to discover it was marked at $3.
What value might my wife assign to my kidneys?
Throughout the day, I battled sunstroke and fielded queries from passersby such as “is that belt real leather?” and “do you have any extension cords inside?” The haggling was shambolic. You don’t think two bucks for a new frying pan is fair?
I think we earned negative 145 dollars per hour that Saturday. And that does not account for the gas money when a sweet young couple new to the country asked if I could deliver the Peg Perego stroller we sold them for less than a cappuccino.
Don’t sell your junk this early spring — rummage through other people’s junk.
You never know what you might find.
