Buying and selling antiques is a complicated business. You need to have knowledge of what you are buying and who your prospective buyers are. Some pawn shops have turned into antique stores because of the substantial number of these pieces that they handle. Some of the biggest bargains have been found in garage sales. For some people, an antique can be something that’s just taking up space.
This is when you confirm that one man’s trash is truly another man’s treasure. I remember seeing an episode of Pawn Stars where a man brought them an old book he had purchased at a garage sale. He read the book but wanted to sell it because it did not really fit into the category of books he liked. Plus, the fact that it looked like it was falling apart did not help, either.
Rick did not know what exactly he was looking at, so he brought in an expert to take a look at the book. The expert arrived and after examining it, it turned out to be a first edition, which is the most coveted one in books. The book had also been signed by the author which increased the value. Taking all of that into account, they were looking at a $5,000 book.
The seller was happy with that appraisal because he was planning to sell the book for about 30 dollars. He bought the book for $3. Rick made an offer of $2,500 which the man gladly accepted. So, everybody won! Another case, was when one man brought an old coin. The coin looked very old, but it was rusty, and you couldn’t see all the details on it.
Rick could tell that it was old, maybe from the Roman empire. So, he brought in his coin expert who took a look at the rare coin. It was a coin from the time of the Roman empire alright, and, it was made of silver. It was appraised at about $3,000. The seller wanted $10,000 initially but found out in the appraisal process that it wasn’t that rare.
One guy that struck it big was a chef that went to the store with the intent to sell some of the old stuff he had because it was just taking up space. There, he met a man who was trying to sell an old rusty knife. The chef realized that with the correct restoration technique, it could prove to be a very valuable knife. He bought the knife for its asking price of $3 and recorded this video!