Kovels’ Top 10 list of antiques and collectibles is based on the results of hundreds of thousands of searches that took place on Kovels.com. Here are the Top 10 for March:

1) Plastic carrot bags. The large food service bags are best. Colorful graphics by talented artists help sell the carrots. Collectors also like vintage bags with addresses before zip codes were used.

2) Toothpaste tubes. The early ones are made of lead, now they're plastic. Look for strange graphics.

3) Bed pans. Collectors look for all sorts, from chamber pots to urinals, in porcelain and metal, even disposable ones made of pressed paper. An eclectic and amusing collectible—clean, of course.

4) Moist towelettes. A quirky collectible, but why not wet wipes in individual packets? Most are unused, but collectors probably wouldn't turn down a used one from a celebrity. Those with strange brand names or from important events are most valuable.

5) Vintage x-rays. X-ray images have been around since 1895 (the first was a woman's hand), and they must have seemed like miracles. There are avid collectors, but they also make fun and macabre Halloween decorations.

6) Sewer pipe figures. Vases shaped like tree stumps were made for centuries by workers at the factories at the end of the workday.

7) Hawaiian shirts. The more colorful the better. Look for coconut shell buttons and labels from Hawaiian shops.

8) Postmortem photographs. In the Victorian era, most people didn't have images of their loved ones. Photography was new and when a loved on passed away, a post-mortem (after death) photograph was sometimes the only visual record of their existence.

9) Airline sick bags. Pilots call them "happy sacks" and passengers call them barf bags. But collectors call them little works of art and think they say a lot about an airline's image and the times.

10) Hair. Locks from famous people from Elvis to Napoleon are in collections. Don't ignore hair jewelry and hair pictures.

 

 

April Fool! NOT our Top 10!

But … these are all real collectibles, and the Kovels have written about all of them. "Everything is collected," say experts. But for some collectors, it's not always about "antiques." Some collectors are lured by the off-beat or unusual. Sometimes finding a collecting interest is as easy as looking around at things that fascinate. Doesn't have to be expensive and can even be free! Plus, you can just bet there is someone, somewhere out there with a similar passion and thanks to the internet, you can find them.