Are you lottery-winning lucky? Have you ever won a door prize at an antiques show? I never have. We can all envy the lucky family who hired Pook and Pook to move the contents of a house filled with period antiques and art and sell it at auction. The Pook and Pook staff put everything in their truck. When almost finished in the attic, James Pook saw a tin container in poor condition, wondered what was inside that made it so heavy, and took off the top. It looked like it was a box of yarn, but looking further, he found bundles of folded, pristine $100 silver certificates, other bills, and silver dollars. The staff didn’t try to count it, just took the 70-year-old find to the consignors. They called later to thank everyone and report that the face value of the money was over $150,000. How lucky can you be to get a house that comes with all that hidden money? We wondered what a “pristine” silver certificate is worth to a collector. It depends on condition, year of issue, etc., but we do know it is redeemable for face value. Collector value is much higher.
Photo: Pook & Pook, Inc.
I had some luck a few months ago, I won a lot of 4 old sewing machines at my local auction, they cost me £12.00 for the lot, I took them home and took them indoors to have a better look and one of them had a envelope in the little bit under the needle head wear you keep spare bits, my wife took the envelope out and ripped it open and it had £1,000 in all in old twenty pound notes, after I come back of the ceiling I took them down the building Building Society and they changed them up for new ones, then I sold the machines for £100.00, not bad for £12.00 lay out.
What a great thing to happen to an heir. If they are like my son and inheirited jjust the antiqes and collections I have, he would feel let down. It is a shame the throw away world we live in today. Makes me wonder what the antiique of tomorrow will e an old Happy Meal? Lol
A friend of mine used to run estate sales. Once found $250,000 in a basement, stashed inside an old piano and cast iron stove!