Dear Lee,

The rules of collecting get stranger and stranger. Not only do some pieces that are chipped, broken, or missing parts still sell for good prices, as we reported here last month. Some pieces reclaimed from the trash bin also do well. It is important when selling an old house or attacking spring cleaning to look carefully at all potential discards or giveaways. The most famous discard is probably the dodo bird. It was a real bird that lived on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius when it was first discovered by Dutch explorers in 1598. The dodo, unable to fly and perhaps not too bright, was easily caught and eaten-and soon became extinct. The last stuffed dodo was discarded in 1755 by the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford, England. The museum had kept the bird for almost 100 years, then found it “wanting in condition and appeal.” The dodo was thrown on a bonfire, and only its head and one foot were saved and given to another museum. Since then, the relics have undergone DNA testing. A well-preserved stuffed dodo bird today would be worth well over $100,000, perhaps even $1 million.

It is reported that $250,000 was paid for a Teco vase that had been damaged and discarded in a dumpster in 1985. It was secretly pulled from the dumpster and stored for a few years. In 1989 it was restored for a museum exhibit and then returned to its original owner, the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois. It is claimed the vase was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the temple. The vase was bought in January at a private sale, with proceeds going toward restoration of the church building.

Even if you don’t find expensive “trash” when cleaning, you might be interested in this ad from a recent toy magazine: “Cash for your empty Lionel train boxes.” The ad offers $250 to $1,000 for selected Lionel boxes that held cars and parts made before 1970. Be careful before you throw out any old boxes.

E-mail jokes can be annoying, but last week we got a list of funny sayings. Two are obviously mottos for collectors: “You can’t have everything-where would you put it.” And “The things that come to those who wait are usually the things left by those who got there first.”