|
 If
you have been rummaging through the attic recently, checking to
see if your roofing straps are on tight in advance of hurricane
season, you may have bumped into boxes still left unpacked since
you moved in. Or maybe you don’t need to go as far as the attic
to run into those pesky boxes - they’re still pushed into
corners of closets 10 years after the last move.
Inside forgotten boxes lies treasure to be explored! The
Hummel
figurines your mother collected. Those
action figures or
comic books your kids piled up. Your prized
Monkees lunchbox from
third grade. Perhaps the Hummel doesn’t match your contemporary
tropical décor. The kids are too busy with MySpace to play with
action figures these days. And you haven’t used a lunch box in
30 years.
People are cashing in on their
collectibles these days, through
eBay, consignment shops, and garage sales. The library has
always had print resources to help estimate the values of
collectibles and
antiques, but we’ve recently added a great new
electronic database of antique and collectible pricing
called Price It! Antiques & Collectibles. This resource
is the most comprehensive antique and collectible pricing tool
in the world, and you can access it from home with your home
computer and your
library card.
Price It! gathers sales information from online auctions
like eBay, as well as online retail outlets and dozens of
land-based auctions for a truly comprehensive view of the
antique and collectible marketplace.
Use Price It! and you will find that you may be able get
$300-500 for that Monkees lunchbox - perhaps enough to take all
your friends to see Mickey Dolenz perform at the Tennessee
Soybean Festival this September. |
