11 Surprisingly Valuable Collectibles Hiding in Your Home

​Baseball cards​

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Did your mother throw out your baseball cards? Don’t be your mother. Even some cards in the 1985–1995 “junk wax” period, when the industry pumped out millions more cards than anyone wanted, are valuable. A 1989 rookie card for Ken Griffey Jr. in mint condition sold for $18,000 in 2021. In contrast, the holy grail of baseball cards — Mickey Mantle’s 1952 card — last sold for about $12.6 million in October 2021. There are only three left in perfect condition. One reason: Lots of kids stuck baseball cards in their bike spokes to make noise, says Will Seippel, CEO of WorthPoint.​

Baseball isn’t the only sport that has valuable trading cards. A 1979 Topps Wayne Gretzky hockey card sold for $100,000 in November 2020, and a rookie card for NFL quarterback Tom Brady fetched $498,000 in October 2022.

Comic books

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​Comic book collectors swoon at the thought of owning the 1962 Amazing Fantasy Number 15, in which Spider-Man made his debut, or the June 1938 Action Comics Number 1, in which Superman leaped his first tall building. Both sell for millions. More recent comic books fetch a decent price if they’re in good shape; you can even buy them professionally graded for condition and enshrined in plastic for protection. In May 2021, a signed copy of The Amazing Spider-Man Number 300 from 1988 sold for $9,999; it was the first appearance of Venom, one of Spidey’s nemeses.​

Fishing gear

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You might take a moment to rethink before throwing away that old fishing pole or reel. A Van Staal spinning reel sold for $1,775 in August 2022. A vintage Shakespeare reel sold for $876 in 2021. Even humble Zebco — named for the Zero Hour Bomb Co., a Texas-based maker of electric time bombs for oil drilling — has some standout reels. A Zebco 33 50th-year anniversary Spincast Reel sold for $550 in February 2023.

Flatware

Fine china and pricey flatware may not be popular with the younger generations, but if you have some collecting dust, you could be sitting on a gold mine, or in this case a silver one. Sterling silver forks, knives, spoons and other tableware can fetch thousands of dollars, says Phil Dreis, owner of Antique Cupboard, an online seller of silver flatware, jewelry and tea sets. “Silver-plated flatware has very little value. But sterling silver is valuable whether it is a desirable pattern or it’s just metal,” Dreis says. A 60-piece sterling silver set can go from $1,500 to $50,000, depending on the pattern and demand. A rare Paul Revere Jr. silver tablespoon circa 1790 sold at auction for a record $32,500 in May 2021.

Furniture​

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The obvious problem with selling furniture is that someone has to haul it to its new home. Nevertheless, people need furniture, whether it’s a vintage six-board blanket box ($650) or a 1960s Danish modern nesting teak side table ($260). Though buyers have coveted Scandinavian modern, some are turning to postmodern furniture, such as Memphis Milano, known for its bright colors and sharp angles.

Pokémon cards

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​Pokémon (short for “pocket monsters”) cards have been around since 1996, and in the mind of an 8-year-old, you really gotta catch them all — more than 900 of them. The cards are part of a game in which trainers (the person owning the cards) try to build a powerful 60-card deck. Prices range from 50 cents for common cards to more than $1 million for rare cards with obvious (to Pokémaniacs) errors.​

Posters

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The value of a poster depends on how famous the event was — and how much it means to you. Did you go to the closing of the Fillmore West and see (among many others) Elvin Bishop, the Grateful Dead, Santana, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Tower of Power? Did you get the poster? A second printing of the poster sells for $1,091 at Wolfgang’s; a third printing sells for $40. An original Wizard of Oz movie poster in very fine condition sold for $108,000 in 2019; a reprint sold for $45 in May 2021.​

Sports memorabilia

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“You can’t go wrong if you have anything from Michael Jordan in the ’80s or ’90s,” says Robert Wilonsky, communications director for Heritage Auctions, which had bids of $135,000 for Jordan’s rookie card. Most signed baseballs are worth something, as are signed bats and bobbleheads. Got a signed football? Those are good, too. Just about anything that a sports figure has signed is worth something. Babe Ruth signed a dumbbell for a fan that sold for $8,000 in 2014.

Technology

A 1976 Apple-1 Personal Computer, from Steve Jobs parents' garage sold for $365,000 at Christie's auction on December 5, 2014.

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While you’re cleaning out the garage, ask yourself: Are you really going to use all those old gadgets? If not, you could get some cash for them. A floppy disk signed by Apple founder Steve Jobs sold for $84,115 in 2019, according to WorthPoint. A World War II Fairchild Maxson MK1, an early navigational computer, sold for $20,000 in 2020. The latest rage: Nintendo Power magazine. Prices on eBay for the first issue of the publication ranged from $435 to $39,998, depending on condition.​

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Value Is in the Eye of the Beholder

​What makes a collectible valuable? Condition is one thing. A rare version of the Donkey Kong 3 video game sold for $28,800 in 2019. The catch: The truly valuable games have never left their original packaging. “If you played with it, forget it,” says collectibles expert Harry Rinker.​

In some cases, professional grading services will validate how well-preserved rare coins, stamps or comic books are. The difference between an MS-70 coin — the highest grade possible, with no imperfections — and an uncirculated MS-60 coin can be thousands of dollars. With other collectibles, you’ll have to learn to use your own eye.

Another element is desirability. Although it’s possible to discover a Rembrandt in the attic or a Chippendale mahogany bombe chest in the basement, it’s not likely. And, to be honest, most people aren’t going to be interested in your grandmother’s tea set. “If you find something that appeals to people over 65, you can’t sell it, because those people are trying to get rid of their stuff, not buy more of it,” Rinker says. The newest generation of collectors is looking for items they had as children in the 1980s and 1990s.​

But don’t be too quick to judge. “You never know how valuable things are until you tell people you have it and you want to sell it,” says Robert Wilonsky, communications director for Heritage Auctions.​

Thanks to the internet, it’s not hard to find the price of most collectibles. Nearly every type of collectible has an online group, from the Illinois/Chicago Star Wars Collectors Club to the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association. You’ll generally be able to get some sense of what their members find valuable.

You can also contact auction sites, such as Heritage Auctions and Sotheby’s, to check whether you have something interesting. WorthPoint compiles information from dozens of sources and offers a searchable database for $39.99 a month.​

People often make the mistake of thinking it’s not worth the effort to sell something that would bring in $50 at most. “You have to remember it’s money,” says Will Seippel, CEO of WorthPoint. “Would you throw away $50? Why send to the dump when you can sell it?”​​​