I discovered that a small strip of dead land at the side of my friends’ brand new house was available to buy for loose change from the original land owner (a once giant estate that had been broken up into parcels at auction) Fast forward three years or so later and the developer started stage two of the house building, another 850 houses. Guess whose tiny parcel of land was needed for utilities and access due to the terrain? We basically picked a number out of the air and the next day the cheque / check arrived. Paid off the mortgage, sold the house and paid about 90% the price of their dream home straight away and had a bit left over too. Can’t help but think that somebody somewhere lost their job/contract over that.

I had a free book reward from Thriftbooks, which I used for a copy of Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams. When it came, I was kinda bummed that some kid had scribbled on the title page, but eh, it was free. At least it was a first edition in otherwise good condition, I won’t complain.

As I was reading, I got a little itch in the back of my mind, and it of curiosity looked up his signature. Turns out, it looks like some kid’s scribbling

Probably why no one realized.

So I got a signed first edition, which goes for about $200, totally free.

Not me but my mom. Her great grandmother gave her her “mad money” stash that she’d saved over the years, all in silver dollars. She didn’t think much of it, just kept it as a memento.

Turns out it’s 300 silver dollars minted between 1900 and 1905; some of them are worth over $1k by themselves.

One Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me an unopened bottle of whisky they had in their cabinet for a while. It was some of the best whisky I’ve ever had. About halfway through the bottle on Boxing Day, I took a moment to look up the cost (it’s since gone up in price, but you’ll get the idea)

https://dekanta.com/store/suntory-hibiki-30-years-old/

I. Was. Horrified. I have exactly two ounces left, that I will probably consume with my wife on my deathbed.

I own a full size Batmobile model from a canceled game bundle Batman Arkham Knight: Batmobile Edition. It was canceled due to quality control issue and was shipped to select people before getting canceled. So that’s a pretty rare find. All the electronics still works and it can switch normal and battle modes with a remote. Had some people offering multiple thousand bucks for it, and I got it just randomly without knowing it’s rare.

Geese. We got them to cut down on the number of chickens that hawks were taking. They live exclusively on grass so they cost nothing to maintain. We haven’t lost a single hen to hawks in the three years since we got them.

So that’s all about saving money. Where is the profit? Goose eggs. In the spring they lay eggs that are 5.5 to 7.5 ounces each. Chicken eggs are only 30% yolk. But goose eggs are 50% yolk. A single egg has a yolk almost 3x the size of three chicken eggs. These are worth money as food at $7 each or as hatching eggs for barter with other homesteaders that want geese and have incubators.

Edit: forgot to add that they are the best lawnmowers ever. They have dramatically cut down how much we need to mow. Which saves fuel and W&T on the mower as well as time.

I own a Zune. Despite owning it for over a decade, it’s still worth about what I paid for it.

I went to a Hotel Furniture liquidator for some new furniture. Saw a good looking office chair and they only wanted $20 for it.

Brought that bad boy home and only then did I find out that they had sold me a new Herman Miller Aeron for only $20. Completely insane.

I buy and sell used books. I came across one nondescript worn hardback in a box and for some reason decided to research it. It’s worth five figures. Cost about 25c.

Oh, I always win at Book Off in Japan. If you don’t know what that is, give it a search. It’s an interesting place.

I’ve bought several expensive camera lenses for 8-20$. Since they have no electronic components, they work fine. I use them to document work I do for various people or myself as a marketing too for my business. Worth every last one of those 8 dollars! Some are worth quite a bit of money.

There’s a vacuum tube on my desk worth a bit. I found it for 3$ in a junk bin. Turned out it worked, so I built a weird, cursed amplifier out of it as a joke, using some old Soviet scrap and mystery Chinese ICs. Probably not worth anything anymore! – but hey, it’s a tube amp that works entirely at 5V! So weird!

I have a beautiful set of unused old ink stones from a famous manufacturer in China. I paid around 10$ for it. These are actually quite expensive and worth hundreds of dollars. Certainly less than a thousand though.

I also have a singing bowl, made of cast bronze. I don’t know much about it, except it’s old enough to predate modern machining (it was clearly sand-cast). It’s probably also cursed – someone sold it to me by accident for a few dollars when I asked for something else. Then I didn’t notice until I got home. It’s probably worth some money to the right person, but few people value such old things in my country and I don’t want to sell it to an overseas buyer.

Oh and I have one of the original victory fliers from when the Japanese defeated the Russians in 1904. In perfect condition. I have no idea what it’s worth, but certainly much more than I paid for it, haha. I should probably find a museum for it one day.

I had a friend over who complimented my teapot, I love it because it’s a nice color, good size and has a stainless steel infuser that fits inside. So I offered to get her one of her own only to find out that this particular color is highly collectible and worth 6-7x what I paid for it originally. Now I have a nice teapot I’m paranoid about anything happening to, haha.

I have four tyres in pretty good condition on my car, that’s $1000 right there.

My student loans? Child support? Repairs and maintenance?

laughcries in poor

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The 10th anniversary Sonic the hedgehog crystal cube. Bought it on a whim back then, honestly don’t even remember what website I got it on, and when I got it I pretty much just kept it in the closet because I never wanted to put it out because I figured one of my cats would knock the damn thing over.

It was actually only a few months ago that I was talking about it when Sonic the hedgehog came up and I decided to Google it and I found out they only made 500 of the fucker.