Posted on 05/30/2005 1:03:54 PM PDT by wagglebee
Linda Stafford has been going to garage sales for 30 years, and taking good-natured ribbing from her family all the while.
Now, the tables have turned.
Stafford has found more than $3,000 in bills dating from 1928 to 1953 in the bottom of a high-backed chair she bought at a garage sale — for two bucks.
"When we found the money, they could probably hear us screaming all over the neighborhood," said Stafford, 57.
She made the discovery while trying to make room in her garage for more furniture. When one of her daughters, Mandy Rath, heard something rattle in the chair, they removed the bottom. Placed inside a compartment were two paper packets, one with $10 in coins, the other with $3,060 in bills.
Stafford remembers what she paid for the chair, but not where she bought it.
"I know that I've had it out in our garage for at least a year, maybe two," she said.
But, Stafford was not sure how she would spend the money.
"Who knows?" she said. "I might spend it all at garage sales."
Perhaps not the great depression after all.
She should not return the money even if she knew where she got it. If someone sells something that means so little to them about their family that they wouldn't know about Grandma and how she stored her extra cash and the hard times they once had...they deserve to lose it! My mom used to tuck bills here and there and when she died I went through her little purses and found maybe a twenty or so. But it was the memory of her that mattered and I was very careful about letting her things go.
The dates on the money are from 1928 to 1953, so obviously whoever was hiding the money continued long after the Depression was over.
What. . .you and my wife shop together?
I have been to 10 or more garage sales in the last 6 weeks and the only one I remember where I bought anything useful I cannot recall the address. Who keeps the address of a garage sale after the fact? Who would keep it at least a year later? Right! Nobody in their right mind.
Most garage sale afficionados go every Saturday morning, April to October, in my area. My wife has bought enough junk at them to furnish 10 houses. For years, there's wasn't a single bed frame or dresser in my home that wasn't purchased at a garage sale. I don't think a one of my grandchildren sat in a store bought high chair - as soon as my oldest son got married, my wife started collecting baby stuff. I'm not kidding. She's got one side of the basement for spare garage sale junk and our adult children will often come over to "shop" down there.
Same here. There's some good news one should just keep to oneself. LOL
When he was taking it apart to restore it, he found the center post stuffed with Confederate money!
LOL. And mine too, apparently.
I agree. When we go to garage sales, we set aside a Saturday morning and hit 10 or more in a row.
I could never remember where I bought each item. After awhile, one table of somebody's junk starts to look like the next table of somebody else's junk, LOL.
We've found "treasures" at garage sales though.
Bought a Japanese puzzle box for a dollar (my husband likes to figure them out.) After playing with and solving this particular one, he told me he thought it had many more parts than the usual. A couple years later, I put it on ebay because I was "cleaning out" stuff...it fetched nearly $500.
Garage sales, IMHO, are great entertainment and in the process you can sometimes find valuables.
$3,000? That's how much Ho Chi Kerry spends on a haircut.
those bills and the coins are both worth a lot more than the face value. The paper will be Silver Certificates and they are more than the newer which say Federal Reserve Note.
I would have kept my mouth shut and split it with my daughter.
True, but only as collector's items, Silver Certificates are no longer honored by the "Federal Reserve" and haven't been for over 20 years.
I just checked the 'fridge. I am outta diet coke.
How about a diet vanilla caffine-free low carb Dr. Pepper?
Probably tucked away by some cheap bas**** who didn't want his wife to find it.
She should check them coins REAL close. Silver from the mid 20's to about 1935 is fairly rare compared to the surrounding years.
If she has silver certificates, they're worth more than face value, but only numismatically. They are irredeemable for silver coin.
Maybe, but I would bet that whoever put them there or lost them there is long dead. Besides, the chair was probably second, third, or fourth hand when she bought it. Keep it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.