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."
When my mom died, we were cleaning out her garage for a weekend sale. Well, my older brother and I decided to play catch with this old metal vase. My sister-in-law took it after we had dropped it 'alot' of times and she was going to practice tole painting on it. When she got it home, she looked closely at it and it was pure silver. Needless to say, my brother and I are still in the dog house over this one. So the moral of the story, be careful with our parents 'junk'.
I still have my penny collection books, worth $2.00 then, about $3.00 now (but my Grandkids may enjoy the gift)
Coins are fun, cheap and don't take up much room.
It made History fun for me when I was a child and may do the same for the Grand kids.
TT
I don't go to a whole lot of garage sales, but I don't remember where I bought some of the stuff. If she goes to a lot of sales every week, it would be easy to forget where she got what.
She should have kept her mouth shut and quietly banked the money. Mark my words, she's going to regret opening her big yap. But some fools just can't resist getting their 15 minutes of fame on the tabloid shows.
And jdm, your figure of the worth if this currency, is off by a value to ten. This money is worth face value,or or a couple of cents over that; at most.
Then after they die, the relatives that come in to sort through the estate have no idea where to even begin looking -- that is, if they know where to look in the first place.
This happened to my wife and me, and it caused a bit of a problem because of how it happened. My wife got this really old furniture piece that played 78 rpms (and it used to have a working radio, but that stopped working) from a relative. So she started collecting 78s, but they are hard to find. The Lincoln Center Library Sale was a good place, but it was only once a year and they stopped selling them after a couple of years. (Apparently, they ran out.)
Anyway, my supervisor knew I had been collecting them (I had bought a box from a co-worker through the company bulletin-board), and he told me that (I think) an aunt who had passed away had a bunch of boxes. He sold them to me for something like forty dollars.
To make this long story not quite as long, my wife found an envelope with $400 in on of the sleeves. She wanted to keep it, and I was racked with guilt. She tried using an "Antiques Roadshow" metaphor, and I tried to impress upon her that I *know* who the person is that "lost" this money.
Things got worse for me a few days later when my boss asked me to keep an eye out for any envelopes. Some had turned up going through other thngs, and it had been his responsibility to go through all those records before he disposed of them. Now, to my wife that meant "so he didn't do what he was supposed to, so too bad"; to me, it meant "I trust you".
Anyway, my boss could tell something was up and I laid it all out for him. He offered to let her keep half. I don't know if his siblings (or was it his wife and her siblings?) were at the point of suspecting that money had to be there or what.
In the end, my wife's co-worker finally guilted her into returning the money . . . but only because she found a second envelope. And she told me flat out that she was keeping any more envelopes that she found.
I don't remember if she found any more (or if she would have told me if she had) or if she ever gave me the forty bucks for the 78s in the first place.
TS
The silver in the quarters is worth more than 25 cents.
Why did this twit make her discovery public? Sell the bills and coins on ebay! Bet they may be worth up to a million dollars, especially since they're from the 1920s-50s.
You aren't allowed to melt down coinage for the metal content. It's against the law. No smelter will do it and there isn't all that much silver in our silver coins, from that era.
Cesarini
That's why people need to STFU when they find large sums of money! Just hoard the money quietly and wait a couple of months before spending it...sheesh.
At $7.27.oz for silver, a good condition silver quarter would have $1.30 value of silver (.18 oz worth)
The ONLY coins that would be worth a lot of money, would be gold ones.
The ONLY people who would pay exorbitant prices, on E-bay, would be someone like you, who isn't a numismatist. :-)
It's AGAINST THE LAW to do that to our coinage and yes, a smelter would refuse to do that.
20 to 30 years ago we used to run across Silver Certificates, Silver Coins and and other currency that was dated in the 1920's to the 1950's. Doesn't happen anymore. That makes it rare to me, I will pay face value on anything you have from 1920 to 1950 plus shipping & handling (please advise)
TT
Then you would be a fool. THAT'S ALL THEY'RE WORTH;FACE VALUE!
I didn't recommend doing anything, I just said what it was worth.
In fact defacing the CURRENCY of the United States is a crime. I am fairly certain that restriction DOES NOT APPLY to coinage.
Interesting story...
This happened to my family.
20 yrs ago my wife worked as a teller at a branch bank in Lincoln, NE. One day this older gentleman comes in and cashes about $150 in old silver coins. My wife waited on the gentleman and told him his money was worth more than the face value..... He would hear nothing of it and requested his change in bills. When the branch supervisor arrived, my wife was told to call his residence to again tell him that there was more money in the silver and that the bank would be willing to give it back to him for the value on the coinage.
Again, he was not interested. As it turned out, my wife and her coworkers purchased the coins at face value. We still have it locked up in the safe.
We have often wondered why the old boy didn't want the larger amount.
MFO
How would one purchase a large amount of 1920 to 1950 coinage (at face value), from you perhaps?
Feel sorry for this fool, cut me a good deal on the handling charge, I will arrange the shipping.
TT
If I was to decide to hide money, I wouldn't be telling people where it was hidden. Kind of defeats the purpose.
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