Surprisingly Valuable Collectibles Hiding in Your Home
If you're cleaning out your closets this summer, you might wonder if any of your things are valuable.
Here are some of the hottest collectibles you might find:
Action figures
As long as there have been movies, little kids have played with action figures. Now that they’ve grown up, they collect them. A Star Wars Boba Fett rocket-firing prototype figure from 1979 fetched $236,000 in June 2022, according to WorthPoint, a site that records prices for collectibles. And a 1985 Transformer gift set of all six Constructicons (Bonecrusher, Scavengers, Scrapper, Hook, Long Haul, and Mixmaster) — which, as everyone knows, combine to form Devastator — sold for $25,370 in March 2023.
Barbies
Barbie made her appearance in March 1959 and has been sought after by collectors since then. The release of Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling has stirred more interest in Mattel’s famous doll. An original 1959 Barbie — in the box — is currently selling on eBay for $300,000. “I’m keeping an eye on the Ken dolls,” says Amy Moyer, proprietor of antmuffin: Art, Antiques and Collectibles. A 1992 Earring Magic Ken is currently on sale on eBay for $202.50.
Baseball cards
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 card 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 cards aren’t the only valuable trading cards. A 1979 Topps Wayne Gretzky hockey card sold for $100,000 in November 2020, and a rookie card for quarterback Tom Brady fetched $498,000 in October 2022.
Comic books
Comic book collectors swoon at the thought of owning the 1962 Amazing Fantasy #15, where Spider-Man made his debut, or the June 1938 Action Comics #1, where Superman first took flight. Both sell for millions. More recent comic books, however, also 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 Spider-Man #300 from 1988 sold for $9,999; it was the first appearance of Venom, Spidey’s nemesis.
Fishing Gear
You might take a moment 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 Company, 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.
Pokémon cards
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 that trainers (the person owning the cards) use 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
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 Vault; 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
“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 currently has Jordan’s rookie card for sale, with bids starting at $135,000. Most signed baseballs are worth something, as are signed bats and bobbleheads. Got a signed football? Those are good, too. In fact, just about anything that a sports figure has signed is worth something. Babe Ruth once signed a dumbbell for a fan; it sold for $8,000 in 2014.
By John Waggoner, AARP, Updated August 4, 2023
Image by Robert Owen-Wahl from Pixabay
