Last year was an excellent year for collectors. A plethora of television shows debuted on the subject, along the new seasons of the established favorites. I haven’t seem them all, but here are few mini-reviews of what I haven’t yet covered in full reviews here at Inherited Values: It’s Worth What? managed to make it [...]

It’s easy today to snap photos anywhere and everywhere with virtually any cell phone, but keeping track of them is no different than those old rolls of film… My surprise today at discovering these photos taken at a storage auction we went to here in Fargo last fall was akin to getting a roll of [...]

I recently acquired a small lot of vintage valentines. Most of them were the type kids passed out at school, and each of them has a number penciled on the front, placed in a circle. While this may detract from their value, I find the idea of a youngster implementing some sort of ranking or [...]

According to this post at Reddit, which appears to be a quote from Perfumes: The Guide (page 148, to be precise), there’s a reason the “old book smell” is so lovely: Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habits, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to [...]

A number of original Joseph Jasgur photographs are up for auction from Grapefruit Moon Gallery right now. Astonishingly, along with winning the vintage photographs now being auctioned off via Grapefruit Moon, the winner owns the copyright for the images, meaning that the buyer will be legally allowed to reproduce and sell copies of the photographs [...]

I found this retro advertising spot made to look like a column called Travel Talk From Kaymax Travel Agency published in the Tri City Herald, July 15, 1981. In it, Joe Jackson offers motivation for antiquing abroad: If you’re an antique buff, you’ll have the time of your life browsing in foreign countries. Let’s face [...]

Pick & Grin, The Collecting Couple, Ready For The New Year Grin: With the holiday season ending, I look forward to peace and quiet for the next few months. Pick: Good luck with that thought. We have two antique shows booked and we need to start setting aside the goods we want to sell. One [...]

The Discovery Channel’s Dirty Money may seem like just another formulaic collecting reality TV show, complete with a cast of family members — but if you believe that, you’re wrong. Sure, the show features brothers John and Jimmy DiResta, along with John’s son Matthew aka “Rat-Boy”, in pursuit of getting their junk on, dumpster diving [...]

Speaking of model trains, here’s a lovely set of five vintage photographs which show off a vintage model railroad collection. Each photograph measures 3 by 4 inches; dated August 1967 on the back. Images from Lynnstudios.

A reader of Inherited Values is in the beginning stages of planing an antiquing trip abroad and has asked me about travel insurance. Since I’ve, unfortunately, not yet left the country for this sort of thing, and never even considered what happens if you get ill overseas (I shudder to think of it now!), I [...]

Last night, History debuted it’s latest collectibles reality television series, Cajun Pawn Stars, in the now familiar two back-to-back half-hour episode format. (I don’t know why these guys haven’t yet just committed to the full hour episode yet.) The commercials for the show made it seem like a blend of Pawn Stars and Oddities, seasoned [...]

Back in November, I heard WDAY making the promo for that night’s broadcast — an alarming headline about model trains. I don’t recall word for word, but it was so alarming that I indeed remained glued to the station and watched the news especially for that report. While the headline sounded far more drastic (implying [...]

18th Century US coins are quite difficult to find. The Mint wasn’t even established until the 1790s, and until that time coins were minted from precious metals by foreign countries or private mints, and valued based on weight. Ephraim Brasher was one of those early minters, and in 1787 he created what we call today [...]

But, sometimes, those drummers are a matching pair. *wink* A fabulous vintage kitschy pair of planters, a drummer boy and a Majorette girl, illustrate my point! Image credits: Pigtunia’s Plunder.

I’m sure by now that you heard that the Elizabeth Taylor auction set new auction records, but there’s other things to read in the world of collecting and vintage fashion… Did you know the swimsuit worn by Farrah Fawcett in that ultimate 70s poster was made by Norma Kamali? It was! And now it’s in [...]

OK, so you waited around, hoping just the right thing was going to pop up at eBay or some other site, and now, as the shipping delivery window narrows, you’re starting to worry that all you can do is go with the obvious eBay gift card or get something lame. Gift certificates, from eBay, your [...]

When I stumbled into this auction for original Katzenjammer Kids art, I was excited to read the story behind the piece: Grapefruitmoon Gallery just acquired an important collection of pen & ink original illustration art comic drawings from many of the leading Golden Age of Illustration comic strip illustrators that were received by a persistent [...]

You see a vintage or antique photograph and you wish it were larger, more detailed… I want to see every photo, every scrap of ephemera, on the table in front of her!  As a collector, I’m allowed to be that nosy, right? Photo via Lynnstudios.

Like I said, I’m becoming a resident vintage and antiques expert at Listia. Recently I was helping identify an item listed as “Tell Me What This Is” — headlines like that will always pull me in. *wink* I immediately knew what it was, as I own several of these items myself. It’s a rug making [...]

I’ve been running into a lot of new collectors of vintage and antique things at Listia; I kind of feel like I’m becoming a resident expert, both it terms of being able to help folks and because of the amount of time I spend at Listia. *wink* I don’t normally take the time to give [...]

Those oil-filled pens and other objects with moveable images are called “floating action,” “tilt” or “action” items — or just plain old “floaty” collectibles. These simple but fascinating things have been popular souvenir and promotional give-away items since the process was invented in the late 1940s. Pens are the most common floaty items, but pencils, [...]