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I Love Garage Sales!
I love garage sales. I used to stop by them all the time. Not so much anymore, but I still go out occasionally.
Every year there is a "World's Largest Yard Sale", which starts near where we live in Ohio, and runs all the way down to Alabama. I talked Laura into going out with me for a couple days and driving down 127 and stopping by as many garage sales as we could. Good times!
We found some cheap Christmas gifts, I got a few Reds bobbleheads... and at one sale, I found an unused book of Cincinnati Reds season tickets from the 1990 season. For those who don't know, that season the Reds went wire-to-wire... starting the season ranked #1, and staying at #1 all through the season, and eventually winning the World Series. I collect sports memorabilia, so I asked the guy how much he wanted for it and a bobblehead, and he said he'd give me both for $25. I took it, because I had seen that same bobblehead on sale a few weeks earlier at a place for $40, so I figured it was a good deal.
I saw a posting online a few weeks ago about the Reds Hall of Fame Museum doing an upcoming exhibit on that 1990 team, and they were looking for people who had things from that season to loan items to the museum for the exhibit, so I emailed them and told them about my ticket book and some old newspapers I had. I heard back from them a few days ago saying that they would love to borrow my season ticket book for the exhibit, so I arranged to meet with him this week to fill out the paperwork.
I went, and filled out the paperwork, and he asked if I knew how rare this was. I told him I knew they weren't common, but that's about it. He said he's never seen a full unused season ticket book from ANY season, let alone a World Series season. He said that the Reds destroyed all unsold tickets, and wouldn't even let the museum save any until just a couple years ago. He asked what the value was, for insurance purposes, and I had no idea. So I got in touch with a few local memorabilia dealers. Turns out this ticket book is very rare, and I'm not going to say what they estimated the value at, but let's just say it was many many MANY times more than my initial investment!
I love garage sales!
