$$$ in the Attic

• Share

(2 of 2)

So what's hot? Anything with cross-collectible value. Postcards, for example, are sought by both postcard collectors and stamp collectors. There's also a market for anything connected to transportation (think cruise-ship programs, trolley tickets and the like). Invitations to events like a presidential Inauguration are in demand. In fact, anything relating to topics of historical interest--a war, the moon landing, a World's Fair--can bring bucks. Even some old magazines can command a fair price at market (not National Geographic, however--too plentiful). Carbone recently sold more than 100 issues of Ladies' Home Journal from the 1890s, bundled in sets of six, for between $100 and $300 a set.

What may seem to be the least valuable--the day-to-day memorabilia of an ordinary life--may be a hidden treasure. Retired banker Arden Peterson, 62, who is in the process of downsizing, let his son Mitch, an iSold It trading assistant in Lakeville, Minn., put a 1929 $10 bank note from his collection on eBay just for fun (but also because a very rare 1905 $10 bank note had sold on eBay a month earlier for $27,000). The fun turned serious when Peterson's bank note fetched $1,037. Going through a lifetime of boxes may be an onerous task, says Peterson, but it can reap rich rewards--both personally and financially.