Have you ever got rid of something which turned out to be valuable?

[Theacademicswife]

I'm doing a clear out and had set aside things for the charity shop, one of which is a 1960s clock belonging to my late MIL.
I happened to look it up, and it's selling on a retro site for over £300.

Just wondering if you have given away/thrown out something which turned out to be valuable?

No, but I have had the reverse. Rescued a tatty old rug from MIL’s house after she died, as I had always liked the pattern. Took it to be restored and found it was a genuine, 60 year old handmade Persian rug worth £4,500!
I was also given an old anatomy book by FIL, years ago, as I was the only doctor in the next generation. He’d inherited it from his pathologist father. Got it valued - it’s a 1685 edition, with a dedication to the then king, James II. Worth £2500. Glad I hadn’t put it in the bin!

The whole of DGM’s house went to house clearance. She had been an enthusiastic visitor to auctions and antique shops for decades. She had loads of valuable things, so much that it was too overwhelming.
I regret so much that I didn’t feel able to make more than a couple of visits to clear rubbish & clean rather than actually look at things.
My sibling did take a fair few items but I was just lost, surrounded by so much stuff.
One thing I desperately regret not taking was a beautiful sketch of her done in her younger years. Valuable only sentimentally to me though I suppose.

Yes. A ducking Patek Philipe watch that was given to me by an admirer. I didn't like it, was 18 and had no idea if it's value. I actually threw it out during a clear out. Value c30k.

What a fucking idiot. Still bitter over 30 years later.

Fucking, stupid phone

😳😱 @cocksstrideintheevening

No, but the opposite.

I was having a bath when I saw what I thought was a tiny piece of red plastic which I assumed must have got knocked off one of the children's bath toys. they had various lifeboat type toys which were the same colour. I was just getting out and I nearly just let it go down the drain, but it was right by my hand so I put it on the side to go in the bin later.
I forgot about it until an hour later, when I looked down at my ring and realised the "piece of red plastic" was a ruby out of my engagement ring.
Now, tbf it wasn't a huge ruby or a very expensive ring (although it was to us as students when we bought it) but we wouldn't have been able to afford to replace it at that time.

I accidentally smashed some rare Chinese porcelain.

Really rare.

Gutted as it was beyond repair.

In 1960s, my sister, 10 years older, gave me a programme from a gig she had been to. It was 'The Beatles' with Pete Best. I sold it for 10 bob (50p) because I wasn't interested in the Beatles - I was 11 and they were old.
She did tell me it could be worth a lot one day but at 11, cash in the hand was more important

I lent a friend a book years ago never got it back and lost touch with friend, subsequently found out it's worth a bit. Still irritates me.

Pokémon cards 😭

We've just changed our car, had it for 15 years and there's some sunglasses in the middle pocket thing. I thought they were dh's, he thought they were mine, they've been there years. They're actually genuine Rayban ones worth about £150, and we've asked everyone we can think of if they're theirs but nobody has claimed them!

Back in the early 80s, when I was a teenager, I had a huge stash of Lucienne Day fabrics. I made myself a few dresses, but ended up culling it between flat moves. She's so trendy now and I would love to have those fabrics back!

Yes. Worse is that it always happens after I've held onto it for a long time; then weeks or months after I decide to clear out and let go, I find that I've made a mistake.

My DF did.

His friend's son was a budding artist and did a sketch for my father on some scrap paper. DF kept it for a while but eventually threw it out when he and DM moved house.
The budding artist's paintings now sell for ££££

Back in the late 80's early 90's when period features weren't fashionable, my dad took a sledgehammer to the living room fireplace. The one in the dining room had been plaster as had the one in the master bedroom. This one, however, turned out to be solid marble under the layers of paint.

I had an 8inch floppy with the developer’s original space invaders program which I played on a mainframe computer when I worked for an international computer company. I slung it into a skip when we were clearing the house before some renovation work. That would have funded my retirement.

I accidentally put a 1970's set of original Pippa dolls and outfits out for the refuse collectors.

The identical case I kept had the rubbish I wanted to dispose of. I was a few weeks after the birth of my eldest so very tired and not quite thinking straight.

It would have been worth over £2,000 in todays value. I was very upset at the time but even more after finding out how valuable the little dolls are today.

I had a 50p piece in my purse which caught my eye as there was a world war 2 pattern on the back of it. I spent it without thinking then about a week later I read that it was worth hundreds of pounds.

My ex DH and his pension. 😂

Place marking for later.

Dp got rid of some of his old toys, which are now worth loads.

This ugly thing. Chucked in the bin during DPIL’s house clearance.
€750 EBay Thun cat

I was vaguely friends with Amy Winehouse when I was younger, before she was famous (friend of a friend), and she played us some tapes of her singing, and left the tape at my house. I chucked it away as I thought it was crap 🤦‍♀️😬

Accidentally. My Great grandmothers jewelled ring which I foolishly wore to work as a student nurse went down the linen chute.
Never got it back.

No, but we easily could have. A Dsis was there while a house clearance firm was emptying an old aunt’s house, after she’d had to move to a care home and the house had to be sold to pay the fees.

As far as we could tell there was nothing of value, but DSis saw them taking more than a very cursory interest in a painting which had been wrapped in brown paper and evidently kept behind a chest of drawers since the 1970s.
So she had it valued.
It turned out to be by quite a well known Victorian artist and sold at auction for £9500.
I did vaguely remember it from the GM’s house decades previously - it had hung in the ‘parlour’ that hardly anybody ever even entered.