Rare Yo-Yo - $1,551

We've all played with yo-yo's when we were young. The skill, the frustration of the string getting tangled, the first successful 'walking the dog' trick... A yo-yo is every child's favorite toy for a (usually short) while, and then it gets thrown into a box with the rest of the unwanted toys, or is simply thrown away...

Amazingly, the yo-yo has been around since 500 B.C (!), samples from ancient Greece are available in several musea around the world. There are plenty of online resources available that can tell you more about the history of the yo-yo, as well as a multitude of yo-yo collections sites. One of the best we could find is The Museum of Yo-Yo history. Check it out, it's worth it. Books about yo-yo collecting and history are scarce, but there are a couple available at your favorite online retailers.

The particular yo-yo pictured here is a vintage Duncan yo-yo. It sold for $1,551. Duncan is the name in the yo-yo world. The company was founded in 1930, when entrepreneur Mr. F. Duncan purchased a yo-yo company founded by a Filipino immigrant, Mr. Pedro Flores. Duncan celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2004, and to date has sold over 600 million yo-yo's worldwide.

The Seattle Space Needle yo-yo is rare. It is a 1962 Seattle World Fair souvenir, and it has a very distinct and unique shape, with each of the two halves being modeled after the Space Needle tower in Seattle. With most yo-yo's being plain shaped, the modeling of this sample makes it special. Added to it being a World Fair souvenir (another collecting niche) makes for a desirable collectible.

Old beer can - $5,600

This beer can has a nice vintage look to it, but we would not have paid more than $5 for it if we saw it in a yardsale. But ... this beer can sold for $5,600?!

Breweriana is another collectible category many people may be unfamiliar with. It involves anything to do with breweries and beer, like advertising, signs, mugs, bottles, glasses, and cans.

The beer can was invented in 1933 by Krueger's. They tested a run of 2000 cans of light beer, allowed under the less strict but still active prohibition, and the reactions were positive enough that they decided to go to production with the idea. The first beer cans were sold in 1935; they were the Krueger's Beer and Krueger's Ale cans. The sample pictured here is such a Krueger's Ale can. It was a so-called flat-top and it could be opened with a 'Canco Easy Opener' (instructions were provided on the side of the can).

An excellent source of beer can history is the site rustycans.com. It has a lot of useful information for beer can collectors (like for example, a section on 'common fakes'), as well as some pages on the history of the beer can. A decent amount of books have been written on the subject as well. Check them out at your favorite online retailer...

Vintage Nike shoes - $1,025

Instantly, you recognize the brand. That is the power of branding, and that is the classic power of the Nike logo. We had no idea that old Nike Basketball shoes were collectible (who collects ... well never mind), but that shows the idea behind this blog; exposing hidden treasures stacked away in boxes, the garage, the attic...

This is a pair of Nike Air Jordan I basketball shoes. They were the first in the Air Jordan series, and were mainly produced in 1985. This article tells us that you can recognize the first edition by the serial number located on the inside of the ankle, and the first two digits in that number will tell you the year in which the shoes were manufactured. To familiarize yourself with the field of vintage Nike collecting, check out the HoopsVibe retro basketball page, which has lots of articles regarding classic Nike. Who knew that your old smelly sneakers could be worth more than a thousand bucks!

Mickey Mouse book - $568

At first sight, this looks like a flimsy old magazine. Sure, it has Mickey Mouse on the cover, but there are so many magazines & books with Mickey on the cover.

What we have here is the first ever Mickey Mouse book, published by Bibo & Lang in 1930. As with any collectible, 'firsts' always sell for a premium. In this $568 case, the issue was not even complete (two pages are reportedly missing).

The Disney Collectibles arena is large. Ebay has a seperate category for it, called Disneyana, and there are plenty of Disneyana price guides and similar books available. Check out the Ebay Disneyana category, and you will see that there are a lot of Disney collectibles that collectors are in a bidding war over. Especially vintage Disney items, like this 1930 comic, usually go for a high price.

Some other items we noticed were vintage Disneyland posters from the 1950s (selling for several hundred to thousands) and animation production cells (selling for several thousands) from one of the many Disney Movies. A little more on the history of Disney can be found on the Walt Disney Corporate history page. On the same site, you can also find the history of Mickey Mouse.

Atari 2600 game cartridge - $501

Remember the Atari 2600? If you don't because you were not born yet, too young, or were just not interested in it at the time, the Atari 2600 was on of the most succesful game consoles in the late 70s and early 80s. It's the vintage game console equivalent of todays Xbox and the Playstation consoles. The 2600 worked with cartridges that contained the games in a ROM (Read Only Memory) chip on the cartridge.

An army of collectors exist today, and the amount of Atari listings on Ebay is enormous. It is very easy to start an Atari collection, since most of the games are a dime a dozen and very common. However, there are some pretty rare and special game cartridges out there. These are either test carts from the Atari Lab, loaner carts that were sent to reviewers, unreleased game carts, or carts that had a very limited production run for whatever reason. Some of these carts are on the wishlist of every Atari 2600 collector, and thus fetch a handsome amount when auctioned.

A nice and very informative site on Atari 2600 carts is AtariAge.com. It contains an extensive list of carts, and lists a short description of each cart together with information about the rarity of the cartridge. AtariAge tells us that the Crazy Climber cart seen here was one of the few carts that was only available through mail order for members of the Atari Club, and is one of the most sought-after games by collectors. The $501 auction result for only confirms that statement.

Catalin Radio - $1,378

If I saw this at an estate sale for $30-40, I'd consider buying it (knowing it was an antique radio from the 30s/40s). Just because I think it is a very attractive piece.

To collectors, this is an attractive piece too. It is a FADA Bullet catalin radio, and usually radios in this category command quite the price. Many of them are just very design, and colorful too! As with every collectible, condition is important and that is why prices vary a lot. Perfect, original condition catalin radios can go for thousands. Many excellent guides and catalogs are available at your favorite online retailer to help you determine and appreciate the value of these radios. A very nice collection of catalin/bakelite radios, as well as some history ("what is catalin?") can be found here.

Vintage men's magazine - $3,400

The december 1953 issue of Playboy magazine was the premier issue, and is highly sought after by collectors. Marilyn Monroe is featured on the cover, as well as on the centerfold color spread in the magazine. This specific issue is complete and in good condition - commending quite a high price. Similar issues were recently sold in the range of $1,700-$3,000. Other early issues from the first year of publication can fetch handsome amounts in the hundreds of dollars a piece (and on good days $1000+) as well.

Another example of a nice, valuable vintage magazine that we want to point out in this post is the first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine. One recently sold for $1,800. The early editions of this magazine were in newspaper format and thus quite fragile. The first issue was published in November 1967, and has a John Lennon movie still on the cover. You can visit the Rolling Stone Magazine cover gallery to familiarize yourself with historical issues of this magazine.

Vintage Levis - $1,575

Behold a pair of old Levis Jeans. No wait, a pair of vintage 501XX BIG E Jeans from the late 40's, early 50's. Big E: In 1936, when the red 'LEVIS' tab was added, the E was a big E. In 1971, the writing was changed to 'Levis'. Apparently this one has all the right markings of a genuine vintage pair of 501's, and apparently, it is worth $1,575 to someone! We did some searching and there is plenty of vintage Levi's that sell for hundreds of dollars. Now this is an item you are more than likely to find at estate sales, thrift stores and your grandpa's attic! Fantastic. For the real treasure hunters: Not so long ago, the LeviStrauss company paid about $45,000 for a pair of jeans from the 1890's (for their museum, I guess)

The history of Levi's 501 Jeans can be found at the LeviStrauss website. A nice little article on the value of vintage Levi's can be read here.

Apple computer board - $1,081

This is a type of collectible that many people have a hard time understanding. 'It's TRASH!', many say. Well, there are people out there who collect it, so some of it automatically gets a value, see? There are quite a bit of vintage computer collectors out there, and Ebay has a seperate category for Vintage Computing. The history of computers is a rapidly expanding field, and plenty of good books on computer history are available to the enthusiast (see your favorite online retailer).

This particular item is an early Apple II board. The Apple II was the second computer that Apple (or better, Steve Wozniak) created in 1977. The first one, the Apple I, is very very rare, and very valuable (samples have sold for $30,000 to $50,000). It was only sold as a board, and you had to build a case with keyboard, etc. yourself. More on the Apple I and Apple history can be found here.

But...you say...this is not an Apple I, and surely the Apple II is not so rare? Well, first of all, a real Apple II (which is different from an Apple II+, IIe, //c) is relatively hard to find. Second of all, this is an 'early' Apple II, with a low serial number, one of the first 500 production boards, which was apparently sold without a case, like the Apple I. In vintage computer collecting, a low serial number (early production) usually translates to a higher value.

Eames house of cards - $399

This batch of cards sold for $399. To the unknowing eye, they're just a batch of colorful cards with prints from various episodes in the history of computers.

This set is the 'Eames Computer House of Cards' from 1970. Specifically, the Eameses designed it for the Osaka World fair, and it was a souvenir for visitors to the IBM Pavillion. This house of cards - Charles and Ray Eames designed several - was printed only for the Osaka World Fair, and thus is relatively rare. Elsewhere online we've seen this set for sale for over $600.

More information on the the influential designer-couple can be found here. Quite a few books have been written about the couple and their designs as well (see your favorite online retailer).

Auction Funk kicks off

The Auction Funk blog is planning to bring you the best, most unexpected, and informative auction results from online auction sites like Ebay and ... well mostly Ebay :) . Oftentimes when perusing through Ebay, we find high or very high priced items, and think ... "Whadda?! Did not have a clue that that would be worth that much!"

Our aim is to blog a few items on a daily basis, to give you an idea of what's out there. Who knows, maybe you also own that rare postcard, die-cast piggybank or ancient computer, and were thinking of trashing it - not knowing the true value of the item, which may be in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

When time permits, we'll try to find some background information on the item or collectible category it belongs to, exploring the width and depth of the collection field. Plans, plans, plans, let's get going, shall we?