Pottery expert David Rago identified the vase as “a seriously, seriously good piece of Overbeck.” He went on to share that the vase was made by Overbeck Pottery of Indiana, a company comprised of four sisters. They marked their pieces OBK, as found on the bottom of this example. Rago estimated that the vase would sell for $50,000 to $100,000 at auction, should the owner decide to sell. This document, referenced as a Holt Broadside, was published in Manhattan by John Holt on July 9, 1776. While 500 copies were distributed, only a handful remain in existence, with this one being the fifth on record. The document was sold by Blanchard’s Auction Service in Potsdam, New York for $1.5 million in November 2017. After having the bag authenticated by NASA (and suing to get it back from them), Nancy Carlson, a lawyer from Illinois, decided to auction the artifact via Sotheby’s. The high-end auction house ended up selling the historic bag, still containing moon dust, for more than $1.8 million. That was quite a nice return on her $955 investment. That’s the story behind this c. 1900 pin set with an old mine-cut 1.39 carat diamond, a Colombian emerald weighing in at 1.50 carats and a .60 carat oval Burmese ruby. It was purchased at an Ohio garage sale and forgotten at the bottom of a handbag shortly thereafter. When rediscovered, a jeweler delivered the good news. It brought in the hefty sum of $26,000 at auction. While many of the other items in the auction sold for much more, the rags to riches story behind this brooch stole the show at the September 2017 auction at Bonhams in New York. “Discoveries like these don’t happen very often so we were delighted to offer this at auction where the actual value of the piece was finally realized,” Susan Abeles, head of jewelry for Bonhams US, told Forbes. What made it so valuable? This is the only 6-foot poster from the 1931 film classic known to exist. The Style C three sheet poster was apparently used several times by the theater when the film was re-released and then forgotten to time. Finds like this are rare pieces of Hollywood history, and movie poster collectors relish adding them to their collections when they occasionally come on the market.
