Dien -

To add to your antiques stories, a friend of mine who is a fairly knowledgeable art collector found a dusty old painting in a second shop in London.

He recognized it as by some 19th century artist being rediscovered at the time. He paid about $50 for it, brought it home and had it appraised -apparently it's worth in excess of $5000!

He also collects ceramic art tiles and trades them on ebay. All are worth hundreds of dollars. To me, they just look like old tiles!

All of his stuff would escape my attention. as I'm not familiar nor interested in the collectibles he has. But, obviously, there's a whole lot of stored value in antiques and collectibles - all we have to do is be interested and knowledgeable in an area of choice, and find that occasional rare deal!

Great reply and dusty food for thought:-)

Bob