According To You: Best Estate Sale Finds

We asked the Hagerty Community for their best finds at an estate sale (or similar) and you did not disappoint. Perhaps you even went above and beyond—you can go back to the comments and see what I mean for yourself. Or not, because some of the best stories are down below.

And wow, did you folks ever find some great items for solid deals! The aspect of treasure hunting is the joy of going to an estate, garage, community, or rummage sale. So let’s see what everyone found in their hunts!

Bruce K: Back in 1999 I bought a 1984 Honda CB700SC Nighthawk with just over 4K miles on it for $1400 dollars at a town-wide yard sale. I rode it for a year and sold it for $2500.

DUB6: I believe I mentioned this find just recently, but it’s still in my short-term memory bank, so I’ll toss it in here: at an estate sale this summer, I got a big assortment of old-school clamps. I never seem to have enough clamps, and I put them to almost immediate use on a gluing project.

Villeneuve97: Several years ago I found a 1960s Heuer Sebring split-second stopwatch mounted to a rally co-driver’s clipboard with period SCCA event plaques from the ’60s-’80s. The clipboard also had a period Lucas map light and a homemade mount for a Curta mechanical calculator. Two $20 bills later it was mine.

TG: I bought a lawn tractor easily ten years ago for 7 bucks that I still mow my lawn with to this day. I also found a watt meter that is probably 100+ years old, and it adorned my desk until Covid. It might make it back there one day.

hal c: Back when I had a Superformance Cobra Replica, at a garage sale, picked up a ’63 Popular Mechanics magazine, where Tom McCahill (who was one of the first auto writers) reviewed the then-new Shelby Cobra. I gave it to a Superformance Dealer, Bob Olthoff, who drove them in South Africa.

Todd Z: I found an infrared heat gun many years ago at a local garage sale for $15-20 when they were still a new, high-priced tool. Still works great today.

hyperv6: I don’t do estate sales very often but I did pick up a team photo of the Williams F1 team framed and signed by Damon Hill and Alain Prost. It was the large official team photo with all the crew, factory staff and even the team haulers with the cars.

Mark G: Actually at a church rummage sale. I got a framed, autographed photo of Jim Clark for $2. It’s the typical winner’s shot in his Lotus at the Indy 500. It hangs next to autographed shots of Phil Hill, Carroll Shelby and Juan Manuel Fangio.

Mike: I’ve found several interesting things, at least peripherally related to the automotive milieu:

A pair of NIB Trippe headlights (junior versions of the 8″ Trippe driving lights from the ’30s) for under $10. Unfortunately, I’ve never owned a pre or immediate post-WWII car that would be period-correct for them.

A 1918 Weston ohmmeter in its original finger-jointed mahogany case and storage box, porcelain on steel meter face and nickel-plated trim and terminals. It came complete with instructions and the initials of the technician who calibrated the meter, countersigned by his supervisor! $5.

For your camera fans, a 16mm Bolex triple turret movie camera–original box, instructions and accessories, vintage 1958 or so. It was the top-of-the-line amateur movie camera–also used by pros and sold for more than a new Chevy Biscayne when new. $10 at an estate sale, and it made my friend (a camera collector) John’s day.

Finally, at the estate sale of an “eccentric recluse” (so described in the sale announcement!) an album-full of teens and 20s photographs, all lying on the ground. Someone bought the album for its covers, and dumped the pages on the ground. So free. Lots of pictures of the family’s cars, many of which I could identify (a Case touring car, and a Mercury-bodied Model T speedster. Found a few bits of that T speedster in the barn, but not enough to make a car from. Rats!

Mark: A few years ago, picked up a Hurst ‘Mystery Shifter’ with linkage at a garage sale for $1. No documentation as to what car it came out of, tried to find out using part numbers on the shifter linkage but kept hitting a dead end. Put it on the shelf, had plans to install it on my riding lawnmower as a joke. Ha! Never got around to doing that. Cleaning the garage a couple years ago, ‘discovered’ it still on the shelf, sold it for $50 on Craigslist!

EdP: More mundane than some of the above, but for $30 got a 1963 Pontiac intake, heads, valve covers, & exhaust manifolds. Seller didn’t want to let them go for that, but I told him he could either have 30 bucks or all that cast iron to deal with in a couple hours when the sale ended. Six months(?) later a gentleman with a 1963 Grand Prix or two was more than happy to pay $90 for the heads & intake, and couldn’t resist the covers & exhausts for 10 bucks more.

Less mundane was a collection of four Australian state license plates from the 1970s that were $10 each or less. The Queensland one hangs on the pantry wall along with one from Cuba and one I found in a parts yard from la Republica Dominicana that someone painted a landscape on.

norm1200: about 6 years ago I won the bid for a 7.5-acre lot with a 50×120′ pole barn/shop w/ adjacent 24×60′ storage shed. I paid about 30% more than market value. But the buildings were filled with a TON of goodies, including a 14K lb four-post rotary brand lift. The seller got to keep a ’56 Continental Mark II, upper & lower rolling toolbox filled w/ tools, and the engine for a ’64 Ford pickup. It took about a year to go through everything. A lotta trash, but a lotta good stuff, too.

Rich S: A Sears 3-ton floor jack for $10. And it holds pressure!

Slow Joe Crow: I’ve found vintage Plomb wrenches for a buck or two around here. This was the ancestor of Proto and they can go for a lot on eBay. Not car related, I also got a 1979 Rockwell miter saw for $5 and saw one for $50 in Habitat for Humanity.

Raf: Last year I found a Black and Decker Air Station 9527, never out of the box. Best $20 ever spent. I would have paid $200. My dad bought one 30-something years ago and it works great today.

In 2001, I was at a tag sale one town over and I bought a beautiful 1975 Jensen Healey with 23,000 miles that got put away due to a bad clutch. The sign said “MG for sale does not run, make offer” Paid $300, towed it home. Two buddies helped me figure out the issue and get running again the next week. Great car ever since.

C.J.: Fifteen years ago at an estate sale less than two miles from my home, I found a mint ’32 Ford headlight bar with headlights and V-8 badge for 150 bucks. In 1982, I found a 1934 Oldsmobile two-door sedan with 20,000 original miles. The widow of the owner told me he joined the army after Pearl Harbor was attacked and never returned home. I still have the Olds.

Kevin G: I found at a local garage sale an unused Porsche flat tire kit. A guy I know said they’re worth big money, so I sold it on eBay for good money. It went in an instant.

Hydroman: I got a hold of a 1957 Olds Fiesta with a factory J2 engine package from an estate sale. My great-grandpa had bought one new, and now I’m doing a frame off to build it like his.

Thomas G: I bought a Lincoln stick welder at a community yard sale for $30. The lady who had it told me it worked fine, but her husband got a new one and didn’t want the old one hanging around. He told her, “just get what you can for it.” I couldn’t back my truck up fast enough to load it! Still use it to this day.

A Circular Lifecycle?

Figgy308: Almost everything listed in the posts above will, one day, be sold again at a garage sale.