Met a guy at the Brimfield fair who collects old keys and he told me a story about one

Honestly, I was just looking through a bin of junk jewelry at the Brimfield Antique Show last month, not expecting much. This older guy at the next booth saw me pick up a tarnished skeleton key and he just lit up. He said, 'That one's from a schoolhouse, I'd bet five bucks on it. See the notch on the bow?' He had a whole display case of keys he'd found, each with a little tag. He told me he bought one for fifty cents at a yard sale in Vermont that turned out to open a trunk full of love letters from the 1920s. He tracked down the family and gave them back. The whole thing took maybe ten minutes, but it stuck with me. It wasn't about the money, it was about the story behind the thing. Now I always look at old keys differently. Has anyone else had a seller tell you a wild story about a normal looking item?

2 comments

2 Comments

nathan_thompson622d ago

My buddy Mike bought a totally plain wooden box at a flea market for like ten bucks. The guy selling it said it was just some old craft project. Mike got it home and found a false bottom. Under it was a stack of baseball cards from the 1950s, just sitting there for who knows how long. A Mickey Mantle rookie card was in there. The guy had no idea. Mike still feels bad about it sometimes, but he also paid for a new roof with it.

lee.cole1d ago

That's the kind of guilt I could live with, honestly. New roof trumps good karma.