Treasures Found! - An Enlightening Experience

In the early 1990s, I was picking one summer afternoon, driving east of Winnipeg, and ended up in the northern Ontario town of Kenora.

I ended up walking into the local hardware store, which still retained it's beautiful, original oak, turn-of-the-century interior, in all its glory.  My mind went to the treasures the building MUST hold...

But, as it turned out, after a good hour of scoping things out, this was not going to be the superb pick I had in my mind when I first walked in.

The aged owners, despite keeping the interior all original, had a prosperous & modern business where they kept a very up to date inventory. All new, fresh shiny inventory graved every inch and area of the place. Nothing of any real age was displayed, aside from a few store fixtures & store displays that were in use, and not a single one would they entertain selling.   It was quite a contrast, the oak cabinetry that lined the walls, and the modern inventory that it showcased. But, it was an old school, working hardware store, and it still held that magic feeling of a place time forgot.

They had made good use of the 3 story building. Even the full basement they turned into retail space for their wares.  However, despite their efforts, it turned out the place still held a few vintage trinkets.....but only on the third floor, in a tiny former storage room, frequented by only by the most curious of customers who bothered to venture up the steep worn staircase. It wasn't be retained as storage.... no, the merchandise in there was on display for sale, also!  They were certainly utilizing every inch of space in that store for inventory display! I did spot an attic door which I never did get to venture through, so who knows what it held...though, it may have been as empty and sparse as the little storage room I was in.

From the little former storage room I purchased some odd items....some NOS jockstraps from the 1970s, a bit of common depression glass, and I even pulled a couple old light bulbs from a crate on the bottom shelf. The crate was chock full of the thick-with-dust, obsolete, delicate glass & brass pieces, each carefully fitted in its own cardboard sleeve. To my surprise, each one I pulled out had a little slip of paper glued to it, with the name of the very hardware store I was standing in. Looking at the darkened brass end, it was apparent there was no way they could be used in today's Edison style sockets. The had a hole in the center, and it was apparent that they screwed onto a rod, and down into a smooth sided socket.

They would make a neat souvenir of that pick, I thought. A quaint souvenir only, because who in the their right mind would want old light bulbs?

So, then time passed....a few years of time.

eBay came into my life in the following years, and out of novelty, I decided to put one of my Victorian light bulb souvenirs up for auction.

When it hit over $140, I realized I needed to make a trip back to that hardware store!

So, I went back, and it turned out the owners had been selling the bulbs as souvenirs of the store at their front counter!

Figuring they were asking much more for them now, and not remembering what the heck I had paid for my initial purchase of them, I casually asked how much they wanted for them...

The price was $2 each!

Keeping a stone face, but jumping inside, I went upstairs and went into the little room. I spotted the crate......Luckily for me, they obviously had been slow sellers, as there looked like there was nary a half dozen more missing from the crate since I had last seen it!

I brought the entire crate down..and when they counted them up, they ended up giving me a bulk purchase discount!

Apparently, I was now in the antique light bulb business....

I sold a few more on eBay, with the price dropping a little each time... as the niche market for this particular light bulb was slowly being saturated by my warehouse find.

Despite being still significant in number, I ended up getting about $65 a bulb from one buyer for the last of them.  You see, it turned out his immaculately restored Victorian home used the very sockets these bulbs fit into!

So, in the end, my $2-a-bulb purchase made me literally "thousands" of dollars!

So, the next time you see some item that you think it neat, but worth little, think again....educate yourself, do some research! Really, on the long list of things you would assume to be treasure, the lowly light bulb is certainly something you would have envisioned to be on that list!

Consider yourself enlightened!