Are These Really Collectibles? 6 Surprising Finds That Hold Unexpected Value

Two snuff boxes shaped like a pair of lady’s boots, England. Photo © Science Museum, London. Wellcome Images | Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0

In September 2023, a thousand strands of antique barbed wire, amassed over 75 years by a dedicated Californian collector, sold for $999 on eBay. As the Antique Barbed Wire Society says, ‘Barbed wire has been an integral and important part of the history of the West.’ First patented in 1863, the invention of barbed wire allowed pioneers to divide land into smaller pastures- a crucial development in the expansion of the United States. Today, barbed wire collectors make for an unusual sub-culture- forming a band of passionate and erudite devotees.

For those in search of the hidden, the quirky and the unusual, there are a surprising number of unusual collecting fields, easily overlooked in junk shops, thrift stores or garage yard sales. 

1) Edwardian Biscuit Tins

Two delightful 1920s biscuit tins- one for Crawford’s shortbreads and the other for Huntley & Palmers biscuits, both depicting open-topped London double-decker buses. Photo © Heritage Auctions

When is a biscuit tin, not a biscuit tin? When it’s made by Huntley & Palmer. Huntley & Palmer of Reading, England, invented the decorative biscuit tin in 1831. In 1868, the firm commissioned the distinguished printer De La Rue & Co. to create a decorative biscuit tin to a design by the Victorian architect and designer Owen Jones. Known as the ‘Ben George’- after the patentee of the transfer process, this is the earliest known example of a printed biscuit tin. By the 1870s, offset lithography (a newly invented technique for printing on metal) meant that novelty biscuit tins could be produced in all sorts of ingenious shapes and sizes. During the Edwardian era, luxury biscuit tins were produced in imaginative and attractive representations: leather-bound books (‘The Waverley’), miniature Islamic tables, Japanese caskets, miniature glazed china cabinets, tea caddies, racing cars, children’s prams and sentry boxes.

Huntley & Palmers Sentry Box biscuit tin depicting soldiers 1909. Photo © Spicer Auctioneers

Biscuit tins can be valuable. A pre-First World War Huntley & Palmer sentry box, decorated with images of German, British, French, and Russian soldiers, sold for £350 at Spicer Auctioneers in Yorkshire, England, in 2023. Two delightful 1920s biscuit tins- one for Crawford’s shortbreads and the other for Huntley & Palmer biscuits, both depicting open-topped London double-decker buses- fetched a staggering $8,750 at Heritage Auctions in 2017.

2) Buttons

Button, Burslem, Late 18th century. Artist Wedgwood. (Photo by by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

The humble button can be surprisingly collectable – and affordable – especially for people interested in fashion, textiles and costume design. Previous button aficionados included the artist Jim Dine and writer Tom Wolfe. It’s the sheer variety of buttons which is very much part of their appeal: decorative buttons were made from brass, tin, pewter, copper, silver, gold, enamel, tortoiseshell, ivory, porcelain and bone- and in the 20th century, bakelite and catlin plastics. Although most buttons sell for under $50, some antique buttons can be valuable. In 2019, an 18th century French diamond encrusted button depicting the Montgolfier balloon ascent realised $3,800 on eBay, while in 2021, a charming early 19th-century Folk-Art Sailor’s Valentine button made $875- again on the same platform.

George Washington ‘Pater Patriae’ Inaugural
Button, sold at Heritage Auctions in 2018 for $225,000, setting a new world record. Photo © Heritage Auctions

Buttons made to commemorate the inauguration of George Washington in 1789 are also rare and desirable. A George Washington ‘Pater Patriae’ button- described by Heritage Auctions as the ‘Holy Grail of George Washington Inaugural Buttons’ and one of ‘less than ten buttons in existence’, fetched a staggering $225,000 in February 2018.

3) Glass Walking Canes

Walking canes (or sticks) have always been popular with collectors. Glass walking sticks, with their colourful ‘candy’ stripes (or plaid or tartan patterns), make an appealing sub-category, and look decorative grouped in hall stands. At the end of the working day, glass blowers were allowed to create decorative pieces, known as ‘whimsies’, from leftover molten glass. Because glass canes are challenging to make, they became symbols of the glassmakers’ craft, and in the 19th century, glass blowers carried ceremonial glass walking sticks in the Labor Day and Fourth of July parades.

Green Glass Cane, between circa 1870 and circa 1910, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson. Public domain image

The Corning Museum of Glass and the Museum of American Glass in Wheaton, New Jersey, hold several interesting examples. Glass canes are also sold in local auctions and on internet auction sites- and can make reasonable sums: last year, an ‘antique Victorian end-of-day parade cane’ decorated with green and white stripes sold for $224 on eBay and a late 19th century English glass walking stick, with amber decoration and a twisted handle fetched £700 at British auctioneers, Hutchinson Scott.

4) Victorian Ornamental Hands

Even more unusual are the ornamental hands popular with the Victorians, which, for many collectors today, have a surreal appeal. Entire families had their hands cast in bronze and ormolu (gilt bronze), to be used as decorative family momentoes or paperweights, sometimes mounted on hardstone bases, typically in malachite or decorative marble. In the 1840s and 50s, the fashion for long-sleeved dresses focused attention on the hand, and slim, tapering fingers were seen as a desirable commodity for fashionable ladies.

Victorian Bronze Hand Sculpture, 19th Century. Photo © Charlton & Hall

Victorian ladies’ cast hands can be surprisingly valuable. An elegant example fetched $660 at Charlton Hall auctions in South Carolina in 2017, and Madame Veuve Liebaut’s very feminine hand, cast in bronze, sold for $700 at Alex Cooper Auctions in 2018.

5) Shoe Snuff Boxes

Shoe snuff box, circa 1919, gift of Mrs A C Lennard, 1919 collection of Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira. Photo © Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira | Licence CC BY 4.0

In folklore, the shoe is associated with magic and, by default, love, marriage, and good luck. During the late 18th and 19th centuries, miniature ‘shoes’ carved from ‘treen’ (i.e. from a wood such as walnut) were made as snuff boxes or given as love tokens and wedding presents – possibly made as ‘passing out’ pieces by cobbler apprentices. The tiny shoes were decorated with piqué-work, with inlaid metal pins inset into the wood to create fanciful motifs and patterns. Today, these charming novelties are popular collectables.

Two snuff boxes shaped like a pair of lady’s boots, England. Photo © Science Museum, London. Wellcome Images | Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0

The shoe’s association with love and marriage goes back to the Bible. Twin-joined shoe examples, sometimes inscribed with love hearts and a double set of initials, are rare. In 2021, a ‘Georgian Double Snuff Treen Snuff Box’ sold for £900 at Lawrences Auctioneers of Crewkerne, England and more recently, a typical Georgian treen shoe snuff sold for $122 at Sutton Hill Farm Country Auctions.

6) Potlids

Who would have thought that a pot lid might be valuable? During the Victorian period, pot lids were decorated with transfer pictures printed on vitreous earthenware under a glaze. These have been avidly collected since the early 20th century, especially during the 1920s. Potlids were produced for food, pharmaceuticals and toiletries. Some of the earliest and most desirable lids are for ‘bear grease’ (a dressing used to enhance a Victorian gentleman’s flowing locks) and feature polar bears or brown bears on the lids. In 2022, a ‘Genuine Bears Grease’ pot lid for Robert Smith & Co. of London (‘bull nose restored in places’) fetched £4,200 at Historica & Collectables Auctions in London, specialist auctioneers in Commemorative and Staffordshire potlids.

Pot lid made of earthenware with multi-colored transfer decor, with a representation of horse hunters with dogs in front of a castle., anonymous, Staffordshire, c. 1400 – c. 1950, earthenware, h 3.0 cm _ d 12.6 cm. (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

In 1847, F. & R. Pratt of Fenton (one of the leading potlid manufacturers) produced their first transfer-printed potlid, designed by the talented artist and engraver Jesse Austin (1806-79). Austin created over 550 designs for Pratt, featuring well-known people of the day, cityscapes (including eleven views of London) and romantic scenes from Victorian domestic life. Other firms manufactured potlids, including T. J. & J. Mayer of Longport, a company which also made potlids for Crosse & Blackwell- the famous British food brand. In 2018, a Mayer potlid featuring the interior of the Crystal Palace, from London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, sold for £75 at Trevanion & Dean.

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