25 things in your house that could be worth money

“Books are one of the biggest antique goldmines,” says John Linden, lead designer at MirrorCoop whose work includes interior design with vintage and antique decor. “Collectors pay a lot of money for first-edition copies of certain books. A first-edition copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses, for example, is valued at around $US8,000; while there were only 1,000 copies printed, those books pop up all the time, says Linden. If you own one of these rare books, you’re sitting on a gold mine. You’re wasting your money if you’re buying any of these items in a brand-new condition.

“Vintage Halloween masks and costumes are fun and collectible, but not worth a ton of money,” says Gary Germer, owner and appraiser with Gary Germer & Associates. A Darth Vader mask recently sold for $US47 on the estate sales website Everything But The House; a set of Star Trek shirts sold for $US91. Vintage holiday decorations can also be pretty valuable. Uncover these 5 ways to trick you mind into spending less.

Some of us sang into hairbrushes while others used a real microphone. If you have a vintage microphone laying around, you could find a musician or music producer who would be willing to spend for it. Rare finds like the Neumann U-47 from the 1940s are worth tens of thousands of dollars online, Orkin says. But the vintage microphones most people are likely to find stashed away in a box is from a maker called Shure, which could probably fetch around $US50, Orkin says. Here are 13 things you need to know about the art of negotiating.

Take a closer look at the old cookbooks that have been handed down to you; even if they have been lovingly used in the kitchen, they could be worth some scratch. Linden says cookbooks that have gone out of print are highly valuable. And celebrity chefs like the beloved Julia Child are always in demand. “In fact, there is a 1961 first edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking selling on AbeBooks for $US2,000 right now,” Linden says. Find out how to spend less on groceries with these tips that savvy shoppers use.

You hung onto your grandpa’s pedal car for nostalgic reasons, but depending on the age and condition, it could be a goldmine. Even with a little rust on it, a 1930 Lincoln pedal car is worth about $US1,000, Germer says.

Germer says his nephew calls these “antique mechanical keyboards”. He adds that anything with gears, push buttons, and tubes are especially fascinating to the younger generation who have grown up in a wireless world. “Old typewriters need to be in working condition and will sell for $US20 to $US100; fully restored, in the low hundreds,” says Germer.

You might want to check under the tarps or in the back of your garage – there could be some dusty gems. “Hood ornaments, car vases, and hubcaps are the most collected for themselves because of decorative value. Headlamps and other body parts are often repurposed for the industrial design look,” notes Germer. A hood ornament in decent condition, for example, can draw $US20, but if you discover a rare one, it could collect a tidy sum of up to $US2,500.

Maybe not the one you stepped on in the middle of the night, but specific LEGOs are worth their weight in gold. For example, the 2010 mini-figure Jessie from Toy Story 2 in like-new condition is selling for around $US10 on Bricklink.com. A LEGO Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Hogwarts Castle Set recently sold for $US450. However, some of the most coveted LEGOs are the missing parts from valued sets – like a window, steering wheel, or rare colour brick – and can bring up to hundreds. Check out these ultimate LEGO tables you’ve got to see.

Magazines, newspapers, programs and the like are in a category called “ephemera,” Jacquie Denny, cofounder of EBTH says. That’s collector lingo for any printed matter that wasn’t made to last. “The value of items in this category is related to rarity, condition, and the number of issues,” notes Denny. Surprisingly enough, they don’t have to be ancient. A special edition Life magazine from 1969 featuring the Woodstock musical festival sold for $US113 on EBTH. Dreaming about your ultimate holiday? Find out how to pay for it with this great advice.

You don’t have to have an out-of-print Julia Child cookbook to earn some extra bread. Betty Crocker cookbooks that were mass-produced and widely used can be worth $US10 to $US500, depending on their condition (ideally, not too many fingerprint stains on the pages). But signed cookbooks by a famous chef can sell like hotcakes. “Cookbooks published by a celebrity chef will generally perform better if signed and sold while their market is current. If they’re sold after the chef has lost popularity, the value will be greatly diminished,” Denny says.