Your personal treasure

I don't want to know about the most valuable thing you've found in a storage unit.

I want to know about the item that you found that you just couldn't part with.

What personal treasures have you found?

Every time my son comes with me he seems to find a flashlight of some sort. He claims them as his own and won't let anyone else have them.

I have not found any personal treasures but my kids have a ton of fun processing because they know they can keep items within reason. There favorite so far have been a couple of nerf guns and some boxing gloves.

One thing buying storage auctions and being around the community is that I doubt I will be many things new anymore.  There are so many great things at thrift stores and Craigslist.  You not only save tons of money and help someone out.  That has been a treasure for me and my family to learn. 

I recently picked up a Woodrow at a yard sale pick. It's an instrument, cross between a dulcimer and banjo. It's hand made in Western NC and very easy to play. It's sitting my my shelf now, but if I don't sell it for a couple of years, I won't be disappointed!

Last year I bought a locker that had some DJ equipment, speakers, amps, stage lighting and some boxes that you couldn't tell what it was. I assumed it was CD's or something to do with the DJ stuff. I opened the bid for $100, it ended up between me and a newbie. I won the locker for $400 which was a steal. Either nobody know what they were looking at or they had no money. Anyway when I was going thru the boxes, to my surprise there were loads of baseball memorabilia. I'm a huge baseball fan, so I was in heaven. There were autograph baseballs by Reggie Jackson, CC, Don Mattingly, David Ortiz. Autograph bats from Albert Pujols and David Justice. Bunch of autograph Cards, (5) autograph Game used gloves from Jeter, Cano, Pujols, Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera. There was also a piece of the foul pole from old Yankee stadium. Every piece of item came with a certificate of authenticity with a matching MLB and PSA/DNA hologram. I was like a 35yr old kid in the candy store.
Needless to say, I still have all the baseball memorabilia and I sold all the DJ equipment for $1500. It was a quick sale, I actually sold all the equipment right from the storage facility. $1100 pure profit with NO physical labor.

I actually sold all the equipment right from the storage facility. $1100 pure profit with NO physical labor.

That's the way to do it. I never moved the contents in 90% of the lockers I buy.

There were autograph baseballs by Reggie Jackson, CC, Don Mattingly, David Ortiz. Autograph bats from Albert Pujols and David Justice. Bunch of autograph Cards, (5) autograph Game used gloves from Jeter, Cano, Pujols, Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera. There was also a piece of the foul pole from old Yankee stadium. Every piece of item came with a certificate of authenticity with a matching MLB and PSA/DNA hologram. I was like a 35yr old kid in the candy store.
Needless to say, I still have all the baseball memorabilia and I sold all the DJ equipment for $1500. It was a quick sale, I actually sold all the equipment right from the storage facility. $1100 pure profit with NO physical labor.

That is awesome.  I do not go looking for treasures at auctions but it is nice to have some out there to maybe pick up.  I love these type of stories.  Also glad to have you YuupFL I am new to the forum as well and the info is good and every once in a while there is some fun drama.

A couple years ago we bought a unit where the storage manager told us the owner said he had some dolls. I'm not too interested in antique dolls because they are often hard to identify and hard to find a market for but there were other things of interest so we bid and got the unit. We found five dolls. Not your ordinary dolls. They were nestled in cardboard boxes crudely cut and taped together to fit them snugly. Each doll was laying in a bed of fabric from cut up clothing. They were dressed in clothing made of the same cut up fabric. Each doll is about 14" tall. Two female, three male. Bodies are jointed wood, store bought bodies. The heads, hands and feet are hand made from some type of clay, maybe polymer clay?, and hand painted. Names are on the bottom of their feet -I think they are Emma, Bosco, Chelli, Caballo, can't remember the fifth one right now. We call them the Homies. They are scarred and tattoo'd, each one obviously one of a kind. I will try to post a photo of them later. The storage facility was in the same town as a large prison so we are assuming they are prison art.

I'm holding onto an autographed Alan Shepard photograph similar to this one, found it in a locker I paid $325 for and had several collectibles:

That's a great image. Excellent subject matter and I'm sure it doesn't hurt that JFK is in it.