The High-Stakes World of Vintage Puzzle Collecting

Oh, no, no, we do it. Do we do it? Okay, at this point, I’m not gonna look again. That’s it, I’m not going any higher. I’M not looking anymore.

 

Okay, um we’re waiting outside for an hour and a half. I have been scuttling around at the entrance like a creepy little rat – I don’t know, maybe I should just pack it up. So, okay, let’s start from the beginning, our Saga Begins when my friend Michael sent me a link to an auction that was happening on this estate sale, auction site. He loves browsing around on that site and it’s always on the lookout for puzzles for me. So, on this day there was this one auction that showed up that had literally like hundreds of different listings and three of them included jigsaw puzzles, but not just any jigsaw puzzles like really exciting vintage puzzles. So this is the first listing.

 

You can very clearly see three Springbok puzzles, including the Prismatic puzzle, which I’ve been wanting for a really long time, but it’s always so expensive on eBay and the bidding on all of these listings started at 1 dollar. So I was wondering if I could get these puzzles for just a couple of dollars. I will be so happy, but the thing about this estate sale is that there was so much stuff in this house that they didn’t really bother to organize any of it. It’S like they walked in, didn’t change a thing and were all right. This cabinet is one lot.

 

This cabinet is another lot. These shelves are another lot, so it’s not like they had one listing for all of the puzzles, like the puzzles, were scattered around in different listings with other stuff included with them. So in this cabinet you can see there are a couple good puzzles, but also a VHS player, VHS tapes, some random books. It is so annoying that, if you’re after one thing and somebody else is after another thing, you can be bidding against each other, even though you’re not even after the same object so anyway. The second listing is where so much of the good stuff is in this.

 

First photo: you can see this puzzle um, you can’t see the title of the puzzle, but, as someone who has been very interested in vintage Springbok puzzles, I was so proud of myself that I immediately recognized it. This is a rare Springbok puzzle called Carnival of harlequin, which goes for like 200 on eBay, so that alone is such a great find, but you can see that there are also mini Springbok puzzles and a whole stack of other vintage puzzles all included in this lot. So again I was like, if I can get this haul for a couple of dollars like this is the find of the century. Oh and clearly, the people who ran this estate sale did not know what they had, because they call out this Cootie game, which is not valuable and they completely ignore. All of these were super rare puzzles, and then finally there was a third auction with some Liberty puzzles and other wooden puzzles.

 

Now my focus in collecting is not on wooden puzzles. I tend to focus on cardboard puzzles from around the 60s to the 80s, so I was like alright if it stays cheap, I’m happy to bid on it, but that’s not the one that I’m super focused on. So okay, the bidding was open for a week. I put in my top bids of like 15 each and then I just kept it checking throughout the week and there was no movement. So I was getting so excited that I might get this huge haul of incredible puzzles for LA like dirt, cheap.

 

But, oh before we watch the next clip um one quick note about how this auction works. You know how on eBay there is a set end time for the auctions, so you just have to get in your bid by that time and then whoever is the highest bidder, gets the thing well on this site. If you put in a bid within the last two minutes, it automatically extends the bidding for another two minutes. So that means that if you have two people who really want the same thing, they can just keep bidding against each other endlessly until one person gets priced out. So, okay, it is the final night of the auction.

The final, like 20 minutes of each of these auctions, my friend Michael, was actually putting in the bids for me since he already had an account on the site. So in this clip you’re about to see, we are on the phone together and you’ll just see what happens? Okay, okay, I’m recording! Oh my God! Oh my God, it’s up to 47!

 

Now yeah! Ah! Do I want to do it? Ah? Well, now it’s uh!

 

Now it’s past the 50 Mark, but I didn’t really want to spend 50 on this one. Now it’s up to 75, what yeah these have really exploded over the last few minutes. What’S kind of funny about this auction site is that they don’t usually do this. Meanwhile, no movement on the other auctions or for a minute, but yeah this one didn’t start jumping until right at the very end either. I think I put in the bid for each of those a little bit before the two minutes comes up so that it doesn’t automatically trigger the extension.

 

If you want to put in 50 for each of those that’d be fine. Oh no! No! No! No!

 

No! There it goes no, oh, okay, the Liberty one finally ended at 94. 

 

I put 383 with the three circular spring box uh and we are losing the one that says Cootie game you can put in 70 on that one. Just do it. Oh, no yeah!

 

I really want this one to be 120. Just do it, just do it all right, okay, so we’re winning on both of these at the moment. Right, yes, okay, I’m not gonna look. I just can’t even look and for like 30 seconds, I’m not gonna. Look, no!

 

Oh man! They really want that. Do I want to spend 131, I mean if we’re going all the way out there anyway, well well, a premium, it’s really more like closer to 160 after the buyer’s premium. Oh, my God, it just went up again with 20 seconds left on the three spring boots: okay, okay, this is so stressful, 10 seconds, 9, 8, 7, 6. 5.

 

4, 3, 2. 1. 

 

Did we do it? Do we do it, checking I’m literally shaking? Oh, that’s that’s a value on those okay.

 

Can you put in 150 on this one? I hate myself. I thought this whole video was going to be me getting these for like ten dollars each and now it’s just like I’m just buying them on eBay. No again, who is doing this, I think at this point it makes sense to put in your actual high bid. Um, okay, my High vid is a hundred and eighty okay.

 

At this point, I’m not gonna look again. That’s it, I’m not going any higher, I’m not looking anymore, I’m just walking away okay. I will watch the last 100 seconds of this action. What if they show up at the same time as us, and then I find out who they actually are like when we pick them up? I think we will.

 

I think this is all going to be picked up in the same window. If I remember correctly, I tripped over my microphone – oh no, no, no! I can’t go any higher. I think I need to just let them have it. There are some really good puzzles in there, so who’s bidding on this lot for two hundred dollars.

 

Now, what do they see? Is it just this one puzzle that they also recognize? I don’t know because I look up the thing about that particular puzzle is that I couldn’t tell what it was uh, so that was the one that I couldn’t look up right, like the other ones like, I was able to look up jungle, birds and ain’t love, Grand in The Grand Tour, so somebody else must just know what this puzzle is and see that it goes for like 200 and so they’re paying 200 for the lot. To include that, I just can’t. I don’t want to spend over two hundred dollars on just one lot of puzzles. I can’t do it.

 

I already have so many puzzles. I spent so much money on recently yeah that too all right, they’re gonna, have it four three two one: that’s it we lost it. We didn’t get it. I didn’t get that puzzle and it ends at 190 dollars. That is steep, oh, my God.

 

That was so intense, so, as you saw, I let the wooden puzzles go um. They sold for 95, which is still a really good value, because even just a single Liberty puzzle can easily cost that amount or way more than that. So getting two Liberty puzzles plus other wooden puzzles, like that’s a really good deal, but the big auction, the one with the carnival of harlequin. I guess somebody else must have recognized that puzzle or recognized something else in that cabinet of value, because I thought for sure I was gonna get it for so cheap and then we just kept bidding against each other and the price just kept going up and Up and up and up it ended up selling for 190 and honestly, once I got there and saw everything that was inside, I should have kept fitting like it’s worth way more than that, but when I was expecting to pay like thirty dollars and then suddenly In The Heat of the Moment I just have to decide if I’m willing to spend 200 like I just it was too stressful. I just had to stop, but I did win the auction with the Prismatic puzzle.

 

So luckily, this one was not as much of a bidding war. My final price that I paid was 28 plus a little bit of extra fees added on, but to get all three of these puzzles for essentially like 35 dollars. Such an incredible deal, hi guys um, editing Karen here, so I realized watching this video back that I spent a lot of time talking about money and the value of all of these puzzles. But I also just wanted to acknowledge the woman who lived in this house and collected these puzzles. Clearly she loved puzzles and had very good taste in Puzzles.

 

I don’t know if she passed away or if she was just like downsizing and moving somewhere else, but if she did pass away, it is so awful that a family lost their mother, their grandmother, their sister, like whoever she was as excited as I was to potentially Get access to this puzzle collection like I would so much rather her family have gotten more time with her, so I’m gonna get back to the video where I do get even more detailed about the value of all of these puzzles, which I think is interesting From a collecting point of view, but I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the woman who collected them in the first place. I hope that wherever she is, she is happy that three of them went to someone who really appreciates them. So, okay, we won that one auction. We had to go out there to pick up all of our stuff uh. The pickup day was the following Saturday and unfortunately, uh Michael and I are like the only two people in La without cars, so we had to call a Lyft to get out there.

 

Uh we got picked up in a Tesla which was fun so we got there and we already saw people just hauling out boxes and boxes of books. When I told you there were so many books in this house, we saw three separate people entirely, filled up like full-size, SUVs, just filled with boxes of books, and there were still more in the house anyway. The day started off great because I immediately got recognized by a view which was really nice, and he actually gave me a puzzle from his lot of books that he had bought. I’M pretty sure it was. I think it was this puzzle which is not really anything special, but it was just really kind of him to recognize me and give it to me.

 

But then it was our turn to check in and go into the house and pick up all of our stuff. You’re not allowed to leave anything behind. You have to take everything that is in that lot with you. So while we were in the middle of packing all of that up, I may have taken a little peek at the big puzzle lot, which was in the cabinet right next to ours. There are the puzzles, a little bit of tape, so pretty, though, I’ve never even seen this one before I couldn’t even tell what this was online here, we go.

 

Ah, it’s dirty yeah, it’s gross yeah, there’s spider webs gross there. It is the one that I came for pretty. Oh, I can’t wait to find out if all the pieces are here. This one is not quite as interesting and any more puzzles. I think that might be it.

 

No, I was hoping there’d be something Secret in here. Okay, don’t tell anyone we’re doing this? Okay, how beautiful I want it so bad! I want it so bad, it’s so pretty yeah! These are the mini spring boxes.

 

I didn’t know they were that little. I’ve only seen them online before. I can’t even tell what the picture is of this one. Oh my god, I didn’t even know it’s yellow flash that one’s also valuable clothing. Oh, this is the one that I have as a wooden puzzle. I think this is the cardboard version. Oh, I should have just put down the money I bought so badly, so let me break down what all ended up being in that second cabinet.

 

Once I had a good look at what was inside, obviously there was Carnival of harlequin. As I said this one can go for about two hundred dollars. There was The Grand Tour, which is an eaten puzzle. Uh. This one is not too valuable, maybe like 10-20 dollars depending on shipping, a puzzle called ain’t, love Grand which goes for about thirty dollars, jungle, Birds, which again goes for about thirty dollars.

 

This one. You could not see in the auction photos when I saw that that was in there. I was like, oh my God, what a find, what a find this is yellow flash. I do already have this one, so I wasn’t as upset about losing out on that particular one, but on eBay, if it’s complete, it can go for anywhere from 60 to 100 dollars. Okay, this is the one that I was really upset that I missed out on.

 

Um you, you can sort of recognize it in the listing once you know what you’re looking for. This is a floating Spectrum from Springbok and if it looks familiar it’s because I already have the wooden version of this puzzle, and so I would have loved to have also gotten the cardboard version to go along with it, but on eBay it goes for 90 to 200. Even incomplete ones can go for 50 to 70 dollars. So then there’s this giant poster puzzle. Um there were a bunch of different puzzles released under this line and from the outside.

 

I don’t think you can really tell which one it is, and I didn’t really make a note of that when I was there, there’s one on eBay for 35 right now, so we’ll just say it’s worth around there um, I just really don’t know if the other Ones in this series are any more or less valuable than that. There’S also this city of Cincinnati puzzle, which looks like it goes for around thirty dollars and then finally, the mini spring box. Now some people love collecting these. That is a rabbit hole that I personally have not really gone down, uh, just because I prefer full-size puzzles and it’s just like a whole other category of rare and vintage puzzles that you could easily spend so much money on these can range anywhere from like three Dollars to seventy dollars – and I think I saw six of them in this cabinet – so potentially another huge value right there. So when you add up everything that was in that cabinet, it’s a lot, I really should have kept bidding.

 

I should have pushed it up to like 250-300, but you just never know how far the other person is willing to push it either, but don’t go anywhere yet our story does not end there. So on this auction site they would give you a specific pickup window. Ours was on that Saturday from I think it was like 11 30 to about 4 P.M. Something like that.

 

So I decided that we should get there right at the beginning of that pickup window and then just hang out and see who came to pick up the puzzles because here’s my thinking since there’s so much other stuff mixed in with all of these different Lots. Maybe the person who bought that one is like a board game collector. Maybe they don’t care about the puzzles. Maybe if I meet them in person, I can just buy some of the puzzles right off of them right there, and then they wouldn’t have to worry about listing them on eBay, or you know anything like that. I’M thinking about them here or even if they weren’t gonna sell me any of the puzzles like if there is another vintage puzzle collector in La I want to know who they are.

 

Maybe we can trade puzzles back and forth? Maybe I could borrow some of their puzzles for some videos, so that was the plan um. Here’S how it actually played out in reality all right, coming up on half an hour hanging out here on the sidewalk, with all of our Treasures. Waiting for this other puzzle collector to show up it’s about 12, 40 right now, and the pickup window goes until four. So we’ll see how long we actually decide to wait.

 

Okay, um we’ve been waiting outside for an hour and a half. I have been scuttling around at the entrance like a creepy little rat, trying to eavesdrop on who’s, picking up these puzzles and eyeing every single person who leaves to try to see what they have. I feel like at this point like we’re in it. We should just stay the course, but also I’m really bored. Okay.

 

It is 2 15 

 

They still haven’t been picked up. It has now start turned from a very light drizzle to a slightly heavier drizzle. I don’t know. Maybe I should just pack it up. Okay, it is 2 45.

 

No one knew it had shown up for a while. So we think the pickup window for today may have ended so we’re gonna call it. It’S also like raining we’re gonna go home. I gave them my phone number. If someone comes to pick it up, hopefully that person will call me if no one picks it up.

 

Hopefully the auction people will call me . We’ll just see, so after waiting around for hours getting sunburned , getting rained on, nobody ever came to pick up the puzzles. There was another pickup window on that Sunday, so if they bought multiple things at the auction, maybe they showed up on Sunday and just picked all of it up together, but it was pretty far from my apartment, so I and I had stuff to do. I just couldn’t go all the way back out there and spend another full day hanging around outside this estate sale. Also, I’m pretty sure everyone there likes to think. I was crazy.

 

I was asking everyone if they were there for the puzzles. I did give the guy with the clipboard, the guy in charge. I gave him my phone number and I was like if someone shows up for these puzzles, please tell them to call me or if no one shows up for these puzzles. Please call me, and I will happily come get them, but it’s been about two weeks and no one has called me, so I don’t know who bought them. I don’t know who I was fitting against this part of the story.

 

It’S a little anticlimactic. I do have eBay alerts set up for all of those puzzles, so if they do start showing up on eBay, you know I’ll know about it, but so far, um, absolutely nothing. Okay. But let’s take a look at everything I did get. Let’S do a little haul.

 

So, first up, we’ve got this vintage Springbok puzzle called myth and fact in the zodiac super cool picture there um. This is from 1965 

 

So this one I looked it up on eBay, it goes for maybe 25 to 40 dollars. So a pretty good deal on that. This one is so beautiful. This is the Vintage butterflies puzzle, um and this one is from there.

 

This one is from 1966 and they tell you what species, what uh? What’S the word, what type of butterfly all of the butterflies are, this one can go for around 70 on eBay, so really great to just get it. You know packaged in with all the others and then, of course, we’ve got Prismatic. I think I’m gonna do an entire video next week, where I solve this one and find out if any pieces are missing. So I will tell you more information about this one.

 

In my next video, there was also this puzzle in that lot, so this one is not particularly vintage or valuable. To be honest, I don’t think I’m even gonna do this one. I think it’s gonna go straight into the giveaway pile because the colors are just so drab like this is not my type of puzzle. As I said, I got this one from a viewer in line, so I’ll probably solve this one over Christmas and then put it into the giveaway pile. I also got, I think, from someone that we were talking to and uh.

 

I wasn’t really sure I wanted to accept it, because I don’t really do. Oh, these okay jumbo pieces, take a look at how jumbo these pieces look , each one is like the size of my hand. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with this uh, but you know it’s a puzzle and then, besides that, we also got a VHS player and some VHS tapes with old basketball games recorded on them. There were these random wooden plates, which are actually pretty nice. I might clean those up and use them uh some random books. We looked up all of these and nothing is really valuable.

 

Uh these, unless you have liked the entire series, is really not worth anything uh. So I’ll hold the yearbooks, which we looked up. If anyone famous was at this school that year but uh, they were not and then just some random stuff, a National Geographic and Atlas a drawing pad with nothing in it. So you know not a great haul. Besides the puzzles, but these puzzles more than made up for that entire Adventure.

 

So here’s what I want to know in the comments: what do you collect and what is the craziest thing that you have done to get one of the items in your collection? Your code word, if you watched all the way to the end, will be Prismatic and stay tuned, because I am going to solve this one in my next video Happy puzzling. Thank you for watching, and I will see you all in the next one and if you’re the person that was bidding against me for those puzzles, please get in touch. I want to know who you are!