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Anonymous
Guest
This is old news but I thought I would share since I haven't detected in forever. I bought a cheap house I am trying to remodel and found a Pana Illinois coke bottle in the basement. I live 16 miles from Pana. Anyhow, it was chipped up and in bad shape. I put it on ebay and started it for $9.99. About an hour in I get an email asking if I would end the auction for $200. Hmmm. Then a guy <i>calls</i> me on the phone. He bid on another auction I had to get my phone number. He said he would like to have it and offered me $300. Well, I ain't the brightest crayon in the box but by this time I get a good idea that it might be worth a nickle or two. I got on a bottle forum and asked for info and got some great advice. (You know who you are) So I pull the auction and re-list with a better description (words I didn't know were key words till I talked to these collectors, like "straight Side" and "Script", etc). Long story short, it sold for $410. Well, A few days after it was listed I found a second, <b>good</b> shape pana coke bottle. I yelled and I cradled it out of there. I knew I had something. Comes to find out that Pana Illinois coke bottles are one of the rarest coke bottles. The big collector book says less than 3 known to exist and is listed as "rr". One collector kept emailing me saying that he has collected since way back and has 1, the only one he has ever known to exist. He said all these years he has never seen one but his. He did not try to buy it and helped me a lot. I had collectors calling me begging me to end it but I let it run. Before you look at the auction let me say I know I probably screwed up buy letting it sell and not cleaning it at all. A private live collector auction probably would have been the best bet but it is done and I can't get that greedy. I have talked to the buyer. He bought them both. It is in a good collection.
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