If You Don't Stumble Upon Whale Vomit, You Could Sell Your Japanese Foghorn

Recently, on an English coastline, a man who was walking his dog made a valuable discovery. No metal detector needed for this one. In this case, it was a pile of whale vomit, according to this story reported by the BBC, which also said that the man could earn more than $50,000 for it.

Apparently the regurgitation is quite valuable to the perfume industry.

Called Ambergis, savingstuff.com ranked it in its list of "strange stuff worth more than you imagine." Other items on its list included Kopi luwak (the most expensive coffee in the world, and you might recall, a running joke in "The Bucket List"), bird spit and trilobite fossils.

Get looking.

Recently, thepennyhoarder.com updated its wildly popular "7 More Weird Things in Your Trash Can Worth Cash" feature, which tops off with perfume bottles, followed by items such as cooking oil, theme park maps and human hair.

While most of us won't come across any money making vomit or spit, many of us have either found an expensive item or had an item in our home that was worth far more than we thought. Baseball cards, old magazines, jewelry, toys .... some of it can bring in the bucks.

On eBay, there are quite a few items up for bid from our MetroWest towns, with sellers trying to make some cake on anything from old police badges to a "beautiful medical fleam bleeder," which a Northborough seller has gotten six bids up to $49.99.

That's nothing, though, compared to the rare Japenese bellow foghorn, which a Northborough person has a price "buy it now" tag of $750. Now, that's a fire! If you aren't looking for that, perhaps you'd like a collection of 1940s Life magazines for $725. There are zero bids on that one.

A seller in Shrewsbury is looking for $200 for a rare wooden coffeetable base. Not the whole table; just the base. It's very rare, though, and Danish. That's cheap compared to the sterling silver and tiffany playing card holder. A Shrewsbury seller has that listed for $750.

Someone in Marlborough is hoping to land $7,000 for a Victorian solid wood seven-piece parlor set, while a Grafton seller has $47.99 listed for an antique grooming kit on eBay.

Have you ever come across an item in your home you found to be valuable? Did you sell it? Will you now go looking for whale vomit? Share your thoughts in our comments section.