eBay is a place where rare, precious antiques and unlikely treasures can be found, but you would never think that it would also list items of high personal and sentimental value.
This was the case for a woman from the U.K. after she discovered her family heirloom online in January 2019. According to the Metro, Glasgow native and graphic designer Trudy Shillum was checking her family history when she stumbled upon a special family relic being listed on eBay.
Shillum was able to find the listing for old postcards that were sent to her deceased grandparents by a family friend in 1936, with each card being sold for £3.49 ($4.63 USD), simply by typing in her name and her family’s hometown.
She bought the postcards and made a Facebook post about them, as well as a post on her personal blog. While it remains uncertain how the seller managed to procure those cards, Metro reported that the seller was buying and selling vintage cards as a job.
Shillum wrote on her blog, saying: “I was freaked out and excited at the same time to find it.” She then further added: “How on earth did it end up for sale on an international marketplace and also how did I manage to discover it amongst the (actual stat) one billion things on eBay?”
The contents of the postcards themselves simply contained everyday conversation, including some best wishes for her grandparents’ wedding anniversary, but for Shillum it meant everything. According to her blog, Shillum and her grandfather both had a knack for seeking out old treasures.
One of her blog posts even said “He loved finding things on the street, going to jumble sales and discovering bargains in junk shops. Grandad made up for lack of monetary riches with a wealth of generosity.” “I’m not crediting myself with having inherited any of these noble qualities from him but the treasure hunter gene is one I most definitely have,” she said.
Family heirlooms can give one a good glimpse into their family’s history and the history of the world. A pocket watch that was sold at auction in 2018, for example, may seem ordinary at first glance, but it was actually a possession of someone who was a passenger of the Titanic.