Have you ever screamed at the heavens because you discovered your parents threw out an old childhood collection of yours that would probably be worth thousands of dollars right now?
Well, I'm here to inform you that you're not alone. Reddit user APurpleFlyingMonkey recently asked people to share the things they had as a kid that would be worth a fortune now if their parents hadn't thrown them away.
Here are some of their responses:
1. "My brother had a bunch of first-edition Pokémon cards that he spent over a year collecting. Our mom took them away after he got in trouble at school, and they were never seen again."
2. "My mom had a collection of signed Beatles records that she threw away after she converted to Christianity because played backward, they summoned the devil or something. For years I was hoping to inherit it when I grew up."
3. "I had mined eight bitcoins at age 16 and kept them in a hard disk. When they grew in value, I searched for the hard disk, only to find out that my mom had sold it to a 19-year-old for $50. I still curse my mom for doing that."
4. "I had the complete collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures. I packed them into a box and put them away, and later when looking for them, I couldn't find them. I asked my mother and she said, 'Oh, those? I threw them out. You weren't playing with them anymore.'"
5. "After my mom died, my dad started dating this awful woman. About a month before my high school graduation, we got into a HUGE fight over something and she burned my collection of old Dungeons & Dragons books and magic cards. Complete collections."
6. "My sibling and I amassed dozens of Barbies, hundreds of Barbie clothes, two dollhouses, three cars, one RV, a plane, and so much more. When I was 12 and had outgrown it all, my dad decided it was time to pass them on to younger cousins or otherwise get rid of them."
7. "My grandfather and I had collected about 40 Native American arrowheads on my grandparents' farm for years, and I had full sets of baseball cards from 1969 to 1980. My mom decided to toss out all that 'junk' when I moved out for the military."
8. "I remember when state quarters first came out, my father sent me a collection of every first-edition state quarter. One time, I went to show my friends years later and couldn't find them. I asked my mother, and she said she had to use them for laundry."
9. "They threw out nearly all of the first 24 editions of virtually every Marvel series."
10. "I had a huge collection of Magic: The Gathering cards, all in mint condition, dating back all the way to Alpha that I collected as a young kid. My mom decided that I had too much stuff that I enjoyed and threw out my collection and a bunch of other stuff."
11. "Lots of original Star Wars toys. They wouldn't be 'new in box,' but still..."
12. "I had every single Beyblade released in the US until I went to college and my mom 'gave them away to a worthy cause.' Turns out she dumped them in the trash."
13. "The original Transformers in boxes. I had all the main characters and nearly all of the smaller bots. I got them when I was 12 or so in the mid-'80s. I left for the military and Mom had a huge garage sale..."
14. "Approximately 44 pounds of Lego bricks and accessories. The 'blue railway' alone would be a fortune today. My mother gave them away and couldn't remember to whom."
15. "I had the complete collection of James Gurney's Dinotopia books — from the large, illustrated books to the smaller novels written later — that included his artwork. They are now completely out of print, to my knowledge, and increase in value each year."
16. "My collection of Polly Pockets — I've literally seen some of the ones I had worth thousands of dollars now."
17. And finally, "First editions of The Chronicles of Narnia signed by C.S. Lewis."
Some submissions have been edited for grammar and/or clarity.