Robsjohn-Gibbings Mesa Coffee Table

Every collector has a Holy Grail, an item you dream of finding when you walk into an estate sale. This is mine: the T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings Mesa Coffee Table. This one pictured above sold at auction last fall for $66,000! To put that in context, in 2002, you could have bought that table at auction for less than $20,000. Would that I could have a 401(k) that could do that. But such is the demand for Robsjohn-Gibbings furniture -- it's little known by most estate sale hounds, but crazy sought-after by collectors.

Of course, then there's the one that got away -- the Robsjohn-Gibbings tripod tables. This pair here is going for $5,600, refinished. I saw a pair at an estate sale on Warnock in South Fort Worth for $10 apiece. They had already sold. I cried a little that day.