10 Vintage Hood Ornaments That Are Secretly Worth A Fortune In 2026 (You Might Own One)

A chipped glass ornament off the front of an old car sold at Bonhams for $23,400. It was damaged when somebody yanked it off the radiator mount, and it still made that. Most old hood ornaments are worth forty dollars. A few are worth thousands, and the difference comes down to three things nobody ever tells you to check. This video counts down ten vintage hood ornaments — collectors call them mascots — that could be sitting in a garage or a drawer right now, and exactly what to look for on each one. It runs from a marked Dunhameter eagle out of Chicago at $1,083 and a bronze Hotchkiss cockerel signed by August Cain, through a Lalique falcon, an Antoine Bofil bat, a Grand Libellule dragonfly and a walrus made for a marque called Mors, up to the Citroën Cinq Chevaux, the Levrier greyhound that sold three separate times for $8,750, $5,100 and £2,000, the Victoire that made €17,250 in Monaco, and the Vitesse at $23,400. Every figure is a Bonhams realized price including buyer's premium. Also covered: how a cast signature differs from a stamped maker's mark, where R. Lalique and France sit molded into real glass and how to feel for it, why obscure marques are where the money hides, the replicas that circulate widely enough that auction houses name them in their own lot titles, and the polishing and cleaning mistakes that wipe out most of an ornament's value before anyone ever appraises it. Plus the glass fox called Renard, reported at $338,500. If there's an old ornament in the garage, turn it over before it goes anywhere.