Milk Cans and Wagon Wheel Hub

[tino7580]

Hello!

I have some items that I was thinking about doing either a restoration or a craft projects with but before I touch them I want to make sure I don't ruin the value, if any.

I was given 4 metal milk cans.  2) 10gal cans with embossed writing on them & one with an umbrella lid. 2) 8gal cans.  All 4 have a rusty aged surface, none rusted out. 

How to you get the most money for them? What is the best thing to do with them?  Sand the surface rust and paint the to look original?  Do a painting on them?  Or leave them as is? I've even seen them as mail boxes.

The wagon wheel hub.  Leave it as is?  I've seen lamps make out of them.

Basically I want to ask an expert because I've seen people take antiques and use them for craft projects or do a restoration and completely ruin the value of an item. So I want to prevent this from happening.

[Rauville]

It's going to be difficult to make milk cans look original by painting them, since they were never painted to begin with. If they were mine, I'd knock off the worst rust, and sell them as garden decorations. Set a funky birdhouse on top of one, and you can always make a sale.
Good Luck!

[mart]

These items are not rare so there are plenty of them to use for craft projects !!  If you are a pretty good artist I can tell you what I did with a ten gallon can one year for Christmas !!  Sand lightly and base coat with a good spray paint for metal ( I used deep burgundy) then I started in the center of the can and painted Thomas Kincaids Christmas Village scene completely around it !!  So the painting wrapped completely around the milk can !!  I gave it to my brother & s.i.l for Christmas !!  If you don`t paint just use magazine pics and decopage it !!

[JoshandLila]

The wagon wheel hub will retail by itself for about $40 to $50 if its in really good unrestored condition.. but they do make nice lamps. I posted one up ( a hub lamp)a lil while ago thats been in my family for over 80 years