Warren Hill's meal ticket.

Giving hope to garage-sale junkies the world over, Warren Hill is about to reap a windfall from his discovery of what is possibly the only copy of an unreleased version of the Velvet Underground's debut album.

At a stoop sale in New York City's Chelsea district in 2002, Hill found the acetate of the version of Velvet Underground & Nico that the band's mentor, Andy Warhol, had shopped to Columbia in 1966. Hill bought the three-record set for 75 cents.

With five hours remaining in his eBay auction of the item, the standing bid is $155,301.

In his description of the item on his eBay auction page, which is being managed by vintage record reseller Oakland, California-based Saturn Records, Hill wrote that he thought he bought a copy of the version of the album that was released in 1967.

"We cued it up and were stunned--the first song was not 'Sunday Morning' as on the Velvet Underground & Nico Verve LP, but rather it was 'European Son'--the song that is last on that LP, and it was a version neither of us had ever heard before!" Hill wrote.

"The next few days found us scrambling for clues and information about what to make of this find; calling every record collector/historian we knew and reading everything we could find concerning the early recordings of the [band]," he continued.

Hill wrote that he determined that it was an unreleased version of the recording of one of rock's most influential bands.

The auction will make Hill's discovery one of the most valuable records of all time. The copy of Double Fantasy signed by John Lennon for Mark Chapman, who gunned down Lennon hours later, fetched $464,000 and is considered the most valuable record ever.

The second most expensive record is in the hands of Paul McCartney, who purchased the one-off acetate of The Beatles' first recordings from 1958 for an unknown amount.