Posted on 10/30/2011 3:10:05 AM PDT by lowbridge
If you stare at the Thomas Kinkade painting on your wall each day thinking "There's my retirement fund," prepare to pour skim lattes until you're 90.
Collecting as a hobby can be a fun, worthwhile and potentially lucrative way to pass time. Amassing collectibles as investments, however, can be a disappointing endeavor yielding nothing but piles of devalued tchotchkes for the next of kin to sort through.
The founder of comic book industry bible Wizard, Gareb Shamus, said a year ago that the best advice a collector could heed was to buy what they liked and do their homework. Then again, he's also a Spider-Man collector who paid $1,700 for an issue with a cover drawn by artist Todd MacFarlane featuring the villain Sandman. The book's value jumped to between $30,000 and $40,000 when the Sandman appeared in the latest Spider-Man film.
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"Collectibles" investors, however, are beholden to a very subjective, eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY - News)-driven market in which their precious knick-knack can be worth $800 or less than $50. While sites such as Kovels.com offer some guidance, "collectibles" and the companies that make them are slaves to demand and market forces — and the realization that their mass-produced product is only worth as much as a buyer will pay for it.
"I tell people that keeping collectibles is like storing money under your mattress," says Lou Kahn, head of the Bakerstowne Collectibles appraisal and consignment service in West Hempstead, N.Y. "You're going to have the same amount of money next year, but it's going to be worth a lot less."
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Some light up. Some come in very nice wooden cases. Some have "floating" items in liquid. Some have paper roll out info sheets (Oxycontin). They're pretty cool...
When my girls were small, the Cabbage Patch crze had just started. I remember one year, before Christmas, there was something called a “Koosa (sp?)”..some special type of Cabbage Patch..the girls wanted it..I, and my two secretaries, spent the betetr part of a week calling all over the tri-state area trying to find two of them..Finally, got lucky, paid like 3x retail, plus FedEX costs, to get them here for Christmas..a week later, they ended up in the attic, where they stayed for the next 20 years, until we sold the house.<{>
I think a lot of the collectible craze is fueled buy the “Antiques Roadshow” syndrome..
I think a lot of the collectible craze is fueled by the "Antiques Roadshow" syndrome..
Back many moons ago I hid some records from my Sister because she played them all day long the guy sounded like a hound dog baying at the moon.
Our mother passed away and we cleaned out the old house and I remembered hiding them, They were some of Elvis Presley’s first records!
“I put my son through Helicopter Pilot school by selling my late husband’s childhood model train collection.”
My Father-in-Law has hundreds and I do mean hundreds of model train sets, including Anniversary issues such as a rare gold plated engine. He buys at least one new set every month at a Train collectors club. Its all worth a fortune, and we get it all someday.
The only thing I successfully collected was debt.
“They were some of Elvis Presley’s first records!”
If they were on the SUN label and either a 45 of 78 and MINT they could be worth in the thousands each. 78’s usually brought in less money than the 45 of the very same song.
Then there is me.
I’m sitting on my collection of hundreds of pristine AOL floppy disks and CD’s. They are all still in the cover, still in the cellophane, mint condition.
Some are in cardboard, some in plastic boxes and a few are in substantial metal boxes
Once again the market value of AOL has plummeted and the hoped for death appears possible.
When AOL dies...... I’ll be rich! Rich I tell you! rich!
http://www.oneidadispatch.com/articles/2011/10/24/business/doc4ea6119b2c298073480289.txt
Steuben crystal closing November 29th!!!
Never had the wedding crystal, porcelain & silverware. Wouldn’t have used it. Part of that ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ in the 50’s & 60’s.
American Pickers and Pawn Stars are both fake. Fun to watch but totaly scripted.
You don’t just walk into a pawn shop and not notice the cameras, light reflectors, sound equipment and drop your Nordon Bombsight on the counter. The natural reaction is to look at the camera and say “Am I on TV?”.
Knowing two people who have gone to the store - they say there is a rope line to even get in, you won’t see the Pawn Stars guys in the store unless they are filming, and when they are filming the store is shut down. A good portion of the store is taken up with Pawn Star souvenirs like Chumlee t-shirts - something you wont see on the TV camera angles. And museum currators don’t just show up at Pawn Shops to check if an item is real. They would never have the time to work at the museum. And many of the items so I’ve read are actually from the area museums used only as props for the show. They go back after the filming and phony sale. Fun show anyway
I collect the little notes my kids write when they’re little that say “I love you, Daddy.”
Priceless.
I just bought one for $5 at an antique store. They had a slew of them, still with the tags on.
There is a truly great collection of Norman Rockwell paintings in a specially built gallery in the National Museum of Scouting at the HQ of the Boy Scouts of America in Irving Texas
That may not be a collectors but it is a classic!!!
As I was carrying them out, I glanced inside and spotted an old iridescent glass inkwell that my grandfather always kept on his desk. Going back inside, I asked if I could keep it (I just wanted it for sentimental reasons), and was told I could.
A few months ago, I was watching Pawn Stars and spotted a similar inkwell sitting on a shelf. I looked it up online and it turns out that it was made by an Austro-Hungarian company sometime between 1890 and 1910. It's estimated value is somewhere between $800-1000, but I doubt I'll ever sell it.
I have moved many, many times over the years and culled the cr@p from the ‘collectibles’, mostly souvenirs.
Will never part with my kids’ art and sculpture efforts - have dragged them from pillar to post for decades. I’m sure they will have a good laugh & a few tears when they sort it out from my ‘estate’.
After watching those “Hoarder” shows - I am motivated to check my shoe boxes;)
Buy vintage firearms they almost never lose their value. My collection has doubled in value since 2001.
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