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 ...
However, we did have one useful item..our 'regifting' carton..big box up there..all the really bad Christmas and birthday gifts nobidy could stand, went up there..then whenever we needed a last minute gift..for a co-worker, or a secret sanyta..just run iup there, rummage around, and pull one out..
On graduation from flight school my great grandad gave me several coins, last check they were worth over ten grand.
I had a friend like you who collected comics from grade school through college and had visions of selling them off for lots of money (for his favorites he even bought a storage copy and a reading copy). I don’t think he even got the cover price when he finally sold them. Unless you have some really rare comics (#1 of a new comic, not just a renumbering of an old one) which became popular later then you might have something. If you just have a stack of 1980’s Spiderman comics then just enjoy them.
I paid $300 for a pocket watch in a silver case. The Case is made in England, the Mechs in Germany.
The coolest parts are the face, which is beautiful and the tiny chain that moves the gears.
I was watching Antiques Roadshow and they showed a similar watch that would fetch $1,500 and I got all excited.
Mine is in way better condition and just beautiful for the details.
Thing is, I’ll never sell it.
I buy for pleasure and just don’t think about the resale value. I love touching things I buy and wondering about who held it and what it meant to them.
I have a storage site full of antiques and will never sell em.
I occasionally give them away for a special event but that’s it.
On the other hand; just TRY to find a copy of Steampunk Sarah Palin #1 on eBay...I saw one a few weeks ago for $35.
The difference? Marvel printed BOATLOADS of the Spider-Man book...Palin's had a very conservative print run. Which one is the TRUE collectible? That should be obvious.
I don’t recall if 45 or 78 but I do know most if not all were on the Sun label. I hid those things 50 years ago in between the pages of a huge book so they are pristine needless to say she has been offered enough for them that she is no longer mad at me for hiding them!
I do recall one of them had a price on the sleeve it was 20 cents lol.
I watch that ‘picker’ show on TV and am amazed at the prices they pay for worthless crap
Some of it is interesting but they pay more than I would pay retail for it
they must have hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in inventory
I’m looking for a Sidd Finch rookie card.
the only collectible worth it right now is real estate
even with the bottom falling out you are still doing ok if you bought rentals and had them filled
ping
Norman Rockwell got his start as the art editor of Boy’s Life, and though he soon left, he had a warm relationship with the Boy Scouts for the rest of his life. Some of his Boy’s Life works are on exhibit at the the Rockwell Museum. There is a small room where two hallways cross, with each corner cut at 45 degrees, from which hang the original four freedoms, four of my least favorite Rockwell drawings.
They were obvious propaganda and weak examples of his craft. (BTW, the Latin word “ars” -gentive singular “artis - translates just as well as craft as art.) He was swing for the fences and hit a single, imho. His best work was his more mature and spontaneous stuff. Incidently, some of the docents at the museum were his models or people who knew him personally.
“dont recall if 45 or 78 but I do know most if not all were on the Sun label.”
I believe he made only 4 on Sun in 1954, so you may have dupes. In 55 he went to RCA and did Heartbreak Hotel. From that point on, there were sooo many Elvis records sold, I don’t think they were worth very much IMO.
Even my humble Mosin Nagant M44s (bought for 79 bucks in pristine condition) have jumped in value.
My mom never threw anything out. When we finally cleaned out the house, I found my baseball cards, including a few Mickey Mantles.
The only thing that would have made it even more perfect was if the example self portraits of other artists were replaced by photographs of Che, Lenin, Marx and Alinsky.
“His retirement fund was knocking out the same painting every couple months and charging some Paris collector thousands of francs for the privilege of owning it.”
Dali did the same.
I collected old Fender guitar stuff. 5 amps between ‘52 and ‘64. ‘57 custom-colored Strat. ‘61 Tele. They’re not bringing as much as they used to, but still vastly more than I paid for them. And they paid for themselves many times over, just through gigging with them! Now is a good time to buy old Ampeg amps.
here in Florida..the bottom can indeed fall out of the real estate market..it’s called a sinkhole..(g)
That’s a favorite collectible of governments too.
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