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 ...
You could add to your list, Longaberger Baskets—i collect, display, use and enjoy my 80 or so LBs...I bought them, over the years, with the “windfall” I made selling “junk” from my late father’s basement. Dad loved to tinker with old tube radios...he had tubes of various sizes, the wood cases, a few tiny rolls of speaker ‘fabric’ (not the black poly stuff...weaves made in the 20s & 30s—with gold thread woven in).
Years ago, when I had to put dad’s house on the market, I placed a couple pieces on eBay. The ‘buyers’ would then email me asking what else I had...so I sold to maybe 8 to 10 collectors—only had to pay for as many auctions. I would sell tubes (that I could have easily just thrown away—’what’s this ‘good for?’—and I would buy a basket (ot three) with the proceeds. My excitement when MY purchases arrived got me thru a very hard time—as my dad’s health was failing quickly.
Using my eBay knowledge, I have sole Depression glass/Westmoreland glass online (Martha Stewart stacking pedistal cake plates was a boom to me). Economy is so bad now, people are keeping and ‘using’ grandma’s stuff rather than selling.
I have an old coffee grinder and a shell with the Lord’s Prayer engraved on it that were my Great Grandmother’s....I got them from others years after she died....I LOVED my great grandmother....and they are a great reminder of my limited time with her.
I invest in LEGO bricks, they are durable and you make stuff out of them. Plus the lego brick you bought in 1980 will fit just like a brick made in 2011. So they make great presents, also the have been slowly but steadily increasing in price.
HHHmmmm....my husband has a stamp collection of his Uncle’s....his Uncle was killed in WWII in 1944 (I think)...
Lovejoy FTW!
Could you REALLY get anything you want? Excepting Alice, of course.
When I was in elementary school, a kid brought someone’s salt and pepper shaker collection in and it was displayed in the library. Full of real oddities. I was entranced and remember it to this day.
Yes, the true rareties remained valuable. It was the middle-value items that lost out.
Dittoes that! Had a roommate who was into “collectables”, shelves of them! Every Saturday it was pick ‘em up, dust ‘em off and put ‘em back. When we separated he was building shelves for more! Uncluttered is the way to go.
Beanie Babies ruined the collectible industry (from a former BB retailer who sold thousands of the little worthless things).
We have also donated hundreds of them to charities filling Christmas Shoe Boxes so the little worthless things may actually make a child a million miles away smile.
You left out the profit they make from their show salaries.
I bet you say wrestling is fake too.
My wife, who knows a little more than I do about that business, thinks those guys are ripping off the people with all the junk/stuff. I don’t know, it’s not one of my favorite shows, and as I’ve stated, I’m no expert. I’ll defer to people like you who do it as a business.
... 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....
Not always true. We’ve visted the Pawn Stars store a number of times in the last couple of years. If there’s a line, we just come back later when there’s not one.
And Chumley actually works the store a good bit. A couple of years ago he sold my wife an opal ring she still wears.
I have things like the first 40 issues of the “new” X-Men, and lots of things not popular back then that later were big. I also have things like Dr. Strange with Jim Starlin art, things which I’ve never looked up because I just like the pictures and they were influential on my own writing.
Some of what I have—especially limited edition film music CDs—are indeed worth lots of money. But as you say, it’s more important for me to just enjoy ‘em. I’d spend the money I’d earn from them in short time, but these are just cool little mementos.
Maxfield (more cobalt blue) Parish truly wish I had some of his original work. Just like the stuff, and he is underrated.
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