A major reason these ‘‘collectibles’’ are found in quantity in some older people’s belongings is that they were accumulated over decades, starting when the collectors were young or at most middle-aged. Same for sheets of postage stamps, purchased under the illusion that they’d be valuable eventually.
Stuff sold by companies with the word ‘‘mint’’ in their names (but which are not the U.S. mint) has a scammy aura in my opinion if there’s any hint in the marketing that it will have significant collector value some day. Older demographics may well be drawn to these offerings, but I wouldn’t know for sure.
A funny thing just happened. I looked in the chest where I still have my few coins. For some reason, I elected to keep the Arizona state quarter mint rolls that I bought in 2008. I thought: why did I keep these? So I decided to open the rolls and dump them in with all my other year’s pocket change and take it all to the bank. When I opened the second roll, I saw a flash of something not silver. It turned out to be a clad error (silver on the back, brass color on the front). I’ve got it up on ebay now, as I’m assuming that it is likely worth more to a collector than I paid for both rolls of quarters. Go figure.
this reminds me of s star wars yoda figure thats allegdly worth 800 dollars its from when hasbro made the first set of figuresin the mid90s its pretty much a basic yoda figure… what makes it special is they printed the package upside down …good luck in finding someone to buy at that price tho
My father, an otherwise smart and educated man (M.D.), got addicted to “collector’s plates.” When settling his estate, my sister and I found thousands of plates. *Many *thousands. He had various sets mounted on walls, which accounted for about 200 plates. The rest? Stacked in cabinets; stacked in shelves. Hundreds and hundreds of plates stacked up everywhere. And boxes of unopened plates. An entire room filed with unopened boxes. Even when settling affairs, plates would arrive in the mail every day.
I also had to cancel 97 magazine subscriptions.
Anyway, my sister handled the plates and found a Canadian guy who agreed to pay $10,000 for the lot if she would deliver them. So she and her husband rented a U-Haul and made a road trip out of it. We split the 10 grand 70-30, as she did most of the work and all the packing and hauling.
Sounds like my brother-in-law. After my sister died, he started buying all that crap. He also started sending checks to crackpot “charities”. His son discovered it and had to wade through the checkbook to find out who these people were, then cancel subscriptions, etc. After the asshole died, they found piles of that crap everywhere, which all went into the dumpster.
Almost nothing sold as being “collectible” appreciates in value. The “collectible” premium is priced in by the manufacturer, who reaps the rewards as people overpay for things either because they want the whole set or because they mistakenly believe it will appreciate.
About the only counterexample I can think of are Magic Cards, which have been sold as “collectible” for like two decades and have amazingly managed to keep increasing in value that whole time (and not just the original stuff. Plenty of stuff printed 5 years ago is worth more now).
Proof sets are worth more than the face value because they are specially struck and polished to have maximum luster and detail, and you get all the coins as a set.
The US mint is not telling people that it’s a winning strategy to hoard recent, common coins expecting that they’ll appreciate in value. Hopefully most collectors have a friend or mentor to tell them it doesn’t work like that.