# Expensive worthless objects **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 9, 2016, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expensive-worthless-objects/754352 "2016-05-09T00:52:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expensive-worthless-objects/754352/41 "2016-05-09T23:42:46Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Mickey Mantle’s rookie card. And many other collectibles. I only paid a penny for most of my collectible baseball cards. And I got a stick of gum, too. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expensive-worthless-objects/754352/42 "2016-05-10T00:04:26Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Rare, always able to be melted down and reused, difficult to counterfeit due to its density, chemically pretty inert so it doesn’t decay - it actually made a very good currency a few hundred years ago. The fact it was pretty for jewelry was just a bonus. yeah, but you haven’t really contradicted me. it’s rare, but what’s its _use?_ The only real widespread industrial use of it I’m aware of is for electronics applications where its corrosion resistance is desirable, but it takes astonishingly little gold to achieve that. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expensive-worthless-objects/754352/43 "2016-05-10T00:21:30Z")
[QUOTE=Nava] I only have one of those pieces left (a daybed), but when my employers moved me from the US back to Spain, this idiot in HR insisted that I had to move the furniture I had bought there. I pointed out it was actually my property and that while I was grateful for the offer I had been planning on giving it to charity. “You HAVE TO MOVE IT BACK!!!” only in bigger type. Having already run into Ms Helpful’s strange ideas of helpfulness before, being up to here of her and in the middle of several weeks of 16h days, I said “what-evah.” So, the company paid a ton of money to transport a futon from WalMart (less than $200) and several pieces from IKEA (the bill for these having been less than $700), when it would have made much more sense to either just toss it or even, if the company wanted to be nice, to drop me a few hundred to spend in IKEA Spain 😛 Except for that daybed, the rest has eventually ended up in the trash. [/QUOTE] They probably didn’t want to pay import duty on it, so they made you remove it from the country. Not that the duty would be much, but it’s a rabbit hole of insanity to determine if it’s a bed or “sitting furniture” and then if it’s metal vs wood, etc to work out what may be owed, hence the blanket policy of “It goes back!” When my husband’s aunt died a couple of years ago, some members of the family saw dollar signs. When I saw her home, I saw a kitchen full of expired canned food, tired mid-century furniture and nicotine stains on everything. The estate sales people were all saying “Sorry” and the family wound up calling something like Two Guys and a Dump Truck to have the house emptied and hauled off to landfill. Lately, my husband has been converting chemotherapy meds that cost $24,000 per liter into rather worthless urine. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expensive-worthless-objects/754352/44 "2016-05-10T13:50:09Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > yeah, but you haven’t really contradicted me. it’s rare, but what’s its _use?_ The only real widespread industrial use of it I’m aware of is for electronics applications where its corrosion resistance is desirable, but it takes astonishingly little gold to achieve that. I don’t disagree, I was just pointing out that using it as currency was a sound decision hundreds years ago. So continuing to use it as a basis of exchange is reasonable. If anything, the fact that it doesn’t have much utility outside jewelry is an advantage for that purpose - the amount available as a medium of exchange doesn’t go down much as it’s consumed. ---
**Author:** ![Whiskey\_Dickens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc348/32.png) [@Whiskey\_Dickens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whiskey_Dickens)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expensive-worthless-objects/754352/45 "2016-05-10T14:59:22Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > yeah, but you haven’t really contradicted me. it’s rare, but what’s its _use?_ The only real widespread industrial use of it I’m aware of is for electronics applications where its corrosion resistance is desirable, but it takes astonishingly little gold to achieve that. You can’t see a use for currency? Gold is ideal as a currency in pre-fiat currency economies. Durable and scarce. The barter system _sucks_. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expensive-worthless-objects/754352/46 "2016-05-10T15:21:54Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Why didn’t you just tell her that it had all burned up in a fire? > > Then donated it to someone who had lost all of their furniture in a fire… BecauseIdidn’thavethefuckingtime,thingswerekindofbusyandIwasinMexicoatthetimethengoingtoHoustonthenbacktoMexicothenBrazilthen… Plus she probably would have wanted insurance papers. > [@gotpasswords](#): > > They probably didn’t want to pay import duty on it, so they made you remove it from the country. Not that the duty would be much, but it’s a rabbit hole of insanity to determine if it’s a bed or “sitting furniture” and then if it’s metal vs wood, etc to work out what may be owed, hence the blanket policy of “It goes back!” Uh… that was all bought in the US. No WalMarts in Spain. The first fight I’d had with the bitch was about her insisting I had to take my furniture to the US, when I got moved that way. Let me put it this way: 90% of it was several years older than me (hand me downs from Mom, some of which went back to her and others passed forward), the total value for the new stuff (all passed forward) was less than for the WalMart futon. She had the economic sense of a drowned fish. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expensive-worthless-objects/754352/47 "2016-05-10T18:01:53Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > I know some scientists who would literally give you an arm and a leg for that sample. Yeah what do I need with an arm and a leg? Sounds even more useless than the Jupiter atmosphere. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expensive-worthless-objects/754352/48 "2016-05-10T20:34:51Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > After getting divorced, I was quite surprised to learn that my wedding and engagement rings were near worthless. All the jewelers who advertised that they’d buy the stuff told me that since they couldn’t guarantee the purity of the gold, that it was worthless and only the diamond would fetch me a small return. Bought for around $500, resale value about $25. ☹ We looked around after my Mom died and the best place for gold/silver items in our town was a “coin” shop. They had the stuff to test gold/silver with and based their prices on that day’s gold/silver prices. Pawn shops gave the second best value. Some jewelry shops will buy stones and they usually pay better than a pawn shop will. Their offer price for the gold is less, though. > [@mbh](#): > > When the government started minting the sandwich coins, my grandmother started collecting the old solid silver coins. My mother inherited the collection. I suspect she has paid far more to rent the safe-deposit box than she will ever get from selling the coins. Is she using the box for other things? If it’s just for the coins, I can see your point. My Dad, and my Mom’s second husband, did the same save the silver coins thing, but they kept them in various jars or tins in various closets. With no storage cost, they were actually an amazing investment. It looks like a roll of silver quarters is going for about $150 on eBay. Back when we were checking it out, eBay followed the silver value of the coins pretty well. That’s $3.75 per quarter. That’s a 1500% increase on pocket change. * * * We lucked out when Mom died. She was living next door to a vacation trailer park that held a flea market every weekend. She’d been friends with the owners so we were able to set up a sale table in Mom’s driveway, which abutted against the flea market. It took us months to go through her things, but that table was a big help. After giving her quilting club first dibs, per her instructions, we sold her collected fabric by the grocery bag. Even though we priced things to move, there was enough of everything to add up a bit. I’m just glad that the local landfill didn’t charge. My son stopped counting after the hundredth trip. We ran the town out of large trash bags. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expensive-worthless-objects/754352.md?page=2)