I’ve just returned from the future, and the hottest collectibles are Downton Abbey action figures. The rare Daisy figure, the one with the enormous uterus, sold for $27, 000.
Plus you’re not going to get market value for it, either. The pawn shop and antique store are running a business, so they’re gonna offer you a good percentage less than it’s worth to a private buyer. They gotta make money, too. Dealing with funds is so much cheaper. Like I said above, I’ve never paid any transaction fees to Vanguard. There are no account fees as long as you have $10K in them. No purchase or redemption fees for most funds. The average expense ratio is 0.19% (that’s $190 on $100K), but I have funds with expense ratios as low as 0.05%.
Plus, and here’s a big thing, I can unload them at pretty much any time I need the cash, so they are fairly liquid. That’s another issue with the collectibles: you need to find buyers. I suppose with the coins you can always offload those fairly quickly, but collectibles are not a liquid asset. When I needed $25K to finish paying off a mortgage, I had that money in my account within 2 or 3 days from fun sale. How long would it take me to unload $25K worth of Beanie Babies, and how much work is involved for me to do that? Here, I just press a button, and wait for my bank account to be credited. Couldn’t be simpler and couldn’t be too much faster.
Furthermore, are you paying insurance on these collectibles? It you’ve got $10k+ tied up in stuff you intend to resell 20 years down the line, I sure hope you’ve got that insured.
If you want something tangible for the purposes of this exercise, real estate might be the best choice, especially in this market, but that comes with its own set of headaches, and I personally don’t believe real estate is the great investment everyone thinks it is (although, once again, in this market, it should be okay.) If you’re waiting for prices to go down farther, depending on the market, I think you’ve long missed that boat.
You may know all the following:
There is a difference between silver/gold bullion coins and silver/gold coins meant for circulation. While most bullion coins will only fetch spot prices, there are certain years for them that are more desirable and are considered “key date” coins. Some Pandas fall into that category, as do some Silver Eagle bullion coins. For instance, I’m now looking at a 1996 Proof Silver Eagle that has a retail value of around $55-$65 on ebay, while the spot value is only about $22. I also have a 1995P that will sell for about $75-$80. A slabbed 1995W can go for $4-5 thousand dollars. Silver and gold coins that were meant for circulation generally have a higher collector premium above the melt value because of scarcity, although condition is critical to their value.
Of course, that’s the collector market. If you go to a bullion dealer, he will generally only give you spot for your coins, regardless of collector value; so that $150 Panda you’ve been hoarding is only worth $20 to him.
Well apart from silver/gold coins, movie memorabilia, watches, toys, stocks, bonds, comics, sports cards, other paper goods, antique furniture, baseball cards, real estate, art, index funds, muni funds and stamps you could buy fine wines, fine china, firearms, Andy Warhol Cookie Jars, autographs, vintage musical instruments, rare vinyl records, vintage bicycles or motorbikes, handmade Cuban cigars or tech from the early 80s.
I’ve never heard of number 3. Who would your market be? If you bought an authentic rolex for 4k, who are you going to sell it to if that person can get one for the same price at a pawn shop? And what is stopping the pawn shop from realizing the gold alone is worh more than the watch.
As far as toys, I’ve thought about that (going into the attic and getting my old toys) but there are millions of toys on the market. They aren’t that valuable because of that. The market is totally flooded. An NES powerpad costs $15 on ebay, back in the late 80s those were the rage that not everyone could afford.
This is a big issue with my father in laws ancient coins - it isn’t a terribly liquid market. If he NEEDS money he could auction them off - but the auction house would take a huge bite, probably enough that he wouldn’t make a profit. So he sells them via the internet direct to other collectors. Which means that people need to find him and want to buy what he has.
I called a dealer once about a proof coin that ended up being in high demand - it was a special high relief striking. Anyway, it was going for several hundred bucks over the spot price of the metal on ebay. I asked the dealer what he would offer and it was so far below what I was going to get online I think I may have actually laughed at him. It was probably over the spot price but I don’t think it was by a lot.
I understand that they have to make a living too, but if those are the kinds of margins they need to stay in business, it’s probably a moot point anyway unless they can get by on walk-in traffic.
Hell, at that point, I might have asked him if he had any to sell and see if I could make a tidy profit on reselling on eBay. 
(Though I doubt it–I assume he realizes the existence of such.)
Anyhow, the discussion reminds me: I’ve always wondered who buys shit from the pawn shop. (And I understand that in the previous example we’re talking about a dealer at a coin store, not a pawn shop, presumably.) I’ve only been to one a couple times, but they were not at all what I was expecting–everything seemed to be grossly overvalued. I’ve always assumed the seller is going to really get shafted in terms of market value, since they usually are folks desperate to sell that need money, but I didn’t expect buyers to similarly get shafted. I suppose if you don’t have access to eBay or need something yesterday, you might go to one, but my limited experience shows me there ain’t no bargains to be found there. Is that pretty much usually the case, or is my experience anomalous?