I collect gaming stuff mostly cause I like displaying it for myself. I also have some collectable Transformers stuff. Some of it has increased in value for sure but people that collect for value are often the scalpers on Ebay.
I go in and out of phases, usually out of nostalgia that will make me want to possess something for display. Odds are I’ll probably end up selling it all cheaply to another collector before I die. That’s the only worthwhile place it could go to, anyone else would either junk it or sell it to be rid of it.
I got obsessed with the Hardy Boys books. Back in the early 1970’s when they were still hardcovers. They were numbered. I eventually had the full set of fifty.
I remember having trouble finding a few of the books at my local book stores. I ended up ordering several books from Sears to finish my collection.
I donated it to my local library.
Just as well. I checked eBay. Used copies from that era aren’t worth much.
I got obsessed with collecting Laser Discs in the early 1990’s. Had at least 400. Spent thousands of dollars.
Yes I was FURIOUS when the format became obsolete. I will never again buy a movie. Ever.
That sounds a bit like offering to sell someone a nickel for 4 pennies. As you state the stamps are still valid for postage why would they go at a discount?
Why would a stamp dealer buy and sell sheets of 1940s 3-cent stamps at a loss?
Is it something like they buy big lots of stamps at estate sales that end up including those stamps, and they sell them cheap so they don’t have to store them? I cn see why you’d sell them cheap (get them out of your inventory quicker) but why you’d routinely acquire them seems odd.
As a former collector… +1
You ever try licking sixteen 75-year old stamps? Blech!!
I think both the great “Beanie Baby failure to amount to anything” and “too many Star Wars figures mint-in-box makes them worthless” were the downfall of collecting for profit. However, I think people still buy collections of things sometimes. Art, games, toys, and other gewgaws are all still collectable in that they keep churning them out in sets, like FunkoPops et al.
I would’ve gladly bought the entire set of Disney Infinity figurines if I had had any money at the time, and it’s a great shame they were discontinued so unceremoniously, as they were delightful designs. I still like the Gentle Giant and Weta Collectibles that come out, high quality stuff. But they’re just cool to have, rather than any kind of investment or true collected sets to fulfil.
A good rule of thumb is that anything that was touted in advertisements or mentioned in many news stories as being collectible is not worth collecting. It’s like the value of stocks. If you see many news stories saying that a particular stock is going to rise in value so you should buy it, it’s too late. The market has already adjusted itself for the future value of the stock. If you truly like collecting something and don’t care about its future value, go ahead and collect it and display it. You’re doing it for your personal pleasure, not because you think it’s going to be valuable someday.
Incidentally, there are many articles online about the worthlessness of supposedly collectible items:
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13162897/1/15-collectibles-that-are-completely-worthless.html
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-30/those-comics-in-your-basement-probably-worthless
But people do that too. That’s basically what you’re doing if you use a CoinStar machine. Something that’s less convenient to use might very well be worth less to someone as a result.
The stamp dealer paid 1 cent per stamp when he bought them from a customer. He then sold them for 2 cents each.
People come in with a thousand dollars face value in sheets of stamps. They inherited them from mom/dad/grandpa. The stamp dealer says “I’ll pay 35% of face value.” That’s how bad the resale market is for bulk postage in the U.S.
Here in the UK space is expensive. It costs a lot to keep a collection simply in floor space alone. I have a tiny 2 bedroom flat, around 600 square feet. Where am I going to put a collection?
I had a girlfriend who collected lawyer jokes. “You don’t have to dust 'em.”
Beyond the fading manias for collecting things invented by shyster marketers as “collectibles”, there’s another process at work. It’s the same process that’s undermining heirlooms.
Stuff used to be rare. Stuff didn’t change much year to year. Folks didn’t have much money so old stuff tended to stay around. People treasured getting grandma’s old frying pan. Partly because it was grandma’s, but more because it meant they didn’t need to shell out money buying one of their own.
Fast forward to today: Most people are drowning in stuff. 100% of the stuff your parents own is stuff you won’t need if/when they want to dispose of it. Most stuff now is disposable (1998 desktop PC), not eternal (1998 (or 1938) cast iron frying pan).
Part of the allure of collecting is having the whole set. Time Life books was a 1950s-1970s phenomenon like that. Once you subscribed they’d send another book every month or so. Which you were free to return at no obligation or keep & pay for. Once you owned 3 or 4, the pressure to ensure you owned the complete set with no missing pieces became overwhelming. Lots of people bought 50 unwanted books after wanting only the first three due to this well-understood quirk of human nature.
When the www first came out, how many people wanted to read the whole thing and collect a vast array of bookmarks? I still have quite a collection of (presumably dead) bookmarks from the early days. I never use 'em; instead I Google up a fresh link to whatever topic.
Bottom line: the urge to collect is a psychological reaction to scarcity. In an era of functionally infinite supplies of e-goods and of many tangible goods too, the scarcity drive is simply absent from a lot of people’s daily life.
The Depression era people for whom collecting everything from old rubber bands to glassware was natural are dying off. And so is collecting.
The poor folks today may have the urge to hoard, but they don’t have the money to waste it on frivolities.
Said another way, the great collecting boom, both of real stuff and of phony “collectibles”, was when the cadre scarred by the Depression of their youth turned into the upwardly mobile middle class of the booming 1950s & 1960s. They had an inbuilt desire to hoard and the spare money to waste on indulging their desire.
Some of their kids (people now 45-65) picked up on the habit at least a little bit. Very few of the next generation have.
I can see how that works, it’s just mind-boggling to me that it actually happens. Finding out bizarre stuff like this is one of the reasons I read this board.
Some of the Magic: The Gathering cards made in 1993 are worth thousands of dollars today. They were designed from the beginning to inspire people to make collections of them (in addition to being used to play a game.)
Nearly all collectibles are not like that, but your claim is not absolutely true.
I think there’s a couple things going on that some people have already touched on. First is the thing that synthetic heirlooms like collectible coin sets or Hummel figurines are regarded as kind of silly and corny these days and for anyone who is curious in checking eBay or any other sites it’s obvious they have a little collectible value in general since the market is saturated with them. Now it’s possible in certain gaming genres that with card sets or figurines or other items attached to a popular game or movie the quality figurine produced in limited quantities may actually be pretty valuable but these are the exceptions not the rule and the value is certainly not guaranteed.
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True, but as I said in post #28, it’s a good rule of thumb. Whenever you see lots of advertisements or lots of news stories about certain collectibles, it’s probably true that you can’t make any money on them over the long run. The market adjust prices to take into account the amount of the items available. If a lot of them have been made and kept, they’re not going to go up in value.
Most straightforward and accurate answer I can think of is: nope. It is a basic element of human nature to try to organize the world. That causes a number of otherwise, seemingly unrelated habits and behaviors.
Collecting is really a variation on a number of other behaviors, all of which are also going on strong.
By the way, I didn’t see anyone mention that show on TV, American Pickers. That whole show, and the business those guys are in, exists because there ARE tons of collectors everywhere.
Yes. Many of us who HAVE collected in the past, eventually stop ourselves, and get rid of the junk, either because we realize we were wasting money and time on nonsense, or for some other change of mind. But collecting itself isn’t going away.