Anyway Chukhung, how was your trip? Did it all work out?
That is why I mentioned the prices those type of items were selling for on ebay, which should be a pretty good estimate of the real market value.
This is a very good point - one would have to be very careful, to select a wide variety of cards, comics, and other collectibles, so that no one item’s value is dilluted too much, and to sell the stuff off gradually as well. Now, if you did a little research before hand, you might be able to find the location of a 1909 Honus Wager card in 1954, and pick it up for relatively cheap. Today, you could sell that card for at least a million.
Also a very good point. Maybe one solution would be obtain a safety deposit box from a large bank, try to see if you can pay for it 50 years ahead of time, and place all of your cards in the box. Not only will the items look like they have been around for 50 years, you will have a record that your “grandfather” placed the items in there 50 years ago from a large bank, which should satisfy collectors that your cards are genuine.
This one has some drawbacks as far as temporal wake and dissonance is concerned, and maybe reliability, but it’s an idea.
Send the $10,000 and anonymous, but very detailed instructions and blueprints for several very specific and lucrative technologies or inventions to your Grandfather or Father. Instruct him in writing to file patents for these future ideas in his name. Ya know, some widget crux of a technology that made somebody else rich in the future. Come home to your inheritence.
(Maybe this is what Bill Gate’s son or Grandson will someday do/have done.).
Simple solution - put them in storage for 50 years, pick them up when you return to the present. They’ll be in great condition, but really will be 50 years old.
What about taking artwork back into the past. Are there any famous artworks that have lost significant value in the last 50 years?
Also, I guess that the artwork had to be either missing or undiscovered in the 1950’s otherwise they would accuse you of being a fake. Were there any famous, high value art that was discovered in the 1960’s or 70’s that is now relatively worthless?
In 1962 you could buy 500 shares in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for $10,000. In fact at one stage they were only $16 so you may be able to buy 630 or so. They are now worth $87,000 each.
On the subject of things cheap today, but very expensive 50 years ago: buy a good laptop computer, and take it back with you. It will be the most powerful computer in the world, worth milllions of dollars to the right customer. (People knowing about it would also change a whole lot of computer history: MS-DOS would not have been written the same way if Bill Gates had known that personal computers could be that powerful.)
This may be slightly off from the OP, but it seems to be that there may be an issue with some of these plans based on the fact that at some point your ‘other self’ (i.e. You, but before you went back in time) would exist.
For instance…
If you went back and bought a big ol chunk of land where you knew Beverly Hills would be in 20 years, at some point a developer is going to approach ‘you’ in lets say 1975, to buy it. The problem is “1975 you” doesn’t know a thing about the sale of the land because he hasn’t bought it until he goes back in time in 2004. It is likely that 1975 you, completely pleased with his luck, sells on the spot. Thats great, but now you don’t get the value as it would be in 2004 for the same parcel.
This would appear to be true for almost any long term venture unless it was done, as was suggested by others, through 3rd parties and lawyers who could act on your behalf without ever contacting you. Then you could simply keep your identity a secret or use false papers.
Anther possibility would be to get ‘yourself’ in on it, I suppose. Still, depending on your character you might end up screwing ‘yourself’. Wouldn’t that just be the worst. Get back and all your money is gone, and no one to blame but ‘you’ who isn’t really ‘you’ at all. :wally
Wait a minute – you’re not related to my uncle-in-law are you? That’s exactly how they made their money! Well (1) I don’t know if they did it with time travel, and (2) no, I don’t have a penny of it.
An IMHO nitpick but that might only be true if in fact Bill Gates has written DOS. Microsoft purhcased from Lifeboat, tweaked it and presented it to IBM.
That aside it may be a moot point. Certainly DOS could have been written better but I doubt if anyone would have put the effort into doing so for benefit that wouldn’t be realized for a decade when hardware caught up. I read an interview with Bill Gates in the first issue of PC magazine. I’m no big fan of the man but he had exceptionally good perception about where the personal computer was going.
I don’t think the best way to make a fortune is by changing history in a big way but by seeing how past billionaires (adjusted for inflation) made their fortunes and putting your own spin on it.
Personally I’d do something that appealed to me even if it didn’t make the biggest fortune. I’d scrape up some cash I could, head to Winslow AZ and buy all the surplus WWII planes, engines and parts the Air Force would sell me before they got turned into aluminum siding. I doubt if I could make a good business case for that but it would be pretty darn cool. If nothing else I could spend my retirement selling parts to all the Reno unlimited racers.
One word, just one word:
Plastics
Better yet, you’ve heard the “my mom threw out my cards/comics” stories. It would be better to find the cards this way. The cheap card you buy in 1954 might just be that card that sold for over $600,000 a few years ago. I seriously doubt a card or two missing from a landfill will affect the future very much, if any.
What I would do to convert the $10,000 into something that can be used in 1954 (and make some money at the same time) is buy stock certificates of companies that went bankrupt after 1954. Those are nearly worthless today but have value in the past - an example can be found here.
Back in 1954 I’d cash in the stock certificate to parlay my original $10,000 investment into something much larger. I’d use the money to buy bearer bonds which I would bring back in the time machine so that I wouldn’t need any ID and wouldn’t be challenged when I tried to cash them in 2004.
But back in 1954, that stock certificate would have a registered owner, wouldn’t it? If I try to sell it (and can’t prove I’m the owner) won’t I be suspected of forgery?
The problem I see with bearer bonds is that you only receive the interest on them when you “clip the coupons” and the interest doesn’t compound if you’re late on redeeming a coupon.
I wouldn’t get any benefit from fifty years of the “miracle of compound interest” with this strategy.
Good point on both counts (the bankrupt stock certificates and bearer bonds). On the latter, perhaps you can buy bearer shares instead.
I pressed “Submit” to early… Instead of buying stock certificates, you might be able to buy some worthless bearer shares of companies that went bankrupt after 1954.
Find a deserted piece of land somewhere off the coast of New Jersey. Get some diving gear. Go swimming. Find the stainless steel rubber-lined box bolted shut under the water. Drag it to the shore. Cut it open and find all the nice and dry collectibles, bearer bonds, stock certificates, Andy Warhol originals (he was a young unknown artist then, commission him to do some work and make sure he signs it) etc. Sell items through anonymous auctions. Technically, it’s salvage and yours by right. When you get around to it, travel back to 1954. Have the box made. Fill it with stuff. Seal it shut. Sink it in water using a rented boat. Perfect.
Wouldn’t your discovery of time travel make you enough money?And since we gave you the ideas,we want our cut of the profits 
If anyone wants to know the 2054 World Series/Superbowl winners to put a small punt on,I can supply that information for a price 
Forget the 50 years back and all of its problems.
Simply wait for the next unclaimed 190 million dollar state lottery, go back in time one day earlier than the draw and enter with the winning numbers. Viola, you are 190 million dollars richer and you had no “past” issues.
I want a third.
One product that’s really cheap now and cost a bundle in the past: transistors. You could pack a lot of them in that suitcase, and I read once that they cost $90 apiece in 1951.
However, I’m not sure what they were worth three years later.
I’m also not sure that that little cache wouldn’t flood the (probably small) market and bring the price down.