Oxstones Investment Club™Lots of people love collecting their favorite things. Whether it’s stamps, Beanie Babies or snow globes displayed on shelves around the house or stuffed in a box in the garage, collecting helps pass time while allowing us to surround ourselves with the things we hold dear.
But sometimes what we hold dear can lead to lots of clutter — and your love for these items can fade. So what do you do with a room full of old Betty Boop merchandise? Sell it, of course.
Some items that have been sitting in your curio cabinet for years could be worth good money. You’ll need to consider just how much value you have at your fingertips — or in your shoebox, as the case may be.
While of course this doesn’t mean you should bank an early retirement on your rock collection, there is potential value in many items otherwise only good for looking at.
A widely circulated story is that eBay began as a way for the founder’s fiancee to capitalize on her hobby of collecting Pez dispensers. One reason the tall tale might have been considered a possible truth was because Pez dispensers can indeed bring quite a bit in value. Original “Star Wars” character dispensers can be worth $400 to $500, while other older, more obscure ones can fetch thousands of dollars.
They’re brought out for victories, new fathers and at family gatherings by your mustachioed uncle. While cigars aren’t for everyone, their allure and propensity to be smoked make for a disciplined investment.
“As with all wasting assets, the longer you can hold on to your investment, the scarcer it will become,” says Daniel Wade, editor of Paul Fraser Collectibles’ news service. “Willpower is a key player in this sector.”
To aid self-restraint, try buying two boxes — one to enjoy and one to sell later with an added return. And if you’re just getting started, be prepared for a significant initial investment.
“As with most areas of collectibles, it’s at the very top end of the sector where the greatest price appreciation can be seen — which isn’t great news for those wishing to invest without a major outlay,” Wade says.
To blow even more smoke in the face of your aspirations, Wade says handmade Cuban cigars are “the only way to go for investment purposes.” If you happen to have any legal Cuban cigars (pre-1962 embargo) on hand, some estimates put a box of 100 at around $20,000.
Though collecting baseball cards isn’t nearly as popular as in its heyday a quarter century ago, the hobby may mean a mortgage or college tuition payment is sitting in your dusty attic, provided your collection is from the right era.
“I don’t buy anything from after 1969,” says Alan Rosen, aka “Mr. Mint,” who has been a sports card buyer for three decades and just last year spent $5 million on cards and memorabilia. “Mickey Mantle can’t strike out anymore and Sandy Koufax can’t lose any more games.”
Rosen is referring to the heavy fluctuation of modern cards, such as a superstar’s valuable rookie card going bust after a steroids allegation.
“A guy pitches a one-hitter and his card goes up to a dollar, then he loses the next game and it goes down to 10 cents again. It’s like playing the stock market and you have to stay on your toes,” he says.
Satellite-guided maps might be more accurate and convenient than their paper counterparts, but have you ever tried hanging a GPS receiver as a wall decoration? It is older maps’ aesthetic appeal, along with their importance as historical artifacts, that has a lot to do with their increasing value, says Philip Curtis, director of The Map House of London.
“The original limited supply,” he says, “further reduced by the vulnerability of paper over the centuries, has meant that prices have risen steadily. This trend seems set to continue.”
Cartography is similar to most other collectible hobbies in that it is important to establish a focus, be it region, time period or style. Curtis says that while centuries-old maps (such as those showing California as an island) tend to have high values, they can be cost-prohibitive for early collectors.
“The single most important piece of advice is to buy the very best you can,” he says. “This doesn’t have to mean the most expensive — it’s generally better to buy a superb copy of a moderately important map than a poor copy of a superb one.”
“To be blunt, books are a terrible investment,” says John Windle, an antiquarian bookseller. “It is absolutely the last resort of discretionary income or the passion of a mad person.”
Wait, what? Windle, who has been collecting books for 45 years, says the great unpredictability of book values keeps collecting sharks at bay. That means that your personal library is more likely to act like a savings account, appreciating “slowly and steadily.” But why the uncertainty?
“Every book is unique and it sells at a unique time,” he says. “There was a time when you couldn’t give F. Scott Fitzgerald away. Now (first editions) can sell for a couple hundred thousand dollars.”
Windle says the popularity and value of authors and genres is determined significantly by zeitgeist, particularly political and economic climates. During democratic administrations, works by Henry David Thoreau see spikes, while Republicans benefit from values associated with Ayn Rand.
“It waxes and wanes,” Windle says.
If you have the funds or inventory, rare books can average 9% annually over 20 years, according to Paul Fraser Collectibles, and there are occasional blockbusters.
And all this time you thought you were doing your niece a favor by holding on to that 1998 desktop computer in your garage for her college career. No, it turns out that hunk of plastic, metal and 32 megabytes of memory might have one more gift for you, as vintage computing is gaining resale value in certain square-shaped markets.
We have officially reached an age in collecting when hilariously primitive personal computers are fetching large figures, as an Apple-1 (the company’s original model) sold at auction in November 2010 for more than $213,000.
The Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists — that’s MARCH to you, buddy — is a far cry from an investment firm, but the value of their pastime has made its way into the mainstream since the Apple craze started. Its leader, Evan Koblentz, has said early Apple models, such as the Lisa, which sold in 1983 for $10,000, could “easily” fetch $15,000 on the market today.
http://money.msn.com/personal-finance/cashing-in-on-your-collectibles
Tags: 1998 desktop computer, alternative assets, alternative investing, Apple, books, clutter, collectibles, collecting baseball cards, collecting sharks, ebay, F. Scott Fitzgerald, hold on to your investment, old maps, Pez dispensers, potential value, vintage computing, worth