Do you stack or save any possible future collectables? What?

[inspectorgadget]

I have been stacking all vintage unused matchbooks from anywhere & glass ashtrays from popular restaurant chains such as Arby's & McDonald's + local restaurants as well. I feel these things in 20 years & beyond will have significantly more value as collectables. Who gives out matches these days let alone have logoed ashtrays? Those markets are almost completely dead & have been for a while now. They were real abundant at one time but their the type of items that got thrown away or in the case of matches they got used.

One auction I go to (the biggest best one) someone in the office always buys/wins the large glass footed bowls full of matchbooks (that is when ever they have one) & I started thinking that's a good idea If you can get them for next to nothing. She pays at right at $25 usually, I wouldn't pay that much but I'd pay $5 + feel real good about it.

I also stockpile older 90's computer hard drives not to scrap them but because I want to design & make smaller desk type lamps out of their burl finished aluminum cases, the platters, parts & pieces in them. I have enough lamp parts & cords put away to make 50 lamps & I think I'll need 2 hard drives per lamp so I collect them up (for free) whenever I can. Anyway is there anything (other than precious metals) any of you guys are stacking or feel it would be worth stacking that others might not be thinking about?

Thoughts?

 

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[Baltimore]

I think someone mentioned this before, but I think that the nostalgia factor is a big one. for example, if I could figure out what the kids who were born in the 90's (so currently late teens to early 20's) cherished as kids, I could probably pick that up for fairly cheap today because none of them have enough money or care to buy it again, or its right at the time where their parents are cleaning out their rooms after they move to college. Then maybe sit on that stuff for 10-15-20 years, and boom, you have a bunch of 40 year olds who want to relive their childhoods. The only problem is that its a gamble, it could just end up being that you sit on a pile of junk for a decade or two and realize it's still worthless. I don't know what the big moneymaker will be though... Legos? K'nex? Hot Wheels? Pokemon Cards? Only time will tell.

Right now I kind of hoard vintage wool and vintage workwear, simply because it is functional but also seems to be increasing in value as well. Plus I love it.

 

[Tallone]

This is something I have thought a lot about. I think back on stuff that I had (or could have had) for next to nothing that is now worth a fortune and I wonder what sorts of things are cheap now that will be very valuable later.

I remember when I was a kid growing up in Southern California we used to go to Disneyland once a year or so. In Fantasyland, they had a huge table full of original cel art from the Disney animated movies. They were selling these for $1 each. We bought a few Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck cels and thumb tacked them to our bedroom walls. Lord I wish I had loaded up on a few hundred of those and put them away for a few decades.

More recently, when my kids were young, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were all the rage. I went to Toys R Us every week or so and bought a few of the myriad action figures that series produced. I wound up with about 60 figures which I paid about $4 each for. I put them away and was careful to keep them in the original packaging. I sold them a couple of years ago and made about $800 on them.

I'm not sure what would be good buys today. Part of the problem is storage. As all you guys know very well, condition is often critically important in value, so whatever it is needs to be kept safe but how many of us have enough space to devote to long term storage hoping for a payoff many years later. And then there is age. If you are an older guy like me, I might be gone before my "stash" becomes a hot collectible.

This is a fascinating subject. Thanks for the post. I hope others weigh in with stories and ideas.

 

[clovis97]

Over the years, I've often thought "that might be worth something someday" in reference to a group of collectibles.

I vividly remember back when US WWII stuff was basically worthless. I was told repeatedly, "US stuff will never be worth anything because there is so much of it." Unfortunately, I was young and listened to them, and wound up being dead wrong.

I can think of a ton of stuff that was worthless at one time, but now would buy a nicely optioned Cadillac, had you stocked up on those things.

Car parts, silver coins, rusty signs, Pontiac rims, junk carbs, US Vietnam era military, vintage Fiesta, anything Danish, Modern or Mid-Century...the list goes on and on.

Personally, I think finding the next big thing is quite a challenge. I would think that it would be consumable items that most people didn't collect.

And I think that luck has something to do with it also. A vintage Chambers stove was a worthless heap of scrap metal, generally speaking, until Rachael Ray featured hers on her cooking show. US WWII was found at every auction until Band of Brothers was released, and prices soared. All we need now is to have the pop band One Direction feature a few Beanie Babies in a couple of their forthcoming videos, and we'll all be scouring the estate sales and auction barns to feed the next new collecting craze.

 

[inspectorgadget]

Have to agree clovis....

I guarantee the (as of now still somewhat cheap) mid 90's quality BMX bikes will be valuable pretty soon. The bike trend has followed suit for the past 20 years or more. Once the good quality bikes get to be 25-30 years old they come back into demand & bring premium money. 90's DK BMX bikes are one of the best to buy right now even at $100-$150 for one because soon (5 years or so) they will be going for $500-$700 to $1000 or more.

I will keep & put up just about anything I like for some odd reason or that I find unusual yet don't really want to display or anything. I've also started filling a box full of old (30's thru 70's) promotional advertising items (anything small with a business name or advertisement on it) like rulers, tape measures, pencils, pens, pocket calendars, mini grooming kits, key chains, coin purses & on & on... Future value who knows? But it takes up little room & some of the stuff is cool to check out now & I never pay a single cent for these items.

One day large higher end working rear projection CRT TV's (especially the short lived high def widescreen models that can't hardly be given away anymore) will be in demand. Those heavy bulky things are getting smashed, stripped of the electronics & hitting dumps left & right. Soon (10 years or so) only a few will remain (let alone good working ones) & they will become like the big heavy vintage turntable stereo cabinets or old jukeboxes. Not many of those TV's will survive because of their weight + size & right now you can get them for free if you pick them up but how would you store a mass quantity of them & it would probably be your grandchildren at the soonest who would benefit in the end but again storing those TV's for that long is almost if not impossible or at least cost prohibitive. Unless you have a large empty barn on property that will stay in the family for generations & family members who wont give it all away, throw it all away or sell it all off for nothing... That all is asking a lot!

Imagine you're all grown up great grandchildren telling their friends they sold the 50 big old TV's their grandpa stored away in the barn for $125,000 (or who knows how much). Gotta think $2.5K per working TV isn't at all a high estimate as inflation will make that actual dollar amount a little lower sounding in the future. And again you can get them for free.

 

[Tallone]

clovis97 wrote:

All we need now is to have the pop band One Direction feature a few Beanie Babies in a couple of their forthcoming videos, and we'll all be scouring the estate sales and auction barns to feed the next new collecting craze.

Oh, please make it so! My daughters bought TONS of beanie babies during the height of the craze. I have 4 or 5 large plastic bins full of those things taking up space in the house. I can't convince my wife to get rid of them.

I see bins full of beanie babies almost every weekend at yard sales. People are literally trying to GIVE them away. If I thought there was a snowball's chance in hell of beanie babies becoming expensive collectibles someday, I would buy them by the truckload now for pennies. The problem is, there were probably hundreds of millions of those things produced so I can't imagine they will ever be in short supply.

And 20 years from now I will probably be kicking myself for my stupidity and lack of foresight!

 

[roygpa]

My mothers boy friend passed away 15 years ago and left her a bunch of Franklin Mint plates and Hummel figurines. My siblings and I recently moved her to an assisted living place and she made my take the plates (like only a mother's guilt can make you do something.) Now I have plates stacked in our furnace room, all not worth what it would cost to ship them. Wish they would increase in value.

 

[Tallone]

I don't know much about Hummels except that some of the older ones can be very valuable. You might want to check into the specific figurines you have, roygpa. You might be sitting on a small gold mine.

Back to the original topic... I have thought about this in terms of what makes an item valuable. There are, I think, several factors. Below is a list I whipped up off the top of my head:

1. Desirability/Popularity
2. Rarity
3. Historical Significance
4. Aesthetics/Style
5. Craftsmanship

Considering the factors above, what items are common today that meet one or more of those criteria? One thing that comes to mind are cell phones. Those have changed dramatically over the past 20 years or so and are hugely popular. I can imagine a time in the not too distant future when some people may begin to collect these to document the changes in this significant technological innovation. I suspect this may already be happening. A couple of years ago, I found an old Motorola "brick" cell phone, brand new, still in the original box. I bought it for $2 not having any idea if it had an value today. It sold immediately on ebay for over $50!



What do y'all think? Are cell phones a future collectible? Any other ideas on what is cheap and commonplace today that might be valuable later?

 

[clovis97]

Many years ago, I knew a guy that was always talking about buying and selling cars.

One thing that stuck with me was that he proclaimed that the best time to buy a future collector car was when it was 9 years old. According to him, that would be the optimum time to seek out and buy the lowest mileage/cleanest one you could find because the initial depreciation would be at its greatest point.

While it is just a theory he had about cars, there is an interesting idea here. What is it that looses almost all of it's value over time before spiking tremendously in collector value?

Anyone remember when Mid-Century couldn't be given away? I remember way back when, a local auction barn would literally dump Mid-Century furniture because it wouldn't sell, even for $1. I had a girlfriend once that paid $35 for a monster sized Mid-Century sofa, and I was both ticked at her and disappointed that she paid so much for an out of style piece. I honestly couldn't believe that she would have paid so much for that couch!

 

[Tallone]

Of course, the problem with things like cars and furniture is storage space. I suspect very few people have the space to stockpile large objects like these.

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

My mothers boy friend passed away 15 years ago and left her a bunch of Franklin Mint plates and Hummel figurines. My siblings and I recently moved her to an assisted living place and she made my take the plates (like only a mother's guilt can make you do something.) Now I have plates stacked in our furnace room, all not worth what it would cost to ship them. Wish they would increase in value.

As Bad as it is....Anything made to be a collectable is worthless....and i havent heard anythign good about the Franklin Mint....i wish i would have kept all my Nintendo games from back in the day

 

[clovis97]

Of course, the problem with things like cars and furniture is storage space. I suspect very few people have the space to stockpile large objects like these.

I agree. I was just using those as examples.

 

[Beachkid23]

What about Hess trucks. People ask me all the time if I want to buy boxes of unopened Hess trucks! I don't even want to look at them. One guy asked me to come into his shed. He had 100's of Hess trucks. He said $10 each!! All 80s and up

 

[diggummup]

What about Hess trucks. People ask me all the time if I want to buy boxes of unopened Hess trucks! I don't even want to look at them. One guy asked me to come into his shed. He had 100's of Hess trucks. He said $10 each!! All 80s and up

Oh lord not Hess trucks. My father in law (god rest his soul) used to buy cases of those things, literally. They were like stocking stuffers, lol. He would give them out to all his kids (grown), his grandkids, his friends kids,, neighbors kids, his waitresses and bank tellers and gas station attendants and anybody else who may have a kid. He was a generous man. Needless to say, I/we have every Hess truck made for the last 20 years or so, except the last two years. The wifes brother sold the whole lot of his at the last yard sale we had. $4 each, new in the box. Some of the older ones will fetch a good penny though.