[raulus]

$1.3M is a lot of bread. The funny/not funny thing is that there are probably a good number of us whose collections today would equal or exceed this amount. Or if not to this level, they would be a decent fraction of this total. So the thought exercise isn’t as silly as it might seem at first blush. Because even if you want to take a zero off the total, at $130K, it’s still a lot of value to have tied up in a collection.

So by holding onto our collections, we’re saying something about our priorities and financial willingness to hold onto the collection rather than trade it in for something else that we could get with all that sweet, sweet cash.

Of course, part of the fun in this exercise is the fact that you’re buying a single piece with all that cash. There’s something about the size of that stack of cash that makes it extra ludicrous to plow it into a single piece. But is it really all that different to have a similar level of value spread across 10,000 items? Certainly there’s room to debate it, although my guess is that while it isn’t as shocking to the senses to buy 10,000 pieces at $130 apiece especially if you are picking them up over 50 years. My guess is that most of us would view that as perfectly fine, particularly if it didn’t really feel like a financial burden to get there. But suddenly if you’re spending $1.3M to buy just one piece, that’s a bridge too far.

Food for thought!!