Collecting, Investing- Hypothetical ?

[58pinson]

Pretty much no doubt in my mind it would be art. An original piece of work by an artist I admire. Enjoyment would be guaranteed and financial appreciation highly probable, IMHO. An example:

[Touch'EmAll]

Top condition 1987 Buick Grand National

[Bicem]

You'd be late to the party, but first appearance comics I think hold their value over time, especially in the Marvel universe.

[ClementeFanOh]

You hit a home run there, Jeff. No doubt about comics!

[Exhibitman]

Rock superstars autographs; The Beatles, Prince, Springsteen, etc. Lots of potential there and lots of fun too.

[packs]

I'd love to be able to focus on collecting fossils and other fossil-related things like amber and meteorites. I always look at the Heritage auctions and think about how nice it would be to collect that stuff, but am bogged down with my card addiction.

[drcy]

Interesting concept, but I'd have to study the market. I know what I'd like to collect, but as far as value and investment I have no idea.

[steve B]

I've collected stuff pretty much my whole life, and I will say that hitting it big with any collectible as an investment is pretty risky. Overall, unless you get really lucky, they won't keep pace with a simple index fund. Like traditional investing, there's a chance to really make a lot. But just like traditional investing, you have to be early to things, and very lucky.

Just as you could have bought Amazon at some crazy low price, you also could have bought pets.com or any of the host of failed .com companies that were around at the time.

Even among sports collectibles, that happens. when I started collecting, T206 Hofers like Young were $10 with Cobb maybe a bit more, and some a bit less. And not much difference between VG and ex. Did I buy them? Nope, the values were stable from year to year, but seemed to jump every few years. I should have caught on when they got to around 100-150, but nope.


So what you need to find is something that isn't currently collected by large numbers of people, but which has a lot of mass appeal. Then figure out which items are the best, and buy them as much as possible.


Even then, it's no guarantee.
Some stuff I've been a bit involved in like that

Early home computers - Were becoming huge just before 2000, busted along with the .coms, and haven't really come back. The "important" ones like Altair have held value, as have the popular ones like C64, but the rest aren't much more than curiosities. At the $2-10 they used to run at yard sales they're still not bad they just take up a lot of space.


NASCAR diecast - Going well, had a price guide, then just nothing. Overproduction pretty much did in the whole thing. I'm sure some are still "good" but the ones I found that cataloged $20-50? Nope. Just another sort of cool thing in a box.

The same for Hot wheels that aren't actually old. Even the ones the guides said were "rare" My daughter opened one she found to play with, and I couldn't really get mad. Especially after looking it up on Ebay, to find it was selling for about what I paid plus shipping.


What would I look for now?

I like a lot of the space related stuff. While the moon landing will be hot till maybe the end of the year, it will fade for another 10-25 years.

I'd go after stuff related to the current private space companies, especially anything identifiable with good provenance that's been flown. Actually flown space stuff of any sort is good, but there may be a small window of time where any that comes up will be ignored.

[LincolnVT]

Originally Posted by Bicem

You'd be late to the party, but first appearance comics I think hold their value over time, especially in the Marvel universe.

I agree with Jeff on this. Hulk, first appearance in my opinion has a lot of room to grow. Also, rare political autographs and items of historical significance.

[orly57]

Originally Posted by Bicem

You'd be late to the party, but first appearance comics I think hold their value over time, especially in the Marvel universe.

Baseball players come and go, but my kids love the same superheroes that I loved as a child. It seems to me that their iconic status is cemented. I never collected comics, but the artwork is pretty nice. I would think that they have already gone up in value with the recent rash of films, but you have to love the staying power of these comic book heroes.

[Goudey77]

In my view all tangible assets seem to trend similarly when looking at overall appreciation or depreciation. If sports cards trend down one day so will comics and vise versa. It's all relative when you are talking about people "investing" in collectibles. Since it is a reflection of overall economic health I wouldn't be too worried about which genre to put your money into. Collect what you enjoy and have fun with it. Life's too short to worry about the next hot collectible.

The only thing I would be on the lookout for and what worries me is when you have new speculators dumping big money into a genre of collecting. Unsustainable disruption is what I call it. The cliche bubble affect.

[tedzan]

Invest in "American Heavy Metal".....you will not be disappointed. You will enjoy driving these machines; and, when the novelty wears off then auction them off.

I acquired this 1957 Thunderbird in 1972 at a very reasonable price. It's value now is at least 20 x what I paid for this car. And, my family and I have had many
enjoyable times with it all these years.






I acquired this 1960 Thunderbird in 1993. I've been offered 5 x what I paid for it. No deal.....it's worth more than that.





TED Z

T206 Reference
.

[Rhotchkiss]

I would collect historical artifacts - anything from Ben Franklin’s bifocals to pieces of the the Berlin Wall. Indeed, I would collect them now (and I recently thought long and hard about bidding on Thomas Jefferson and MLK Jr. stuff), but it’s big dollars and I have no idea about value and authenticity, so it’s nerve wracking to take the plunge.

The things I like about comics are they seem similar to cards in many respect and I love that they have timeless characters. I agree there is something comforting in the fact that Superman can never kill his wife or get caught with drugs in real life and hurt his reputation, and that he never grows old.

[ullmandds]

Aside from my card collection...my art collection...my pottery collection...I have some apollo 11 memorabilia because my dad worked on it a bit...so it's sentimental.

[timn1]

Originally Posted by 58pinson

Pretty much no doubt in my mind it would be art. An original piece of work by an artist I admire. Enjoyment would be guaranteed and financial appreciation highly probable, IMHO. An example:

+1

[AGuinness]

Originally Posted by seanofjapan

Retro video games from the 80s.

They are surprisingly collectable in similar ways to cards. You have set builders trying to collect every game for the Atari 2600, etc. You have high end rollers chasing down the short printed rarities. And you have the same nostalgia factor that fed the baseball card boom: video games are to kids from the eighties what cards were to kids in the 50s.

Price wise though they haven’t caught up with cards, the holy grails still sell for just 5 figures rather than 7 figures like cards, stamps, comics,etc. There is a lot of potential for that to take off once the millenial generation actually starts getting money.

Originally Posted by 58pinson

Pretty much no doubt in my mind it would be art. An original piece of work by an artist I admire. Enjoyment would be guaranteed and financial appreciation highly probable, IMHO. An example:

I really don't know much about the video game market, but there has to be something there (in addition or besides vintage games or consoles) that is going to blow up. I think this because my understanding is that the gaming world is growing and now has fledgling leagues. I don't think it's going away and it has the potential to spawn some big "names" of gamers that may one day be considered the Ruth, Cobb, etc. of that world. Find out who that is and something that is collectable associated with them, and there you go.
The question specifically said no sports related, but if I was going to get some art, there are a couple of fantastic artists on this board and I'd love to have a Graig Kreindler or Tim Carroll original on my wall...