The Re-seller sucktitude

[mathnerd]

I never understood the beanie baby craze. I bought a couple different ones just because I thought they were cute, or because a kid really wanted a particular animal, but my decision process was no different than anything else I might have purchased.

Now these, on the other hand...

http://www.giantmicrobes.com

I'm on a mission to own them all.

[Argabarga]

Like a gold rush, the only ones who get rich are the ones selling the shovels.

[Sapphire Silk]

Many years ago when my college friend got married he sold his collection of Marvel and DC comics he'd been collecting since he was five. Managed to pay for his honeymoon with that!

Then he decided to try and rebuild the collection. Gave up pretty quickly when he found out how much it would take to do it...

Comics are hard to make any money collecting with. Ever since the Death of Superman when they started in on all the special issues, foil issues, etc, they KILLED the speculators market, and the whole market for comic books collapsed.

Most comic books these days aren't worth the paper they're printed on. You can still make money on some titles if they're pre 1990's, especially popular story lines. But less popular titles aren't worth much, especially post DOSM.

I have hundreds of dollars in my comic book collection, but I can't sell them locally. The local comic book store doesn't do enough business in old books to be interested. I'll have to move to an area (or go visit) an area with a more active collector's market to even try to recoup the investment . . . and I'm not likely to make much of a profit (there isn't much demand for Impulse) on most of my books.

[Argabarga]

Comics are hard to make any money collecting with. Ever since the Death of Superman when they started in on all the special issues, foil issues, etc, they KILLED the speculators market, and the whole market for comic books collapsed.

Interestingly, that was only a few years after the same thing happened to the baseball card market.

When I was in Jr. High (1988) everyone had a collection and was striving to get the rarest cards. There were foil cards, hologram cards, "error" cards, "rookie" cards, reissued cards, animated cards, you name it, with everyone convinced that their collection would be worth as much as that one rare Honus Wagner card, if not more, if they just held on to it for long enough.

Kids carried binders of this stuff, and pricing guides, and were more schooled in depreciation rates and commodity valuation than most bankers.

Threatening to fold a baseball card in half could make a hardened man piss his pants.

Putting one in your bike spokes, even some career A-team left fielder who was never going to be a star, would cause women to faint into the arms of the dashing young man besides her, aghast you'd destroy a potential fortune that way!

Everyone knew who you were talking about when you mentioned "F*CK FACE"

Don Mattingly's chiseled face appeared in every Trapper Keeper.

By High School Proper, just two years later, the fad was over, the speculation bubble burst, and those who hadn't sold out where left with heaps of worthless cardboard, same reasons, overprinting of cards and "limited edition" merchandise that was hyped as an investment that would be "worth something" someday, but, since they printed millions of them, and encouraged people to do everything short of putting them in a lead-lined vacuum sealed vault, to keep them perfect, well, it meant anyone who wanted one could get one, mint, for pennies.

The card printers quickly went bankrupt or merged, and today, I think only one or two names from the industry of that era still survive.

[Zapper]

The "local" game store near my house sells Magic cards individually as well as in decks.

One such card is going for around $50.

People are nuts.

On that note, I do collect Pokemon cards. Just because the artwork is awesome (and also because a number of kids at the services I work at do play Pokemon TCG and it makes a good starting point for new children)

Magic has exploded the last couple of years. The player base grew to about four times what it was, and the new competitive format - Modern - took off. Major supply and demand issues hit, as there are far fewer cards than can fit demand. WoTC also introduced a new rarity, making certain powerful cards even more scarce. Prices have gone up tremendously. There have been dollar rares hitting the $30+ mark almost overnight because that card showed up in a successful tournament deck! leading to bandwagon building.

[sms001]

.giantmicrobes.

Those are awesome. Lovin' Staph's little cape.

My only collectibles anecdote, and one that to this day I'm hesitant to research, is that I was a HARDCORE Washington Senators fan and had a complete season by season collection of their cards during their final five years. Left it behind when we moved to Missouri.

[Jetfire]

Yeah, 50$ for a magic card is probably about on par for a chase Rare/Mythic in a current set. Once the set rotates out, if it holds value, you can see the prices going into the Hundreds of dollars. The Fetch lands from Zendikar are 50-80$ EACH now, due to the Modern format; and of course Tarmogoyf is 200$.

It's probably one of the few collectables that you can 'invest' in relatively safely, since Wizards/Hasbro seems to be trying to protect the secondary market somewhat.

As for Comics, I've been collecting for decades now, with 2500+ books now. But I'm getting near the point where I'd consider getting rid of them. I've almost completely switched over to Comixology now, and love having the digitial books since I can read them whenever I want without digging too much. (I really love Marvel's Digital + Paper pairings). The only reason I still buy paper books is to support my local shop. Were he to close, Comixology would get 100% of my weekly pull list.

[otakuneko]

Kids carried binders of this stuff, and pricing guides, and were more schooled in depreciation rates and commodity valuation than most bankers.

I remember baseball cards. I even dabbled in them a bit. I remember my friends being a lot more into them than I was, though. And what I remember most was setting off a feeding frenzy of card-hunting at my house, when I decided to wash my hands of the whole thing by gathering up my friends and telling them, "any card you find is yours."

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Interestingly, that was only a few years after the same thing happened to the baseball card market.

One of my classmates just about peed his pants when he saw I bent a John Elway card, which is probably now worth what, 4 bucks? I wonder what the poor people are doing.

I used to have a couple Brett Favre rookie cards (as in still with the Falcons) in hard plastic sleeves someplace, but I probably lost them.

[rose_metal_nz]

Now these, on the other hand...
http://www.giantmicrobes.com
I'm on a mission to own them all.

OMG! Those look awesome!

[Mike Taylor]

Resellers have been the bane of my existence for nearly twenty years now, both as a retail sales associate and as a toy collector myself.

When I worked at the Fantastically Awesome Old toy shop on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, I had to put up with them for Elmo, Pokemon, and various Hot Wheels, G.I. Joe and Star Wars toy exclusives. They were less of an issue at the Workshop What Builds Bears, but we did have to deal with them when a certain famous reindeer was a part of our holiday line up one year.

Every time a new game console launches at the Big Yellow Price Tag, we keep an eye out for them as well. One of the most egregious offenders in my area was Play 'N' Trade. They were right across the parking lot from us and would brazenly come in to try to buy all of our Wii stock. That store eventually closed.

Then there were these dickheads....

[fireheart]

Only $50? Wow, the market has tanked. When I was forcibly removed from collecting (than you, asshat for stealing my car and entire collection...) I had several cards that were worth over $100 each, and a full set I could have sold for $2500.

My co-worker sold his entire collection at a convention about 5 years ago and bought a new Honda GoldWing.

I'll have to check, but $50 is off the top of my head. We'll be visiting the mall on Friday so I'll visit the store then and have a look.

Magic has exploded the last couple of years. The player base grew to about four times what it was, and the new competitive format - Modern - took off. Major supply and demand issues hit, as there are far fewer cards than can fit demand. WoTC also introduced a new rarity, making certain powerful cards even more scarce. Prices have gone up tremendously. There have been dollar rares hitting the $30+ mark almost overnight because that card showed up in a successful tournament deck! leading to bandwagon building.

Pokemon has this tendency to release the "winning" decks as "commemorative" sets, so that way people can get them and build up their own deck to try, but the commemorative decks are not tournament legal.

[EricKei]

overprinting of cards and "limited edition" merchandise that was hyped as an investment that would be "worth something" someday

Well, if you think about it, they WERE and ARE a successful investment -- for the people who make the cards...

[Zapper]

I'll have to check, but $50 is off the top of my head. We'll be visiting the mall on Friday so I'll visit the store then and have a look.



Pokemon has this tendency to release the "winning" decks as "commemorative" sets, so that way people can get them and build up their own deck to try, but the commemorative decks are not tournament legal.

Magic actually did that for a few years, too, releasing Championship decks - the top four from Worlds - with gold borders and a different back. They weren't tournament legal, either, and Wizards stopped doing them because they sold so poorly.

[Argabarga]

Ironically, selling poorly tends to make something a collectors item, since by definition, few people have them.

The pink Lionel "girls" train?

Certain models of Edsel?

Harley-Davidson Bikes from the AMF years that still have "AMF" badges?

Worth a LOT to collectors, because they failed commercially.