Collecting, Investing- Hypothetical ?
 

If you were given $50,000 tomorrow and told you had to invest it in some collectible area that was not sports or card related, where would you go? Something cool you are interested in but also something you think will appreciated nicely in value.

A few years ago I saw a piece that recommended NASA landing on the moon material and that seemed to make a lot of sense. Of course I didn't do it. I've loosely tracked stamps and coins throughout my life and neither of them seem to have been amazing investments generally. (Though I really should have picked up that inverted Jenny plateblock back in '75.)

Rare high grade Star Wars figures. Mint on card or prototype figures. AFA graded

Guns....

they are useful if there is a zombie apocalypse as an added bonus

Wow, that makes sense. I personally have very minimal interest in Star Wars, but I know I am in the small minority on that. People will be crazy into Star Wars for many many years.

See the occasional AH selling civil war and wild west pistols and the like. Always seem very cool.

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:

Top condition 1987 Buick Grand National

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

Comic collecting?
 

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

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

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.

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.

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.

How about prime real estate investment trusts in non taxable jurisdictions.

Great stuff. I appreciate the "collect what no one else is collecting" point. But that was easier to do decades ago. I feel like everyone collects everything now.

It's like how do you make money in real estate. One proven strategy is buy into a lousy neighborhood before it turns nice. But everytime I see a lousy neighborhood I see nothing but a lousy neighborhood. You used to be able to go on ebay and buy rundown houses in Detroit for $5. No idea if that is true anymore.

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.

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.

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.

A nice vintage convertible car... Something that may appreciate over time but something we can actual use, work on and not just look at and put away...

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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.

http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...mbattennis.jpg




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.

http://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan7...RDwoodshed.jpg



TED Z

T206 Reference
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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.

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.

Rolex watches are supposed to increase in value so one of these would be cool. I would probably be silly enough to wear it everyday and beat the BLEEP out of it.:D https://www.bobswatches.com/rolex-bl...d-supreme.html

agreed! I got one that I wear occasionally...a good investment that you can enjoy if you purchase wisely!!!!

i'm not familiar with that F Em variation!!!!!!!!!!

They make a great conversation piece.

From my study of watches, prices are a sometimes irrational function of the combination of component quality, manufacturing quality, and pure brand/snob appeal. There are many superb watches that cost next to nothing. Conversely, there are many watches whose cost is almost wholly due to the brand appeal.

Not sure this is true. My father owns a 1950s Rolex from my great uncle. I occasionally look them up on ebay and you can still get good deals on the classics, probably cheaper to buy vintage than brand new.

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Netflix, Amazon, Apple

Honorable mentions-

Google, Microsoft, Facebook

Comics or cars
 

Both mentioned before. Comics - high grade bronze Ave first appearances and key first issues (the better silver Are books are more than 50k already). Probably still get a good muscle car for around 50k.

I've got three-Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. Wish I bought more.

Also have a nice Rolex watch.

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.

Nokia, major turnaround with 5G. :eek:

I don't like their cars either.

No Kia for you?

I tell my wife, "Hon', da car I need."

And that no doubt preserves accord.

I'm guessing you two were huge M*A*S*H fans . . . . .

Alda way.

I'd be into antiquities, from Egypt especially, and Peru. Real sphinxes...

Art
 

+1

What are the holy grails? I loved the 2600, but you lost me on the millenial generation caring about the 80s? They would have been infants in the heyday of the 2600. Logically, I'd say it should have peaked by now.

Well I don't know about myself, but a gentleman in the Greater Spokane area who owned an antique store was really into Pickle Castors. Never heard of them? They are fancy jars to put pickles in. Late 1800s, early 1900s. Sold in the Sears Roebuck catalogs. All different levels of silver plate, and decorations. Today, mint specimens can sell over $1000. This guys antique store probably had 20-30 examples. They were fascinating - really ornate. But I always wondered who would buy one?....well my wife did. But it was cracked, so she paid something like $150-200.

That's the really difficult part. If I was any good at it, my collection would be a lot nicer.


The list of stuff that's already had its day and just isn't "big" anymore is huge.

Telephone/telegraph Insulators
Old bottles
Old ads for cars etc.
Beer cans
Hummel type things
Fiesta ware
Jadeite
Rocks and minerals
Old light bulbs
Old radios
Breyer horses

All stuff I've been into a little or not such a little. Maybe a lot less on the Hummel type stuff, but Mom liked it, so I learned about the series she liked. My sister was/is into the Breyer horses.


None of that stuff was really big, but most of it had published price guides.


Even some really fringe stuff has had its surges, I'm in a facebook group for people that collect vises, clamps and anvils... Yes, some people collect anvils. They often lament how only a couple years ago nice usable ones were maybe $1 a pound, but now that the show "forged in Fire" is popular, the millennials are bidding them up at farm auctions, and $3-4 is the going rate. (I watch the show with my 8 year old daughter, it's pretty good.)
I don't collect, but it's a goodplace to learn about them. Eventually I want one, and maybe if I can scrape together the money one of the decorated European ones from the 15-1700s

Someone could have had a nice little return if they'd bought a bunch maybe 4-5 years ago. But that opportunity has passed.

There are a few holy grails. Air Raid for the Atari 2600 is one of them, I think only a couple dozen copies are known to exist and only 2 or 3 still have the box. One sold for bout 30,000$ on Ebay a few years back.

Millenials are a bit young for the 2600 specifically, but are right for later consoles like the NES or Genesis, which are also massively popular among collectors.

I would buy 50k in vlad guerrero jr rookie cards,,,,,ok just kidding

No doubt it's autos but you need to buy something higher grade than 50k will get you. There simply aren't enough older fine automobiles available and there is too much money chasing them. Think about how fine the machining and mechanicals are on many of the higher end names, Ferrari, Lambo, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, etc. When there are a few tens of thousands of individuals worldwide with fortunes over 100 million and many with much more, cars with low production have to increase. Heck good luck buying a DB5, one billionaire has decided to buy every single one that comes to auction, he has decided not to be outbid period. I think he has over 200 in his collection now. My pick is a 1973 BMW 3.0 CS with Euro style bumpers, not as flashy as the 3.0 csi. Nice examples can be had for 60-70k sometimes less though a concourse example will cost u 150+. These will appreciate significantly in my opinion.

i've always loved the 3.0 cs/csi's. I've been following them since you could get a decent copy for under 10K...those days are long gone!!!!!

historical signed documents
 

Documents signed by iconic historical figures. If there was more widespread standardization of auto grading on these documents and a population database/price guide for auto grades this market would completely take off.

People chase high grade comics, stamps, coins, and cards. They would do the same for high grade autos of Lincolns, Washingtons, Jeffersons, Franklins, etc.

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...