(no subject)

[yendi]

Does anyone remember "Gather Ye Acorns," the Very Special Episode of Amazing Stories starring Mark Hamill? Hamill is told by his invisible pet troll that he should never throw anything away, and eventually, when he's seventy years old and miserable and living in a trailer full of junk, he sells it all and is filthy rich for the final year of his life, until he has a stroke and dies without accomplishing a thing (okay, I may be misremembering the ending slightly).

Well, that story is horseshit.

I've been weeding through stuff to sell on eBay, and the fact is, the collectibles market died ages ago. Action figures, mint on card, are worth less than original price we bought 'em for. Software, video games, clothes -- all worth a few bucks, sure, but nothing special. And don't get me started on comics and cards, where the market fell out back when I was bitching about George Bush Senior being president. Basically, whatever money we make off of this stuff will be from volume.

In other words, don't hold on to your old crap just because an invisible troll tells you to. If it's not something you're attached to, and you have a chance to make a buck off of it, do it now.

Comments

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Dude. I so love you.


u

[branwynelf.livejournal.com]

I think about that episode all the time when cruising ebay - coz stuff bought in the 50s was worth a small fortune in the 80s ... but now thanks to ebay the markets are flooded and prices for things are really stable and much lower than in the past.

[hotcoffeems.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I remember that episode. Wasn't it a real honest-to-goodness Toby mug or something that proved it was all worth lots? Yeah, right.

I need to get rid of lots of crap. But it's so haaard (whine)...

I remember that one

[pinballsorceror.livejournal.com]

But on the subject of collectibles, I think it's all about relevance. GiJoe's may not draw all that much water, but old star wars figures still do. Magic cards are another example, in order to profit from the old ones they have to be relevant, i.e. don't assume your cards will be worth a lot 20 years from now, you still would have to sell them during magic's life-cycle.

[photognome.livejournal.com]

And just like Im always telling people, "If something new is being sold to you as a collectible, or has the word collectible on it in any form, it wont be worth squat". The reason the collectibles (i.e. comic books, star wars toys, baseball cards) WERE of value, was because when we were kids we actually read the comic books (and tore the covers), played with the star wars toys (and broke the arms and legs off) and put the baseball cards in the spokes of our bikes. This meant that pristine comics, toys and cards were hard to come by and thus rare and valuable. But now everyone puts comics in plastic sleeves with non acidic backing boards after reading them once (if ever), leaves the toys in the blister packs (and never gets to play with them), and confines baseball cards to thick binders, never to see the light of day that might possibly (gasp) fade the color on the triple poly laminated card. The result of all this? There are hundreds of thousands of these books, toys and cards all in pristine condition, sitting and waiting to become valuable, but they wont ever become valuable, because there is no shortage of them. /end rant

peace!
-Joe
http://public.fotki.com/photognome/portfolio

[bheansidhe.livejournal.com]

So what's the link to your ebay seller id? :)