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Post by tolworthy on Feb 25, 2016 16:03:57 GMT -5
I'm not sure what the point of this thread is, but I just need to post somewhere. And it is relevant... I think.
It's a poignant, slightly sad day today. We are sorting out my father in law's stamp collection. He built it up all his life. It was his obsession. Some of my partner's earliest memories are of stamps spread around the furniture, drying out after being steamed off envelopes. He was very careful with money, but always bought the latest stamps. They were his investment for his children.
Well if you know anything about stamps, you know the rest. Today we had a stamp expert over to value the collection. He confirmed what we were already hearing online: the collection, once reasonably valuable, is now almost worthless. Stamp collectors are dying off. So supply greatly exceeds demand, and the Internet just makes that worse. We spent the evening checking eBay for typical prices on the kind of stamps we have. Zero bids... zero bids... zero bids.
It's not about the money. It's about a man's hopes and dreams. Take his extensive collection of first day covers for example. Each one is addressed by his own hand, with his name in its proudest form: "[name name] esq, [then a list of letters after his name: every qualification he had]" Their value today? Well the book they are in might fetch a couple of pounds. If we throw out the contents (ironically, they add too much to postage).
All his time spent investing in his future, as he saw it. And for what? Did it make him happy? Yes, but only because he thought he was investing in the future. A future in which people will always love stamps, right?
So I wonder if comics will ever go that way. I think probably not, as new readers are still discovering comics... but are they?
I don't collect comics for money. But deep down inside I still hope that other people care. Will there ever come a time when the last comic reader dies? Will our grandchildren wonder what they should do with the collections that meant so much to us?
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Post by MDG on Feb 25, 2016 16:26:59 GMT -5
My uncle and my father collected stamps--not seriously, but there are a couple of boxes of albums in my basement. Some coins, too, but I don't imagine getting more than face value for any.
I think stamp collecting meant more to people when they symbolized things from other times or far-away lands. (Today, it's hard to walk into a store and find something that didn't come from a far-away land.)
The value of "collectibles" is based on people wanting to own them because of some meaning they hold. And "meaning" may not transfer generation to generation.
I guess it's, like you hear a lot in this hobby, buy what you love 'cause you love it. But don't look at it as an investment.
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Post by The Captain on Feb 25, 2016 16:31:20 GMT -5
This touched me since it is near to my heart, as my father has been a stamp collector his entire life. He mainly collects older US stamps (things from the late 1800's and early 1900's), which I believe retain a good deal of value, but your question about the future of collecting is valid.
Many articles I have read recently have indicated that collecting of anything is dying, and a big part is because millennials don't want accumulations of "stuff." They want to be unburdened by material objects that take up space, because that space costs money in either a mortgage or rent, and urban living, which is making a resurgence here in the US, is expensive, so the less space one needs for "stuff", the less one has to pay for a place to live. A good example of this is video or music collections: while I still buy DVDs and CDs (less often, but still on occasion), they live in an "On Demand" world where they would rather pay for or utilize Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, IHeartRadio, etc., and stream the same things that I buy, but they need no physical room to store it.
My father will be 69 this year, and I can see a day sooner rather than later that my sister and I will be going through the same thing you are currently doing with your partner. Neither of us has any interest in his collection, so we will look to maximize the return on it and use that money for something we want, and the collection that he has so carefully compiled over the past 60 years will be no more, just as I am sure my comic book collection will be some day when my daughters decide they don't want my copies of Captain America or Thor or any of the others.
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Feb 25, 2016 16:49:22 GMT -5
A good example of this is video or music collections: while I still buy DVDs and CDs (less often, but still on occasion), they live in an "On Demand" world where they would rather pay for or utilize Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, IHeartRadio, etc., and stream the same things that I buy, but they need no physical room to store it. Well, the problem with CDs and DVDs is that those are reproductible medias. And there is no difference between a CD and a Wave file. But I can assure you that the vinyl first hand market is blooming again, and the second hand market is crazy, as there's just not enough offer on so many items that bootlegers are making a fortune : many people including millenials crave to own physical format for their music, they just are smart about which one. I'v already witten a letter of instruction to my family about how to handle my vinyl collection in case I unexpectedly died, since it could make a difference between 10000$ and 850000$ !!! Reissues affect prices a little for 2-3 years, then it's back up again. The main difference between the vinyl market and most other artistic mediums is the much higher costs of production of a vinyl, which means that the market never is flooded. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 25, 2016 17:16:05 GMT -5
I think that's going to come back around. Yeah, people born since the internet age are 'on demand'.. but I see my daughter and her friends get frustrated by that when, for example, Netflix dropped the rights for Doctor Who, or when her iPod dies and she can't list to any music.
Steaming/on demand services are still a developing industry, too, so I thing things could very much change in the years to come.
Stamps, I'd think, will eventually have historical value, but if there aren't as many collectors, yet, I can see the prices dropping.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2016 17:23:51 GMT -5
Well if you know anything about stamps, you know the rest. Today we had a stamp expert over to value the collection. He confirmed what we were already hearing online: the collection, once reasonably valuable, is now almost worthless. Stamp collectors are dying off. So supply greatly exceeds demand, and the Internet just makes that worse. We spent the evening checking eBay for typical prices on the kind of stamps we have. Zero bids... zero bids... zero bids. Depends on the stamps tolworthy. For example, these were recently released in Australia and the price shot through the roof. www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/stamp-collectors-mad-over-emergency-stamps/news-story/9c430e66f7b69a6c62799ca5006770ccI collect stamps still... |
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Post by The Captain on Feb 25, 2016 17:34:35 GMT -5
A good example of this is video or music collections: while I still buy DVDs and CDs (less often, but still on occasion), they live in an "On Demand" world where they would rather pay for or utilize Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, IHeartRadio, etc., and stream the same things that I buy, but they need no physical room to store it. Well, the problem with CDs and DVDs is that those are reproductible medias. And there is no difference between a CD and a Wave file. But I can assure you that the vinyl first hand market is blooming again, and the second hand market is crazy, as there's just not enough offer on so many items that bootlegers are making a fortune : many people including millenials crave to own physical format for their music, they just are smart about which one. I'v already witten a letter of instruction to my family about how to handle my vinyl collection in case I unexpectedly died, since it could make a difference between 10000$ and 850000$ !!! Reissues affect prices a little for 2-3 years, then it's back up again. The main difference between the vinyl market and most other artistic mediums is the much higher costs of production of a vinyl, which means that the market never is flooded. Funny you mention vinyl. My father was the popular music critic for the local paper here in Pittsburgh for close to 20 years in the 1970's and 1980's and was a collector before that in the 1960s, so he has a fabulous vinyl collection. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, all kinds of obscure 50's and 60's stuff; it's a treasure trove, and most of them are original pressings. |
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Post by tolworthy on Feb 25, 2016 18:04:20 GMT -5
Well if you know anything about stamps, you know the rest. Today we had a stamp expert over to value the collection. He confirmed what we were already hearing online: the collection, once reasonably valuable, is now almost worthless. Stamp collectors are dying off. So supply greatly exceeds demand, and the Internet just makes that worse. We spent the evening checking eBay for typical prices on the kind of stamps we have. Zero bids... zero bids... zero bids. Depends on the stamps tolworthy. For example, these were recently released in Australia and the price shot through the roof. www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/stamp-collectors-mad-over-emergency-stamps/news-story/9c430e66f7b69a6c62799ca5006770ccI collect stamps still... That's good. My father in law bought all the wrong kinds: royal weddings, low denominations, anything that was sold in the tens of millions. The only stuff he spent a lot of money on were the collectors' sets, where ordinary low value stamps are given expensive and essentially useless sleeves. I wish he had your understanding of how markets work. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 25, 2016 19:40:06 GMT -5
This thread makes me sad. Even with comics, you can pick up very nice books on the cheap. People are buying digital comics instead of the physical copies. It seems that collecting is a lost art.
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Post by Red Oak Kid on Feb 25, 2016 20:05:27 GMT -5
My mother was a collector and I guess I got that gene from her. As long as I can remember, I've always been interested in the past. As a small kid I was interested in things like old cars, old radio shows, etc.
I think the value of old things goes in cycles. It also has to do with who has disposable income.
When I was a kid, old cars, like Ford Model T's had the highest value.
But now, the Baby Boomer generation values the muscle cars of the 60s. And they have the income to purchase them. The people who love the cars of the 1920s are on Social Security.
But eventually everything comes back around in value.
But you have to live a long life to cash in.
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Feb 25, 2016 20:34:46 GMT -5
Well, the problem with CDs and DVDs is that those are reproductible medias. And there is no difference between a CD and a Wave file. But I can assure you that the vinyl first hand market is blooming again, and the second hand market is crazy, as there's just not enough offer on so many items that bootlegers are making a fortune : many people including millenials crave to own physical format for their music, they just are smart about which one. I'v already witten a letter of instruction to my family about how to handle my vinyl collection in case I unexpectedly died, since it could make a difference between 10000$ and 850000$ !!! Reissues affect prices a little for 2-3 years, then it's back up again. The main difference between the vinyl market and most other artistic mediums is the much higher costs of production of a vinyl, which means that the market never is flooded. Funny you mention vinyl. My father was the popular music critic for the local paper here in Pittsburgh for close to 20 years in the 1970's and 1980's and was a collector before that in the 1960s, so he has a fabulous vinyl collection. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, all kinds of obscure 50's and 60's stuff; it's a treasure trove, and most of them are original pressings. Very few of the famous records are worth more than 20$. The more obscure the better, if you manage to identify the scene interested in those. In the long run, the less fluctuating items are the ones that are scarce, only have one printing and are good in their specific genre. Everything else goes more often out of fashion then back in. The craziest collection to find these days would be early mono Blue note records in NM/NM if not M/M. |
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Post by dupersuper on Feb 26, 2016 0:21:38 GMT -5
I got these for obvious reasons: my only foray into philately. I just saw them on sale at a post office for a few bucks one random day.  |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2016 1:19:44 GMT -5
I collect Comics ... but I had an older brother that had a stamp collection of over 15,000 different stamps and he still have them.
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Post by DubipR on Feb 26, 2016 13:50:05 GMT -5
Tolworthy,
I know what you mean. My father is stamp collector. I'm sure at a time he did for financial gain, but he just does it to make him happy. I don't think he purchases anymore but its what made my father him. My dad graduated with a degree in printing and print technology. The countries he collected weren't the biggest countries in the world; to him it was the print making process and the design that he loved. Seriously, how many people collected Guernsey stamps, let alone stamp collectors? I know his East Germany stamps might be worth something due to its WWII history and Nazi collectors. But it never was a financial for him (I think....
But I understand where you're coming from about us and the our future collections. Will it be like stamps and a dying medium? I don't know, but we all thought that when electronic comics came on the scene. But its strong now and holding, but not dying out as some though. Until we deplete all the trees, comics still have a toehold in the printed medium. My collection was never for financial gain, I have good comics that others will pay money for. For me it was enjoyment and escapism.
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Post by Rob Allen on Feb 26, 2016 15:43:02 GMT -5
When my brother and I grew up, we decided that I'd keep all the comics and MAD magazines, even the ones that he had originally bought, and he'd keep all of the baseball cards and other sports cards and magazines, even the ones that I had originally bought. He sold a handful of the most valuable cards during a period of unemployment in the 1980s, but still has most of them. Is the baseball card market going the way of the stamp market?
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