Poll of the Day > Collectibles are a terrible investment

(+) Yeah! (+)

You're thousands of dollars of collectibles can be burned overnight and good luck getting insurance to pay their "value".

You're much better off doing stocks for investment

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Depends on what it is. If you're willing to put in the sweat equity you can buy at 25th percentile and sell at 75th percentile. Or you can stock up on something that we all know goes up in value like Disney movies that will be vaulted soon and quickly double your investment.

But if you're wanting a passive buy and hold strategy, just go with 60-30-10 VTSAX:VTIAX:VBTLX and set it to rebalance every once in a while.

Yeah stocks certainly cant lose their value rapidly without warning

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If you're collecting things for investment purposes, you should probably be investing in a fireproof safe for exactly that reason.

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Like no shit? Anyone who "invests" in collectibles is a moron.

90% of the time it tends to keep its value or rise slightly with inflation. Sometimes it can skyrocket, but it can be difficult to sell and the value can vary wildly depending on the condition and the buyer/seller. It's not something to make money off.

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And when they become a lot less collectible, you'll find no one wants to buy at the prices you fondly imagined they'd fall over themselves to pay. Or even at the price you originally paid.

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Mead posted...

Yeah stocks certainly cant lose their value rapidly without warning

They can recover. Your burned up comic collection won't. (Not saying you have one just using as an example)

Firewerx posted...

And when they become a lot less collectible, you'll find no one wants to buy at the prices you fondly imagined they'd fall over themselves to pay. Or even at the price you originally paid.

My parents and beanie babies. I recall my mom spending more than 300 on one.

That said though I sold a Lego millennium falcon for over 5k. Then like a year later an updated version came out so it was still a bad idea I just got lucky


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Yeah I have thousands of comics but very little interest in selling any of them lol

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CarefreeDude posted...

My parents and beanie babies. I recall my mom spending more than 300 on one.

You read my mind. Beanie babies were indeed the example I was thinking of. My wife held onto them, waiting for the price to go even higher ... and held on for way too long.

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Metalsonic66 posted...

Yeah I have thousands of comics but very little interest in selling any of them lol

I'm not saying you shouldn't have collectibles, I'm saying you shouldnt buy collectibles for the purpose of selling them later

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CarefreeDude posted...

They can recover.

I mean, couldnt they also just not?
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CarefreeDude posted...

You're thousands of dollars of collectibles can be burned overnight and good luck getting insurance to pay their "value".

That's true of literally any physical investment, not just collectibles. Art? You're going to want to insure it because it can be destroyed. Real estate? You're going to want to insure it because it can be destroyed. A million other things? You're going to want to insure it because it can be destroyed. And pretty much ANYTHING you invest that has a monetary value like that needs to be specifically evaluated and properly insured. If you own paintings by famous artists, you're going to get next to nothing unless they're properly evaluated and your insurance policy specifically covers them.

The bigger issue with collectibles is that not everything substantially increases with value. Rare coins or stamps might stay the same value so you're not gaining anything.

CarefreeDude posted...

You're much better off doing stocks for investment

Well, those can be stolen as well (and it's harder to insure against theft in that case) or the stock can tank or the company go out of business. There's no such thing as a completely safe investment.

CarefreeDude posted...

They can recover. Your burned up comic collection won't. (Not saying you have one just using as an example)

No, they often can't recover. A lot of major stocks that became penny stocks remained penny stocks and any stock where the company closes is generally worthless thereafter, which is worse than a fire because you fucking get nothing. And at least with a fire where you've properly insured your collection, you're getting close to the right amount of money in return.

The biggest problem with collectibles isn't "fires" or theft -- because insurance can specifically be bought for that -- but simply that the value doesn't increase or actually decreases, which is especially the case when it comes to mass-market pop culture items. However, broadly speaking, if you sit on most things for long enough, they'll go up in value. But even if something triples in price over time, you won't necessarily make as much as you might have if the money was otherwise invested.

CarefreeDude posted...

I'm not saying you shouldn't have collectibles, I'm saying you shouldnt buy collectibles for the purpose of selling them later

Or be smarted about what you buy. Beanie Babies were a new market. Something like comics have been popular for close to a hundred years now. If you bought a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1963, that 12-cents could net you $800k to $1.4m today (and even copies in terrible condition have sold for a far less impressive $8k, which is still many times over inflation). Where else are you going to get that kind of return?

https://comics.gocollect.com/guide/view/123567

However, you'd have to be savvy enough to see the investment opportunity and, more importantly, the odds of making that kind of money again are greatly diminished by the fact that the conditions that enabled that value -- such as comics not being viewed as being all that collectible so people weren't taking care of them -- have changed.

In general, all investment is gambling. Stocks certainly aren't safe. There are some safer options for stocks (like mutual funds), but even then we've seen that they can take hits. Even bonds aren't safe, as we've seen with irresponsible places like Puerto Rico:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/09/puerto-rico-bondholders-strike-35-billion-debt-restructuring-deal.html

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Depends on the collectible. If you're super into like Magic or Pokemon, it's actually quite feasible you'll get some valuable pulls. I know I have several $100+ Pokemon cards that will only go up in value.

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Zeus posted...

However, you'd have to be savvy enough to see the investment opportunity and, more importantly, the odds of making that kind of money again are greatly diminished by the fact that the conditions that enabled that value -- such as comics not being viewed as being all that collectible so people weren't taking care of them -- have changed.

This is probably the biggest issue with collecting for investment purposes. Even stuff that's explicitly meant to be collected and has a limited production run for that reason isn't going to increase in value if people in the future don't care about it, and especially if it sees a rerelease (which becomes more likely as its value increases). It's very easy to look back and say "man, I wish I'd bought more obscure comic books," but making such predictions is much, much harder than assessing it in hindsight. It's basically sheer dumb luck.

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blu posted...

Depends on what it is. If you're willing to put in the sweat equity you can buy at 25th percentile and sell at 75th percentile. Or you can stock up on something that we all know goes up in value like Disney movies that will be vaulted soon and quickly double your investment.

But if you're wanting a passive buy and hold strategy, just go with 60-30-10 VTSAX:VTIAX:VBTLX and set it to rebalance every once in a while.

I dated a crazy Disney-lover in college who had to get all the vaulted movies. She insisted they would be worth a fortune. Then, she had to start converting her whole VHS collection to DVD. Since there won't be a universal format - I doubt a Disney movie would be worth any money.

did your house burn?

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CarefreeDude posted...

You're thousands of dollars of collectibles can be burned overnight and good luck getting insurance to pay their "value".

You're much better off doing stocks for investment

If you're buying an action figure in hopes of reselling it one day for massive profit than you're being stupid.

If you're buying a painting from a famous dead artist in hopes of reselling it that's not stupid.

That said, I don't know anyone who buys figures and character merchandise because they want to resell them, they buy them because they like them and want to keep them.
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TigerTycoon posted...

That said, I don't know anyone who buys figures and character merchandise because they want to resell them, they buy them because they like them and want to keep them.

This is true. The phenomenon is massively overstated. Keeping collectibles boxed up instead of on display is far from the norm.

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CarefreeDude posted...

They can recover. Your burned up comic collection won't. (Not saying you have one just using as an example)

My parents and beanie babies. I recall my mom spending more than 300 on one.

That said though I sold a Lego millennium falcon for over 5k. Then like a year later an updated version came out so it was still a bad idea I just got lucky

Beanie Babies, are a horrible example the problem with a good chunk of collectibles is they are flash in the pan shit. Beanie Babies were huge for like 7-8 years which is typical of a flash in the pan and temporary collectible, once the desire for them went out they crashed hard.

Meanwhile other collectibles have stood the test of time, old useful MTG cards have for the most part only gone up. Very old baseball cards of note have also for the most part only gone up. Very old and sought after comic books have for the most part only gone up. The problem is people get bought into hype on a hot new collectible or in baseball cards instance heavily investing in new baseball cards that were being flooded into the market and then they get burned once people stop caring.

I wish my dog hadn't chewed up my Dragon Megatron from when I was a kid

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TigerTycoon posted...

If you're buying an action figure in hopes of reselling it one day for massive profit than you're being stupid.

Well, that'd be a calculated gamble. Some rise dramatically in price, others don't. Just buying anything and expecting it rise would be like buying any stock and expecting it to rise -- it doesn't work like that. A lot of people buy penny stocks just to have money in the market, only to lose 100% of their investment when the company bankrupts, etc (or most of their money when it tanks even further).

Blightzkrieg posted...

Keeping collectibles boxed up instead of on display is far from the norm.

You can display things MiB. Most Funko Pop! collectors' displays look like a storefront. Granted, Pop!s look good in box and they're easier to display that way.


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kukukupo posted...

I dated a crazy Disney-lover in college who had to get all the vaulted movies. She insisted they would be worth a fortune. Then, she had to start converting her whole VHS collection to DVD. Since there won't be a universal format - I doubt a Disney movie would be worth any money.

She waited too long. Start selling them 1 year after vaulting. People will easily pay double the sticker price. They lose value if you buy and hold.