Collectibles may not be worth much

A few years ago, I went to an estate sale that was dominated by the presence of about twelve display cases filled with figurines.

According to the salesperson there were at least 2,000 little statues that the owner had collected over the years.

I don’t recall what the asking prices were but I’m sure that it was minimal. And when I came back the next day I really didn’t notice that any of them had been sold.

“How are you going to get rid of them?” I asked the man in charge. He shrugged his shoulders and answered: “I don’t know.”

It seemed to me that he would have sell the whole lot to someone who could part them out at a swap meet. And that person would probably not pay more than fifty cents each which proves that, with a few exceptions, all those Precious Moments, Hummel, Lladro, and other figurines are worth very little.

There are many people who bought them went they were issued, sometimes with the expectation that over the years they would increase in value. Especially the ‘limited edition’ ones were considered to be a good investment.

Then comes the point when, for one reason or another, they want to sell them. I can imagine the disappointment when they find out that the value is only a fraction of what they paid for it.

It’s not a new development though. For about ten years I worked for an auction company and more than a few times we had to give the bad news to people who wanted us to sell their collection.

They got a bitter taste in their mouth when they heard that their Franklin Min coins, plates, thimbles and such probably would sell for ten percent or less of what they had shelled out for it.

A few of them even got mad and assumed we were going to scam them. “Try to sell them elsewhere and you will find out” was our advice.

About fifteen years ago I helped friends set up a yard sale. They thought the Jim Beam decanters they had stored for years were worth quite a bit of money. I did a search on eBay, and I found about 6,000 of those things and only a handful had a bid on them.

Just now I searched eBay for Precious Moments, and it returned 84,000 results. And I found 45,000 listings for Hummel figurines.

It is clear that the value of an item is largely determined by its availability, or unavailability, if you will.

Many of the collectibles are cheaply made and mass-produced items that will never have significant value.

Recently I have seen a lot of ads and listings for ‘Funko Pops.’ Ugly pieces of plastic that probably cost no more than one dollar to fabricate.

Some of them are advertised as ‘rare’ and asking prices are in hundreds of dollars.

My opinion is that if you waste your money on junk like that you forfeit the right to complain about the high gas- and food prices.

Again, I did a quick eBay search for Funko Pops: an astounding 580,000 listings.

And the other day I saw a Facebook post of someone who as a booth at an antique mall filled with 2,000 of them.

Good luck with that, you won’t see me there.