I know!
Yeah I had friends who were into the whole beanie buying and selling thing back in the day. They knew perfectly well that it was an irrational bubble akin to tulipmania and knew there was no long-term value in collecting them â but they knew there was money to be made in the short term and most of them did quite well from it as I recall.
More like a great sample of Greater fool or speculation and in this case, this is the last guy holding the bag. I donât see this as a scheme.
Like the recent financial crisis, was it a great idea to spend a huge chunk of wealth on just one thing?
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I get my kids Beanie Babies at our local bowling alley. They have a $2 play-til-you-win claw game thereâŚ
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Iâm impressed that theyâre still on good terms with each other. Iâm guessing that theyâre basically kind people.
I was going to make a similar comment. Think about the people who âinvestedâ 100,000 in a stock and then the price went to nothing. I have a relative who did that. He rubbed it in when he was âmaking moneyâ on paper. When the stock crashed from 124 to 3 dollars it was horrible. I could have rubbed it in when he lost it, but I didnât. I just decided that the stock market (especially individual stocks) is not a âgood investmentâ. There are too many people who know it is a rigged system, because they rig it. They are counting on âfishâ like this relative to buy their stuff not knowing that it wonât last. At least the guy buying has âthingsâ my relative just has pieces of paper and a line on a chart going to zero.
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It seems to me that he wasnât bankrupted by Beanie Babies, he bankrupted himself. He happened to use Beanie Babies to do it, but if it werenât them then it would be something else.
Itâs like those guys who always have some get rich quick scheme theyâre working on. Very rarely one of them will work and theyâll make the news, but they almost always broke otherwise (even after the one scheme works) because theyâre involved with so many other bad ideas.
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Far too many people assume that âoldâ always equals âvaluableâ and that ârareâ = âwill sell for tons of moneyâ.
They almost always forget that âdemandâ = âfickleâ and that without demand, âvalueâ = Zero.
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Chris has been hoping to make a feature-length documentary on his dadâs scores of illegitimate childrenâheâs got a brief bit about meeting his many half-siblings on these interwebs (Bastard). Hopefully the attention from BBB will give him the opportunity (anyone forced to work on âWhitneyâ has, in my opinion, paid his dues).
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Point is, Western civilization has been falling since the Fall of Rome. At least.
They probably went under because they spent all their gold on a complete collection of all Olympic deities, included the rare Aphrodite variant with the removable toga. (Both sets, of course - the Greek and the Roman one.)
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Yeah my brother was like employee #76 at Covad (itâs Megapath now) and had a sweet deal for stock options. He invested what he could into buying the stock, and did not sell what he was allowed to sell and diversify. He lost 3/4ths of his money when the dot com bubble hit, somewhere around $2M. I had called him so much bugging him to diversify that he would hang up the phone as soon as he heard my voice.
He wanted to play politics with the company and didnât see selling as good for his reputation at workâŚ
It was the '90s, assuming âcollectibleâ stuff would somehow become valuable in the future was in vogue.
The same kinda speculation boom nearly took out the american comics industry; even now it hasnât really recoveredâŚ
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I recently decided to start collecting records* mostly because I wanted something cheap and âadultâ to do, but Iâve kinda have gotten into it at a bad time. You see thereâs a âboomâ going on right now, to the point where new vinyl factories are opening up, but itâs also getting to where most new records are shipping with COLLECTABLE gimmicks such as random colored vinyls and shaped 7-inches. It doesnât help that thereâs other hype-events going on like Record Store Day where thereâs a fake demand for limited editions (nevermind that most record shops still have multiple copies of Lonely Islandâs #YOLO sitting around) which mostly end up scalped on ebay for many times the price, and most established best sellers are only putting out âdefinitive box setsâ of their new album for twice as much as the cd (Incubus and Flaming Lips come to mind). I also just found this
*I used to pick up something once in awhile and play it on my parents crappy all-in-one stereo unit, but then that all burned down, so now I have my own semi-nice unit and crate dig at thrift stores or get stuff directly at concerts because buying new at retail is retardedly expensive (25 to 40 dollars).
/addendum (ugh): http://macklemoremerch.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/pre-order-heist-deluxe-vinyl
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this reminds me of that new feature of Antiques Roadshow. When they re-run an old show, the part where the appraisal is displayed is now bordered by a more current appraisal, complete with a sad-trombone-esque sound effect when that price has fallen. Instead of thinking âwow, that doo-dad was worth $1000 back in '98, it must be double that now!â you see that âcollectiblesâ from the robust economies of the 90s-to-mid-2000s are really just junk now that nobody spends money on frivolities.
Of course, the true collectables hold their value, and the rarities still increase.
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Well, at least Beanie Babies have some intrinsic value as doorstops or loft insulation. Unlike BitCoins.
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I knew what it was gonna be before I clicked it. Remember when he wore 'em in the Young MC video?
(not sure embed will jump, itâs at 2:00)
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$100,000 for Princess Diana beanie still in package? Someone would have too be a real sucker too buy that over the internet. âSure itâs a good buy. Itâs going too triple in value in 20 years.â
Anyone who gets into collectibles should realize that âcollectibleâ means âthereâs a bunch of these objects out there to be had and a limited number of people who want to buy them.â
