Collectibles are terrible investments • Hacker News Board

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#141

Post by zhoujianfu » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #7

I find this argument very strange: > But it is, because in the long run, assets without cash flows cannot increase in value more than the economy as a whole. If something appreciates faster than the whole economy in the long run, it eventually eclipses the whole economy, which is impossible. No one is operating on an infinite time horizon in their investments, so this argument seems moot. You can certainly find colle…

I believe collectibles are one of the two forms of investments, and capable of being good investments.

A normal, warren buffet-style investment is a good investment if you are better at predicting future cash flows than the average investor.

A collectible is a good investment if you are better at predicting future demand than the average collector.

I consider a collectible anything that there is a limited supply of… ostensibly more (or not enough more) cannot be created to fulfill future increase of demand.

Real estate, professional sports teams, gold, beanie babies, art, old video games, and bitcoin all fall into the category.

If you can predict future demand for something of a fixed supply, you can do well.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#142

Post by formerkrogemp » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

bruce511 wrote: post #89

formerkrogemp wrote: post #15

Quoted post unavailable.

Alas sarcasm is rarely appreciated here (and I presume / hope you are being sarcastic?)

No post body was provided.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#143

Post by RickJWagner » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 4:53 PM UTC

I knew a guy who put thousands in baseball cards.

To the best of my knowledge, he's still storing them and working to keep them from getting moldy in his garage. I don't think he's ever had an offer to buy that's been close to what he put in.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#144

Post by rsync » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #75

The only Star Wars action figure worth having: https://www.etsy.com/listing/708113857/aunt-beru-and-uncle-o...

The only action figure worth having:

https://www.hideousplastic.com/?p=5136

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#145

Post by kingcharles » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 6:07 PM UTC

lalaland1125 wrote: post #116

koonsolo wrote: post #115

Beanie Babies seemed indeed like a terrible investment. Crypto on the other hand, outperformed everything else. Too bad a lot of you on HN missed out on this.

If you were early enough into Beany Babies, you did make quite a bit of profit

I was once the world's largest seller of Beanies, back in the 90s. Ty even tried to buy me off. I gambled the fad would last two years. It did. I made a fortune and then pissed it all away.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#146

Post by nradov » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #103

majormajor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are 90s baseball cards, pogs, and yo-yos looking? Or "regular" opened copies of NHL 94 or what have you? I think we often overlook all the shit we were into that hasn't gotten expensive. We'd have to basically index-fund this shit if we had really been trying to invest in it in 2000 or so, and I think the losers would be a big problem for our fund. Maybe you bought a 3000GT instead of a Supra because you didn't s…

Regular copies of NHL ‘94 aren’t worth much (because yearly sports releases have a lot of copies and are typically fungible with the year prior or later), but is still a fantastic game and worth the $17 market price. That said, 16-bit games have doubled to quadrupled in market price in the last 3-4 years and are becoming increasingly hard to find. I’m interested in seeing how a recession affects prices, but some rare…

Are there counterfeits being made? Seems like those games would be relatively easy to copy for someone with a little skill. I don't imagine many buyers are able to verify authenticity.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#147

Post by nradov » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 6:26 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #129

majormajor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is arguing that you aren't likely to be able to pick the ones that will grow faster than the economy as a whole over the time frame you intend, because it relies on an extreme amount of right-place-right-time luck. If you were looking for the next Beanie Baby for the last 20 years, do you think you would've found it? I think it's also arguing that the particular appreciation you need to capture largely on…

>The article is arguing that you aren't likely to be able to pick the ones that will grow faster than the economy as a whole over the time frame you intend, because it relies on an extreme amount of right-place-right-time luck. If you were looking for the next Beanie Baby for the last 20 years, do you think you would've found it? While that might be true for toys, it's not entirely true for art. Some old paintings of…

How do you determine quality in modern art?

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#148

Post by nradov » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #70

throwaway09223 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the important difference is that on the whole, the stock market goes up. On the whole, the collectables market does not.

The collectable market keeps growing with new products and new prices everyday. Something historically valuable will generally keep that value and increase over time (like the original Apple computer).

The market for Hummel figurines was large and growing for many years. Now they've fallen out of fashion and are basically given away in estate sales as the collectors die off.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#149

Post by nradov » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

blockwriter wrote: post #80

allturtles wrote: post #7

I find this argument very strange: > But it is, because in the long run, assets without cash flows cannot increase in value more than the economy as a whole. If something appreciates faster than the whole economy in the long run, it eventually eclipses the whole economy, which is impossible. No one is operating on an infinite time horizon in their investments, so this argument seems moot. You can certainly find colle…

To my mind, the top echelon of trading card games, really only MtG and Pokémon, have a different economy. The games are actively played and people do make a living by furnishing the card market, as well as the organized playing market. I don’t have a description of the exact mechanism, but I think the greater liquidity caused by changes in the meta game, and therefore which cards are valuable at any given moment, len…

And what will happen in a couple decades when almost everyone moves on from trading card games into new forms of entertainment? When there are hardly any more players it will be impossible to sustain the collectibles market.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#150

Post by seanp2k2 » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

aksss wrote: post #105

neilv wrote: post #29

The math gets even worse when you consider the US tax rates for gains on collectibles. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/06171...

I get the impression that unless you’re going through an auction house or selling super high-profile items, there’s no 1099-Misc or whatever going to the IRS - in other words, cash sales and unreported.

The real purpose of crypto is money laundering. Even easier than art.