Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Collectibles are terrible investments

fullstackeconomics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 170 posts

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#161

Post by Ekaros »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #112
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…

> "before you heard of it" Not quite true for MTG. It was insanely popular in the mid-to-late '90s, and you could still pick up a black lotus for $250. Dual lands, which are now $100+ each, could be had for $5 each. For MTG, the problem was more "is this gonna keep increasing in value". In hindsight the answer is yes.

And in foresight, maybe further question how long will it keep going up? What is the size of new player base considering how expensive it actually is. And how long will the old guard or current active players stay alive and active.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#162

Post by Ekaros »

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).

Hmm. I wonder if there is good overview of numbers on let's say stamps and coins. And I'm interested about mid and high-mid value stuff here. How well are those doing?

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#163

Post by sizzle »

raffraffraff wrote: post #158
sizzle wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eth was -$100-300 about 2 years ago and now $3k and Btc ~$8-12k now up ~$40k, exactly how are you down investing in top 5 projects 2 years ago or am I missing something? You should be up significantly and I’m kicking myself for not investing.

What killed my investments was the advice to "diversify your investments" (or as I think of it, "spread your bets"). Look at charts for ADA, SUSHI and ALGO over the past 1.5y and imagine getting in at the wrong point in all of them. Plenty of opportunity for losing most of your investment. On average I've done poorly. If I had only invested in BTC and ETH I would have done great, but that would have been against all…

ah I see, win some and lose some. Hopefully you can dollar cost average you way to profitability moving forward

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#164

Post by buildbot »

nradov wrote: post #157
buildbot wrote: post #49

In general I completely agree with this article, unless the collectible generates value in itself and is limited. For example film cameras and more rare medium format digital cameras are appreciating now quite a bit, above original MSRP

Once the population of photographers who ever used film cameras dies off, the value of most old film cameras as collectibles will drop near zero.

As someone who was born after film was dead and now has quite a lot of film cameras, I don’t think this will be the case.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#165

Post by buildbot »

Gigachad wrote: post #61
buildbot wrote: post #49

In general I completely agree with this article, unless the collectible generates value in itself and is limited. For example film cameras and more rare medium format digital cameras are appreciating now quite a bit, above original MSRP

It's extremely difficult to work out which things will be valuable and after the effort and time spent holding the item, you didn't really do that well. Incidental profits from reselling stuff you happened to hold that gained in value. Most stuff never goes up in value. Most technology, even the famous/popular stuff has only gone down in value. With a few exceptions of things which were later seen as iconic but rare.…

I completely agree - anything mass produced is not going to fall into this category. Also collecting from new is always pretty iffy. But buying used and holding onto gear for a few years is not going to lose you much money. Definitely do not quit your day job but its not particularly hard to make a little money on the side.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#166

Post by quickthrower2 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #95
edgefield wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but real estate is nothing like a collectible. It has tangible value as a form of housing or for some commercial purpose (retail, office, etc.).

I mean on a collectable-investment spectrum, it is further towards collectable than stocks.

Which I can justify by saying do you know of houses purchased and kept empty for years in high rent demand areas. It is pretty common.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#167

Post by allturtles »

Waterluvian wrote: post #35
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…

Tangent: based on my internal perceptions throughout the past decades, I’m positively shocked that a Black Lotus is only worth $11,000.

(a) This is year old data (b) it was for a typical "low-end", unlimited (white border) black lotus (which is why I said "or more, depending on age and condition"). A mint alpha black lotus is a whole different story, but I was trying to be conservative in my return estimates. Most people holding black lotuses in the mid-90s did not have mint alpha copies.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#168

Post by allturtles »

totoglazer wrote: post #117
Waterluvian wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangent: based on my internal perceptions throughout the past decades, I’m positively shocked that a Black Lotus is only worth $11,000.

I was as well. Apparently it’s not true though. Here’s a record at half a million. https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/l6lpol/a_black_lo...

See above, it is (or was) true, for a conservative (not record) price estimate. Most lotuses in existence are not mint alphas.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#169

Post by zenlikethat »

inter_netuser wrote: post #102
zenlikethat wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting in early on BTC, ETH, or crypto of your choice from this bull run was probably a pretty non-reproducible fluke though. Once the leverage in crypto markets gets cracked down on (up to 100:1 leverage is definitely contributing to the wild moves including to the upside), the return profile won't look like that any more. And with NFTs, there's just this endless sea of them. Even within one collection, most of the…

why does 100:1 leverage contributes to upside, but isn't cancelled out by 100:1 to downside?

Well, for starters the funding and borrow rate(s) are often positive because people just tend to be bullish. So things have to get pumped up somehow before they come crashing down, it's a much stronger tendency among the crypto faithful to be bullish than to be bearish. I also think the other commenter's insight about how gains on the short side are capped at $0 price is relevant.

So while there is downside pressure from liquidation cascades on the levered positions, the main point is that volatility in general will smooth out. The juiced up all time highs we've seen so far have been driven by leverage. Maybe BTC sells off to $12K but if there was no leverage in the system I think it would take a lot longer to bring up to $69K than it did before.

Re: Collectibles are terrible investments

#170

Post by zenlikethat »

vageli wrote: post #134
TameAntelope wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can't go below zero. There's a floor to how much you can lose, and it's "everything you've put in", not "everything plus additional debt". ...typically, anyway.

> Because you can't go below zero. There's a floor to how much you can lose, and it's "everything you've put in", not "everything plus additional debt". If you're leveraged, you are borrowing money, which means you can lose more than you put in as you could lose the money you borrowed and thus would owe on the debt. Further, if you are shorting bitcoin for instance, there is no floor.

You can't generally go beyond 0 though. You'll get liquidated before that due to the exchange's risk engines. If it goes beyond, that loss is passed on to the lenders.
Post reply on HN