How to collect for fun and profit

Note the title says fun and profit not the other way round. Collecting should first of all be a fun hubby and then perhaps it can also be profitable and that’s the icing on the cake. There are many pitfalls in collecting/investing, but by doing it right you can increase both your enjoyment and potential profit.

First issue is to only collect what you love and not something merely as investments. The chances are you’ll understand what you love much better and you’ll have better knowledge and intuition on what something may be worth when you buy and potential profits when you sell.

Here are some clues on what to collect to increase your chances of making a profit, once you have decided the field based on what you love and understand:

• Don’t buy new "collector" memorabelia. There are many companies which sell commemoration goods such as plates, medalions and so on with mass advertising on TV or print. These will never increase in value. Most of these "collector plates" and so on you can buy much cheaper in a few months or years.
  Genuine limited edition works of art may or may not increase in value. Something you should know about limited edition prints is that it may say 9 of 375 (like one of our prints) but the edition is 1200.
  This is because the number is the number on that paper and often there are three different papers used in the edition and there are the extra EA (epreuve artist – artist’s proof) prints. So find out the actual size of edition and don’t go by the number.
• Don’t collect the obvious – this is similar to the above. Millions of American saved John F. Kennedy half dollars which is why today they are hardly worth much more than their face value. Things that people do not save will be rarer than things that were rare to begin with. In camera collecting various Kodak Brownie cameras are much more desirable than better rarer cameras as they were mostlt thrown away.
  At the same time understand that rarity alone does not indicate the price. The price is a combination of rarity, desirability and fads and fashions.
• Fashion – think ahead items become more popular when they are in news and prices will spike. One investment strategy may be to think about major anniversaries (like 25, 50, 75, 100 year anniversaries) within your collecting field. If a major anniversary is coming up in two three years you can accumulate items now to sell during the build up and the immediate aftermath of the anniversary.
  Major movies, mini-series and so on can also start a memorabilia fad. By keeping up with culture and entertainment news you can predict some of these fads.
• Note changing perceptions – this is long term trends rather than fads.
• Avoid entering hot markets. If it was your hubby and interest you would be there way before it became hot and you could make a killing. But by the time something is thought of as an investment it’s way too late for it to be a good investment.

2009 Standard Catalog Of Firearms: The Collector’s Price and Reference Guide

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