There’s something very magical and yet fleeting about childhood. I’ve watched the “fleeting” part become ever more so over the years.
It has to do with an era where simple things were astonishments. Case in point: One evening, in the early 1960s, my father showed my brother and me a $100 bill. We couldn’t believe it. We had only seen one on TV. We were both allowed to touch it…to hold it. The next day, I eagerly and smugly told my classmates that I had held a $100 bill. Many of them didn’t believe me.
That was an era when mail from overseas or long-distance phone calls were major events. To get a letter from the South Sea tropics or Africa sent our heads spinning. To realize it had come from thousands of miles away and traveled across the ocean was staggering. We’d scan the family globe or atlas to search from where it had come and the path it likely traveled. Our imaginations ran wild....
Events such as those seem to be disappearing. If a grade school kid now mentions a $100 bill, a classmate may well pull one from their wallet. Long-distance calls? I doubt anyone would understand what that is. In fact, that young classmate with the $100 bill might just FaceTime a relative in Rwanda on their iPhone, for free.
My point is not to sound like the grumpy old man waxing nostalgic about “better days.” In fairness, so many of our technological advances are equally magical and amazing. I’m just wondering where the line may be between convenience and confusion.
A bit over a year ago, some lyrics for the song “Hey Jude” scribbled on a small piece of paper by Paul McCartney sold at auction for close to $900,000. Any Beatle groupie; Rock ‘n Roll fan; or music history buff would love to get their hands on it. I get it. Being able to see and touch such an authentic relic is mind-boggling.
It reminds me of when I spoke before a grade school class about collecting coins. I explained how each one has a story, be it from the Old West, the depression or during a World War.
One coin I brought to show them was a silver Shekel of Tyre struck in 30BC. It looks much like other ancient coins with one significant exception. That shekel has been identified as the same type as the 30 coins paid to Judas to betray Christ. I can’t guarantee my shekel was one of those 30. Still, it could be. Each kid was beyond amazed – some almost shaking as they passed the coin. That’s the power of a tangible link to something so significant and famous.
That level of excitement about such an artifact has me confused by something sold last month. It too involved a sheet of musical notations for the song “Hey Jude.” It was handwritten by Paul McCartney and used by bandmate John Lennon. Lennon later gave it to his son Julian (about whom the song was written.)
That sheet just sold for $60,000 – a mere fraction of the previous “Hey Jude” lyrics. In the same sale were three guitars played by Lennon and some attire worn by him in two Beatles’ movies. They too sold for comparatively low prices. That may be a result of the items in this sale being “Non-Fungible Token” or NFT.
The auction catalog describes an NFT as a virtual entity that does not include the physical item. Rather, it is, “a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on the blockchain.”
For us blockheads, NFTs aren’t the actual physical items. Julian Lennon still owns those and can sell them separately. According to the BBC, “NFTs are…assets in the digital world that can be bought and sold… but which have no tangible, physical form of their own.” Isn’t that like paying dearly for the fleeting idea of a sumptuous steak dinner you’re never able to actually eat?
In the end, Julian keeps the rare physical items and the bidder gets to say they have “virtual” ownership. Nothing to touch. Nothing to feel. Just virtual. Honestly, if someone wants to drop $60,000 on something they can’t possess that’s up to them. But, if that’s the new definition of a collectible, count me out. I’ll happily transport myself back to the 1960s.
There may be one exception. If all this had involved the virtual lyrics to John Lennon’s greatest solo hit song, “Imagine,” I’d get the irony. I wouldn’t get the real deal or pay $60,000. But I’d get it.
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