It’s long been said, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” I have a hard time with that for several reasons. First, who’s to judge what is or isn’t foolish? What’s expensive and/or unwise to one person may be entirely justifiable to another – particularly if that other person is ultra-rich. Second, it’s gender specific. Who says foolishness of any kind is limited to just one sex?
A bit of that may have been evident at a recent sale held by the firm Studio Auctions. They sell Hollywood-related memorabilia. At their sale last month, one of the clapboards from the film Top Gun starring Tom Cruise was on the block. Those are the film-scene info boards they “clap” when the camera is ready to roll. The estimate for it was $5,000. It sold for $7,200....
More enticing was the actual restraint mask worn by Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in the epic Silence of the Lambs – the first horror film ever to win the “Best Picture” Oscar. Hopkins also won the “Best Actor” Academy Award for his role. Estimates for the unique film prop hovered near $40,000. Not even close. It went for five times that – $204,000.
Another lot of significance was a functional, remote controlled R2-D2 robot droid. This version did not appear in the original Star Wars films but, rather, in the Disney+ TV series, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’d think that disconnect from the original to a streaming spin-off might hinder the bidding. Hardly. Estimated to bring $100,000 the droid was hammered down for a staggering $587,500. Someone is sure to now have quite the conversation piece in their rec room.
Again, what someone does or doesn’t do with their money is pretty much their business. That’s long been the nature of collectibles. The paradigm shift comes when an item morphs from being a fun collectible to an important investment – especially one purchased with needed funds. That’s a whole different ballgame.
Decades ago, I received a call from a recently-widowed woman whose husband had “invested” most all of their life savings into “collectible” US postage stamps. When I arrived at her very modest home, she proudly produced a large stack of sheets of modern postage stamps her husband had purchased over the years at their local post office. Some of the sheets dated back several decades.
It didn’t matter. None of the stamps was worth more than its face value – the same price her husband had paid for them. Worse, most dealers only would pay 90 percent of the face value if they bought them at all. (Today, dealers rarely offer more than 60 percent of face value.). She and her husband missed out on any gains, dividends or interest the money could have generated. His “investment” would have done far better in a bad bank’s Christmas Club account.
Over the past half-century, collectibles with a track record have consistently proven successful. On the numismatic front, in 1970, a rare colonial shilling from 1652 sold for $1,100. Today, the same coin brings over $8,000. More impressive, a truly scarce 1856 Flying Eagle penny brought $1,250 in 1970. Now, it’s $13,500. An exceptional 1907 ten-dollar gold “Eagle” was just $2,600 in 1970. Now, it costs $125,000. More staggering is a very rare 1879 four-dollar gold piece. In 1970, it was listed for just over $8,000. Now, it has a list value of $275.000. In exceptional condition those sell for more than one million dollars. Clearly, coin collectors have the demand and will pay dearly for true rarities.
Of course, not all collectibles sparkle. In 1970, a Mint State 1881 silver dollar traded for just $3.00. By 1980 it had climbed to $58 and then $300 in 1990. The thing is it’s not rare. It has since been on a pricing roller coaster ranging from a low of $110 in 2000 to its current value of just $200. In 1980, during the “collectibles boom,” a nice but relatively common Mint State two-and-a-half dollar gold piece from 1925 traded for $1,350. A decade later, it had risen to barely $1,400. Again, it wasn’t rare. By 2022, it had fallen to $750. Today, one can be obtained for just $650.
The two undeniable keys to value are demand and rarity. The rarer, the better. Of course, without demand, rarity means next to nothing. I’d wager Hannibal Lecter or R2-D2 would agree.
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