I just noticed this. At least four of the items are personal stereos or cassette based. http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/pers...kept-in-the-box/ss-BBGoYjB?ocid=ientp#image=1 Of course every example is probably the highest price ever fetched at auction for a factory sealed item. I should be kicking myself about the Lego Star Wars. My Fathers Lego trains went five times in twenty years but ten times in ten is even more impressive and in hindsight predictable. Rarther amusingly I paid £1 for my Sinclair Spectrum about 20 years ago, although it doesn't have the box etc. A final thought. If everyone kept their presents in the box, like most Matchbox Models of Yesteryear, they wouldn't even be worth what they cost forty years ago.
I don't think that much of that has kept pace with inflation! At least, not very well. There have been a number of cases of people selling their collections after spending so much time on them, that I concluded that I would only collect the things that mean something to me, rather than trying to complete something. However, a new dimension was added to my view some while ago, in a discussion with a friend... that it wasn't so much the collection itself that was the joy, but rather the building of the collection, and once the collection was complete, then the shine wore off, everything got sold and people would start on another collection. Someone I know is an addiction counsellor. Having a chat with them, bends my brain.
Some of those I did have, like most normal children I opened / used and enjoyed them like they are meant to be. I will never be rich as i only buy what i like to enjoy, i never think oh it will be worth more in years if i never open it. Where is the fun in that? It’s funny I was talking to a friend the other day after I just got an album by Tangerine Dream from 1976 still sealed after over 41 years. She said are you going to open it? I said what do you think? I opened it soon as I got it and played it. It was nice to be the first person to open it since it was made.
Interesting it's like nobody wants to keep the box when something is new and then it's like everyone who wants to buy something used hopes to find it "mint and boxed". As wishful thinking : the previous owner never opened it (so didn't through away the box) put it aside and never used it. For the record although I keep the boxes on new things, when I buy used most important is completeness, condition and very low percentage if boxed or not, maybe subconsciously I'm saying " I won't pay 50% of the price for a nice (most of the times not ) box. As a warning to all addiction counselors if someone needs to visit them more than 5 times they have already failed!
I keep the boxes to all my Hi-Fi components, I don’t keep boxes for anything else. I keep the boxes so if I have to send them in for service or repair, I have some protection to put them in. My Nakamichi CR-7 goes in about every 2 years or so for a full service, it’s handy to have the box.
Agree with this 100% no point in having things if you're not gunna use em...when where gone where gone and you can't take it with you....god heaven(if there is such a place) must be so boring lol
I hate to say it but with the exception of the electronics, I have no desire to own any of those things. I'm surprised people are still bidding up Beanie Babies and Cabbage Patch Kids, although they had a huge following when they were new and a brilliant marketing strategy, where they would have a few very limited editions, and the rest were made in the millions. And then a lot of it was expensive to begin with, there weren't a lot of people that could get one to use and one to hide away. The Beanie Babies and CPKs were the exception, people were buying those and keeping them in the box hoping they'd fly like bitcoin, but those were the same people buying Franklin Mint Gone With The Wind China. The audio equipment isn't a surprise, the fact that it's just cool and you can play music on it will keep it around for a long time. Since hi-fidelity bit the dust in the mid-range market years ago, some of these products are the only way to achieve it without spending thousands of dollars, and as a bonus there's millions of records and tapes still floating around for reasonably cheap.
Some good points by everyone. There seems to be two distinct kinds of collectables. Items that were marketed as such "Everyday" items which are intended to be used - most of the items on the list are in that category. While I wouldn't begrudge anyone buying things like Franklin Mint (my Father bought things from Atlas Editions when he could no longer drive and find more interesting stuff out in the wild) they tend to be poor investments. Having said that I doubt if he ever spent more on collecting than other people spend on a Golf Club membership, or even just down the pub if they go regularly. Despite buying things marketed as collectables his theory was that the items which would appreciate the most were the cheap ones. In the case of the WM22 that seems to have become true. However, that benefits from the Sony branding. I doubt if Binatone will ever be collectable, although I could see the fun in trying to find one if that's what you had as a teenager. In terms of Michelle's comment about the pleasure of collecting my Father used to write articles for the Train Collectors Society magazine about "Chinese Cheap and Cheerful" train sets that he would find out in the wild at markets etc, and sometimes exhibit them. That explains why he had a loft 3 feet (1m) deep in train sets. As today would have been his 91st Birthday I feel a picture is appropriate. Regarding items being mint in the box, the only Walkman I found like that had a non working radio. I guess someone intended to take it back to the shop but didn't get around to it. Unless a item intended to be used has been sat in a shop, there is probably a reason why it hasn't been used. At work I have noticed that there are people who get the idea of collecting and those that don't. A colleague threw away all his vinyl just before it became popular again, and another threw away an Acorn Atom computer before discovering it was worth about £200 . At least the one who used a genuine IBM PC AT case to fix his car exhaust got some use out of it !
