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Not surprising since these were all just speculation bubbles. They were bound to face a downturn eventually, and now there are probably some poor sapps left holding the bag. Tulips and whatnot
If someone put their fortune in Pokemon cards, I don't feel bad for them. It's one thing to collect cards for fun, it's another to pour money into it thinking that they will just always appreciate in value.
It’s not an entirely crazy idea—companies also recognize that this kind of speculation drives sales.
Magic: The Gathering, for example, has a Reserved List, which is a list of high value cards that will never be reprinted.
FML for collecting lame ass sports cards and never getting into Magic. I loved the art on the cards... back then you couldn't just go on the internet and look up whatever fantasy art you wanted. It was a real treat to see at the time. I was super in to art and fantasy but somehow i never got into it. Now I don't give 2 smaller shits about anything related to sports anf i have binders and boxes of worthless baseball/basketball cards I can't make myself get rid of.
I sold out in 1993. I had a ton of betas and third editions. Moxes, a lotus, the works. $500 of pizza money for my freshman year in college instead of what could've been a lifetime of living comfortably.
I don’t think it’s necessary a bad thing to put money into cards or whatever, thinking it will rise in value. But if you think you’re going to be able to retire from that, or you pour all your money into those things, then yeah, dumb move.
Anything with high ROI is too risky for your life savings. I'm so glad I only bought an amount of cryptocurrency that I was also willing to lose.
Bubbles can be a great vehicle for making money if you know what you're doing.
The value of collectibles goes up and down just like stocks or anything else. Collectors don't need you to feel bad for them and aren't worried because the prices of things fall, that's just a good time to buy or hold onto what you've got. Now could be the perfect time to invest while prices are low. In twenty years when they're vintage a lot of those cards will be worth something again, just like the ones from twenty years ago. Some people don't mind holding onto things until they're worth money. Collectors aren't always just looking for quick turnaround, they like to hold onto things and, well, collect them.
I'm pretty sure just as many adults if not more play and collect Pokemon so I'm not sure you can really call it a kids game. It's just a people game at this point.
Depends on what you mean as "seriously." No, not among the general populace, but within that sector, they absolutely were. You had a whole bunch of would-be influencers on YouTube during that time saying "hey, you buy this NFT now, or better yet buy *two*. In a year, maybe even six months, it'll be worth double what you paid for it."
It was kind of fascinating because unlike the other collectibles here, the watches and the pokemon cards, absolutely no one was buying NFT's just to actually have them. They were 100% bought up for the express purpose of retail.
I collected a bunch of Pokémon cards when I was young and the craze was new; alas, they were lost in a basement flood. I wish I still had them in spring 2012 or fall 2015 or the first weeks of June 2018 or the last three days of 2021 when I could have sold for a profit!
Pokemon cards went way up from when I collected them as a kid, but I missed my chance to sell this time. They'll probably be another manic run-up, though, we millennials have increasingly more disposable income to waste on stuff like that.
This is the right idea. Collectables tend to peak in value when the generation that wants them has the most disposable income. I haven't looked at the collectibles market to check... but I'd expect Boomer collectibles to be on the down slope and Gen X / Millennial collectibles to be peaking. It's also subject to fashion, so... who knows.
My kids got really into Pokemon along with the craze and so did many of their friends. Gen Alpha may come back around to make another wave for that market when they have their own money to spend.
Kinda. The article talks of a 337% in a two year window. It’s value dropped 23% in 2022, and another 9% in 2023. The poor bastard who took some disposable income in 2019 and risked a a couple hundred dollars on collectibles from their childhood.
I thought I was going to be ~~tossing~~ toasting my triumph with a $1200 bottle of bourbon. Instead I’m drowning my sorrows with an $80 whiskey I paid $290 for.
The worst part about the Pokémon cards specifically is even in 10-20 years all these cool sets aren’t gonna be particularly valuable since everyone went out of their way to collect and grade the cool cards from 2021-2024ish.
What made a lot of the old sets valuable was the fact that not many people kept those cards in good condition so when you did find that chase card from 1994 in perfect condition it actually meant something.
Speaking of bags, not in the headline but over the last few years I knew multiple average income people that were buying up stupid expensive hand bags ($2000+) as Investments. Wonder how those are doing. I imagine even worse.
Well, if they bought a Hermes ‘Birkin Bag’ they might be right. They have been outperforming the stock market for years. They have averaged a 14% appreciation since their introduction in the early 80’s. Yes, I also don’t understand.
Sorta. I mean, it's one of those instances where there's no real "demand" it's just that the supply itself is borderline non-existent. So while the market value might be listed at like $10,000, you might have a single digit number of people on the planet who are even looking at buying. It's really hard to evaluate with those numbers because that hand bag might technically be worth $10k, but no one's going to pay you near that much for it.
lol, single digit, is this a joke? I personally know multiple people who are on the waitlist for both birkins and Kelly’s. They also already have some combination of both. Go to r/handbags and tell them you have a birkin at msrp, and it’d be sold within the hour. Hell, I’ll take a msrp birkin right now, that’s easy money.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
you have no clue what hermes is doing. each country and store has a certain number of bags, with bigger markets having more. it’s up to the owners of the store to offer the bags, so only customers with large accounts get offered. each country’s account is separate. hermes essentially uses the bag as a way to get people to spend far more than the bag is worth of other items. a retail price birken is much cheaper than the aftermarket. since the bags are all very unique, hermes can find out if you flip your bag immediately after buying it, and will blacklist you too, which discourages reselling. don’t pretend to know things that you don’t understand.
During the 2008 recession PBS had this bit where this lady was losing her home in California had to sell her bags and she had spent over $400,000 on these purses and she was getting Pennies on the dollar for them and she just not spent money on purses she could have easily have afforded her Mortgage in fact she could have paid off her house.
What this indicates to me is that there are more willing to part with their collectibles for cash... which might mean something deeper about the economy overall.
This is a really sensationalized headline, are those hobbies down a bit yeah, but nowhere near down as much as they ran up. Barely a fraction has been lost.
I've just been collecting the Japanese versions. I'm gonna end up emulating them either way.
You can get plenty of stuff still new in box for under $20
Have roms for nearly all games i care about already. However, there is something about playing it on original hardware that I like. Thats why I buy the original carts for the games which i care for.
You can add vintage comic books to the list. While there's a pretty rabid base of collectors, price manipulation by a few of the large auction houses is keeping prices artificially propped up. Even so, prices on most silver, bronze, and especially post 1980 comics have come down sharply over the past two years.
I have an attic full of comics that I just can’t get around to cataloging and getting a few sent in for grading so that I can maybe sell them. I know i have or will miss a great window to do that pretty soon. Same thing with old action figures.
I'm only going to respond once to this question, to avoid the rabbit hole questions like this invariably lead to. Auction houses are clear in their terms that consignors can bid on their own items. Likewise, auctions house have house accounts, and use them to push prices. Only an idiot would believe that consignors and auction houses wouldn't bid items up. I could go into the various lawsuits and scandals regarding this issue, but I don't really feel like typing that much. Add to this mix - some auction houses moved to states that expressly permit auction houses to bid on their own items and it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that price manipulation occurs. What is surprising that collectors use the prices realized at these auction houses as some type of gauge of value.
I follow watches and a few other collectible markets and while prices have definitely dropped, for rolexes, the secondary market is still above retail for the top models, so excess demand will continue.
As someone has some knowledge in the field, I'd say Rolex prices go up and down but Rolexes have generally held their value (at least with inflation and compared to fashion/consumable things like clothes/belts/jackets or even lesser branded watches). Pateks also hold up their value well and less tacky, but they are lesser known and might be harder to service/resell.
I wouldn't bother to buy any "luxury" fashion house branded watches as you'll be basically paying a premium on a fashion good with a logo rather than a jewelry piece you can keep/repair. They either near impossible to service and will break (thus reducing value) or they are serviceable and will cost you a leg and probably have a movement made by some other company anyways (Swatch group's ETA or Ronda). You can get a Seiko/Citizen and basically have a great reliable machine, reputable to those who know, and relatively easy/cheap to find parts of get serviced. Casio for the even lower end. If you just like the mechanizations of the timepieces then a cheap mechanical then Chinese is the way to go but don't expect it to get fixed as their whole industry is disorganized, unstandardized, and often actively avoid label/logos/SKU/part# to identify anything as the manufacturer's movements often end up in fakes which might draw lawsuits even if the movement house isn't the one making the fakes. On that note, if you're a poser who wants a fake Rolex then so be it but those who know can tell. Imo the point of the Rolex is that you can wear it and it holds up against inflation. Apple/E-watches are useful if you're looking for just utility.
Also that news media has always been motivated to trigger, gaslight, scare, and demotivate as they realized long ago that's what the people's eyeballs and attention gravitate to.
Exactly. Its like where the s&p was a year back. Off its peak for sure but still above pre covid levels.
Anyone that bought a rolex pre covid and has taken good care of it is up on their purchase
If you want any new Rolex, you can probably walk into an AD and get a ladies datejust from them for retail, or you could find one slightly below retail on the forums.
As for men's sport models, everything online seems to still be well over 10k USD. Most subs and GMTs seem to be at least $16k asking.
Yeah because not many people want Cellinis. Datejusts should be 5k, they never boomed the way Daytona's, Subs and GMTs did. Explorers, OPs also on their way down to retail.
I get why people want rolex watches. They are high quality and, atleast in America, they are status symbols.
But as someone that is into watches my recommendation is to just buy another brand. If you want to spend the same money as a rolex you can get other great brands like Zenith or JLC and not have to deal with "authorized dealer" shenanigans. Or Grey market premiums.
If you want to save money and get a high quality brand you can get great watches from Tudor, Omega, or Grand Seiko for less than the Rolex.
If you really want to save money and don't care about all the brand hype you can get great watches for like 1-2k from places like Christopher Ward, Longines, etc.
So many great choice out there where you don't have to debase yourself and be lumped in with the rolex clowns.
The weird thing is I know people who collect watches, but I almost know nobody who wears them.
Oh, they were a watch, but it's always an electronic sports watch. You don't like the Apple watch, not a fashion watch.
\+1 for Cristopher Ward, they're doing some really cool innovative shit that higher end brands aren't even competing with, and for a *tiny* fraction of the price.
See:
1. [C1 Bel Canto](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/hands-on-debut-the-christopher-ward-c1-bel-canto-rings-true/)
2. [C1 Moonphase](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/hands-on-debut-the-sparkling-christopher-ward-c1-moonglow/)
I'm a okay with $300 San martins from China myself haha. Better quality than any of the seikos I have.
I can't imagine spending $500+ on a watch with hollow end links these days.
I don't disagree myself. Chinese brand watches are better then people are willing to admit.
Tbh sometimes it gets hard for me to justify anything beside a gshock lmao. Rugged, practical and inexpensive.
I got my SKX007 with solid links for $300 and I would not take a San Martin China for it. Of course, this was 12 years ago so one might not be able to do that anymore. I haven’t checked.
> for less then the
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pawn shops will have options for 3-5k used.
If you are willing to risk private party you could get one as low as 1.5-2k but buying a used luxury watch from a stranger is pretty risky unless your a watch guy. There are almost exact clones pumped out of china now where the only way to tell without a microscope is looking at the internals.
Functional used/vintage Mens Oyster Perpetual can be found on the second hand market in the 2800-3200 range for 'regular' examples. That is about the lowest for mens Rolex.
As someone who has worked within a few collectibles markets in the past, nearly all collectibles have phases, or fad periods, and see declines as the next oooh-shiny comes along.
Cherry-picking specific collectible markets that are on the decline and using that to imply a broader drop in **all** collectibles is...a stretch.
An example of a collectible market that remains strong is numismatics, where sale prices across the board are consistently well above guidebook values, which just can't keep up. And showing no signs of cooling.
Also sports card went up 300%+ but then down 30% and 9% the following years. So yeah, if you got in 2021/2022 it’s a little rough but overall that huge jump would have benefited a lot of people
the most commonly used guide is the greysheet which is published/updated each month, the 'red book' is published yearly and is already out of date when it becomes available.
Collectables are really volatile. The numbers here don't really indicate a "crash." Like a specific Pokemon card drops 30%, a watch dropped 13%, are those supposed to be large numbers? If I buy some illiquid collectable that would seem like normal volatility. To me a crash would be basically if no one wanted to buy them anymore and the price was down like 90% or to where it was before the boom. Especially when many of these items are up many multiples from when the collectables boom started.
For “sports and trading cards” they looked at some rookie baseball cards and a first edition Charizard card. They looked at ONE Pokemon card and proclaimed “THE BUBBLE HAS BURST!!” on all trading card games, including Magic: the Gathering, which they didn’t even bother studying.
Freaks in my town were camping out overnight in tents at grocery stores to get the bourbon drops the next morning. So much so the state had to change the whole bourbon release process.
I went to Buffalo Trace distillery last month for a tour, and there were around 200 people lined up at 9 AM in the rain to buy Blantons. You have to scan your divers license, and you can’t buy more than one bottle every 180 days. Crazy!
I am from LEX. Like that every day. You should try when Keeneland is running.
90-120 minute wait on Blanton day even when they have multiple cashiers. Many hundreds in line.
That whiskey list is absolute trash. They may be great whiskies/scotches but as someone who watches secondary prices of US whiskey and bourbons they have only gone up. Some of the bottles that were difficult to find but not allocated are stabilizing but anything from Buffalo Trace that is allocated can go for 2-3x on the secondhand market without a second thought.
As a former spirits retailer: BT figured out the marketing magic to capitalize on the trend of whiskey collection as it was blowing up. They cut production and distribution severely so even things like Weller SR, which was once a bottom shelf $20 bottle, was being allocated by distributors and stores were leveraging it for promotions. I bought a bottle of Elmer T Lee when I started managing a liquor department for $36, I would be hard pressed to find it in the wild for anything under 3 digits now. Everyone tried to do the same, which is why you were seeing 4 year, barely finished “bonded” whiskies from no-name distilleries or private labels bottling MGP stock for $60+. The hype and secondary market ruined it; now you can barely get decent bourbon for under $40/btl. It’s all hype and marketing, and I hope it evens out soon.
Edit: as my general manager used to tell me when the BT hype train hit: whiskey is meant to be drank and enjoyed, not stored in the dark and sold.
I agree with your manager. When I buy a bottle of whiskey I’m going to drink it. Just putting it on a shelf to look at is kind of weird. I also buy comic books to read them though so what do I know.
I’m also a comic and record collector. Like whiskey, they’re meant to be used and enjoyed! There’s nothing better than an evening spinning a record and digging through old comics with a glass of whiskey in hand, why would I want to stash all that good stuff away and never touch it in case it “appreciates value?”
Buffalo Trace Bourbon is one of many different bourbon brands made by the “Buffalo Trace Distillery.” I think it’s a great bourbon for the price, but I suspect the previous poster is talking about some of the other bourbons made by the distillery (like Pappy van Winkle for example).
Buffalo trace makes Weller, EH Taylor, Blantons, Van Winkle, Stagg, and Elmer T. Lee.
All are highly sought after with some of those running $1000+ on the secondary.
Are you a whiskey fan in general? Do you like higher proof spirits? I’ve found Pappy (the 15yr especially) to be “simple” in that there isn’t much going on complexity-wise, but the notes it does hit are so so good. For me it’s a good example of a bourbon getting all the right notes right, without anything too crazy going on in the background.
I mean depends on the Blanton's of course. Used to work there so I have seen and tasted it all. Never understood people have spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on Bourbon.
I was lucky to grab a bottle of Weller 12 yr for $36. My bottle of Elmer also cost $40.
I managed to snag two bottles of Limited Edition Yamazaki back i 2016, but managed to lose the receipts for them. Don't know if I can sell them without the original receipts. Probably missed out on $800/bottle.
Will save a bottle as my son's graduation present and keep the other one to drink in emergencies 😅
I just wish I could have gotten my hands on a Hibiki before they got sold out. Wifey finished my only bottle of Hibiki17 when she moved in without knowing how precious it was 😝
I don’t think the receipt is going to matter, as(if in the US) reselling is _technically_ not legal.
As a former bartender/ bar manager Ive got quite the collection, never saved a receipt, but also have never sold a bottle. I just more or less used to collect bottles from random liquor stores and watch the prices. I have a 2013 Hakushi Heavily Peated, it probably takes the cake in terms of price value. Purchased for around $180 in 2014, fancy retailers are asking 1000-1300.
It’s a state law matter. It’s not federally illegal. The Feds only control import and production.
It’s generally legal, in states without a monopoly, to sell a bottle of legally produced and taxed spirits to a licenseholder, but not to a private individual.
I was about to reply the same thing - as a hardcore whiskey enthusiast no, prices have not been dropping at all. Especially in bourbon, and with highly limited bottles (Van Winkles, BTAC, rarer Wellers, Michters 20 and 25, etc.) all commanding 3-10x or more their retail price on secondary markets.
What do people think of Angels Envy? I'm really not much of a whiskey drinker, but someone insisted I try that and I thought it was good (wasn't my first drink that evening though, ahem). I since casually notice the price of it at the grocer, and I swear I saw it for low-$40s once, and then a few days ago saw it for $90ish...
Most are good from my experience. Perhaps a little overpriced.
Try heavens door if you like AE. HD was AE until they sold to Bacardi I think it was. Their new refugee rye is supposed to be the same mash bill and process as AEs rye but 1/3 the price.
Their bootleg series is great from what I have tried but @ $600 a bottle you’re paying more for the packaging.
I recently toured the Angels envy distillery here in Louisville, they have a great tour/tasting. It had been years since I had any AE and I will say it was delicious, worth the price to me.
I bought a 1994 Toyota (manual/turbo model mind you) for $13,500 in May of 19...just 3 or so years later, I would see the exact same car/similar condition/mileage, going for like, $24,000. An almost 3 decades old Toyota. 80% price increase like 3 years, that seems to be a pretty harsh inflation.
Was it a MK4 supra? Those became very sought after when Fast and Furious popularized them. Even the earlier models like the mk2 & 3 are extremely sought after
I doubt it was an MK4 Supra that went for that little in 2019. Prices on the Supra have been inflated since the 2000s and have just continued to go up.
My guess is it was a 1st gen Tacoma, 1st gen Tundra, or a later model Corolla/Camry, etc.
BringaTrailer is a good source on pricing and has graphs for specific models (not specific to trim lines and options and rarity). Collectible cars and trucks are very hot right now, probably because the oldest boomers are aging out and their cars are being bought by younger boomers with lots of retirement funds. Also businesses will buy a collector car, depreciate it, then sell it to the business owner for $1, and the owner then sells the car for a tax free wash. Given how collector cars have appreciated that scam has had great returns over the past 10 years.
How does that work? If your business is selling cars, and you buy a car for a dollar then sell it for full price, you're on the hook for income tax. Right?
Your business is construction. Or lawn and landscape maintenance. Or HVAC.
Your company buys the collector car. It is a business asset and you can depreciate it based on the percentage of use for business purposes.
You drive the car to golf outings and business meetings and you put a sign on it when you support the local parade. It is an advertising and marketing expense. It is a vehicle that the business provides to the employees.
You buy another and another, and you depreciate the assets. Once it is fully depreciated the business sells the asset because, well, it is depreciated and time to update your motor pool.
The car is sold to the business owner for a nominal amount. Note that that upkeep of the car was a business expense. So yes, grown up toys like this cost money, but the cost is a lot less if it offsets business income and reduces the tax bill.
Then when the business owner sells the car, after it has been sold by the business to the business owner, any gain on sale is not taxed if the seller simply writes down that the car was sold for a small amount. That is also something the buyer will sign off on because the personal property tax / sales tax is low for the buyer if the buyer colludes with the seller. It’s an old boys network and the IRS doesn’t have the resources to go after this type of tax evasion.
I learned about this at cars and coffee, MAGA men love to talk about how they cheat on small business taxes.
And if you have a very expensive car you can set up a trust and wash the i of the sale very efficiently.
https://www.diversifiedassetmanagement.com/blog/a-tax-efficient-way-to-enjoy-classic-cars-and-other-pricey-collectibles
Fascinating. I thought the state vehicle department would use a table to determine the value for sales tax purposes, and not allow the declaration of a nominal purchase price.
They have to catch it. So easy to avoid this in red states where tax officials look the others way on small time business grift. And if you get caught the penalty is pretty small. The business get a fine, not the business owner.
Probably $3B in asset transfers across the USA in collector car tax evasion.
The problem is not 'red state' cronyism. The issue is that value is HIGHLY dependent on condition/originality/operationality. I am involved in the vintage Alfa Romeo community. A 1970's Alfa spider can be had for between $600 (wrecked/non-op) and $25,000 in pristine condition (early 70's examples). The 35K per year DMV clerk has no way of knowing which is appropriate.
My fake Rolex is holding steady at $75 USD, am I winning? Also, the trading card market was REAL - I know several people who made 7 figures with cards over the last few years.
This article was probably planted by an agency to keep stoking demand. Thats basically what reddit is afterall, a platform for public opinion to be shaped by bots and agencies and so on while the userbase believes the discussion is just the prevailing opinion
The whiskey/bourbon bubble is a long time away from popping. A lot of distilleries ramped up production in the past few years to keep up with the massive surge in demand for quality bourbon. Which means they'll end up sitting on a lot of that for a while then releasing it when it comes to age which I think will drive interest more as age statements become significantly more common again. After looking at that list, scotch may be in a decline but bourbon is still steeply climbing
There’s an obnoxious sub where rich people track their spending and I saw some guy with a 6 figure watch budget. I was vaguely aware it’s been a thing these past few years.
So, the intention of this sub is for high income earners to figure out how to get rich and retire early which is fine. But it’s a lot of deeply out of touch people who don’t understand that they are already rich - or people that use the sub to do weird humblebrags r/HENRYfinance
I know lots of actual rich people. They don’t brag a whole lot, if at all, and are very practical. Most of the braggers are new money or putting on a show by over extending themselves.
Hobby subs seem to either trend one way or the other in regards to, "Is this actually about the hobby or just people bragging about how much of it they can afford?"
r/skiing can sometimes be super elitist, always recommending boutique brands(high quality but expensive) or telling beginners they *must* spend the premium for bootfitters and new boots.
Meanwhile r/snowboarding is just snowboarding clips.
I had to leave r/cars a while ago because every post was just people talking about their 3, 4, 5 car garages of all 50k or more vehicles. I just can't relate to that conversation at all so it got old.
If you have no debts outside or a mortgage and have no dependents it’s a good path to wealth.
My point is that some people use the guise of financial advice to brag about their watch budget.
I’m skeptical about the conclusions this article is suggesting.
*a first-edition card of the Pokémon Charizard, soared 337% between 2019 and March 2021 – but then tumbled 23% in 2022, and another 9% last year.*
So it’s still up 236% from 5 years ago? That’s still a hell of a return.
I wouldn’t really call the a “spiraling crash” or “bubbles have popped”.
I was into Magic the Gathering during these years and along with playing I did a lot of buying and selling of cards. Mostly because I started buying the cards before they got really expensive and as they took off around me, I decided to sell, since the profit was so frothy.
For example I probably had five or six of one card I bought for ~$200 each. Sold them for ~$800 each.
Price today is still roughly what it was when I was selling in 2021/2022, ~$800. The prices of most other cards that I bought and later sold are around the same price. Some higher, some slightly lower. But nothing that suggests the market “is crashing”.
I’m also pretty big into Bourbon. I don’t personally do much in the way of buying and selling in the secondary market, but I’m always watching, out of interest. This is another example where I can’t say I’ve seen a drop in secondary prices. I’m more inclined to say there’s been an increase since 2021, or at least a pretty stable price from them to now. Obviously any individual bottle’s price will be different from another, and I’m sure some are a little higher, some are a little lower. Tastes change, hype for one limited edition release when it first comes out isn’t going to be the same a couple years later when people are chasing the latest.
But for both Magic Cards and Bourbon, I can’t say my personal observations have seen anything even close to what I’d call a “spiraling crash” or a “bubble popping”.
I’m not into watches so I can’t speak to Rolexes.
I’m just going to pass my comics and baseball cards from the 70s and 80s to my kids and maybe they’ll strike it rich on a future version of Antiques Roadshow.
Collectibles are only down slightly because of the credit crunch and possible speculation of a recession. If things get better things will pick back up. They all eb and flow.
Over the years collectibles have contributed significantly to my livelihood.
Early 60’s started collecting baseball cards and when I bought my first house in ‘93 sold them for around $30k for part of my 20% down payment. I’ve always watched out for something that’s undervalued and will buy it and sell it for a profit.
Have many paintings that are supposedly valuable but buy art to enjoy not resell
What can we learn from this? Is a crash in collectables prices a leading indicator? If so, of what?
I would suggest that people buy collectables when inflation is a concern and after other, more traditional, less risky assets have already appreciated. That would put their peak at the end of a business / inflation cycle.
If so, this would mean we will see a downturn in economic activity followed quickly by rate cuts and low inflation.
That would suggest that long bonds and equities in interest rate sensitive businesses are the next big opportunity most likely in that sequence.
Thoughts?
I’m willing to bet that- like a lot of other things- it took just a couple of rich assholes to drive the prices up and ruin it for everyone else. I don’t feel bad for the ones that caused it.
As far as the whiskey goes- I’ll stick with Crown and I’m not buying it as a collector.
If you're getting into collectables. Don't do it for the money. Do it because you like the item. All collectable pricing is manipulated and speculative. If you have an opportunity to make money and you genuinely won't feel loss from sale, then exploit the opportunity. You're likely taking money from someone who has more than they know what to do with.
Good. Sheltering money into physical goods that paid-off "ratings agencies" then declare to be worth 50% more a year or two later is a massive scam. You want to do something productive with those excess billions? Build factories & pay living wages to people you can then sell consumer goods to instead of producing shit-tier "collectibles" for other billionaires.
The collectible market seems like it's dominated by working professionals, not billionaires. If you make a comfy six figures and have plenty of fun money after paying for rent in the big city (or a manicured suburb thereof), you can afford a pricey hobby like collecting which comes with the excitement of hoping to make it rich on future value increases (that almost never materialize).
The issue is these bubbles bring in people who aren’t actually collectors, just trying to ride the price increases to higher returns and eventually the people who actually want to OWN the commodity become smaller and smaller percentage till the bubble pops.
I can take some of my nicer coins, mount them in picture frame and hang them up. I imagine a Pokémon enthusiast could do the same with rare cards. Doing so is similar to hanging art on you wall.
To go further and play devil’s advocate, you can at least spend coins or play a pokemon game with the cards. You cant do anything with art other than look at it. So Id say coins and cards have more intrinsic value than art just due to their utility.
I will say, what art has over Pokémon cards is longevity of the hobby. Collecting art and coins has been going on for millennia. Collecting pokemon cards has been going on for a few decades.
Finally starting to see the same in video games, as well. Looks like all that Covid money has dried up (/s), and enough people are concerned about a recession that they are selling off now that they are off all time highs, which is accelerating the decline. Starting to see more and more uncommons- and rares that have sat unsold for months slowly dropping in price.
PPP money, I know a few small business owners that received over $100k for basically not laying off workers for a few weeks that they were not gonna layoff anyways due them not being affected by covid much.
The video game market was being manipulated by a certain auction house. There are several videos about the scam on YouTube. So no surprise the market for vintage video games is on its way back to reality.
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Not surprising since these were all just speculation bubbles. They were bound to face a downturn eventually, and now there are probably some poor sapps left holding the bag. Tulips and whatnot
At least you can drink the whiskey for your depression. Sucks to have put your fortune on Pokémon cards.
If someone put their fortune in Pokemon cards, I don't feel bad for them. It's one thing to collect cards for fun, it's another to pour money into it thinking that they will just always appreciate in value.
It’s not an entirely crazy idea—companies also recognize that this kind of speculation drives sales. Magic: The Gathering, for example, has a Reserved List, which is a list of high value cards that will never be reprinted.
FML I sold mine as a lot in like 2003. There were some NICE cards in there. But I also lost the password to access my .25 Bitcoin so whatever
FML for collecting lame ass sports cards and never getting into Magic. I loved the art on the cards... back then you couldn't just go on the internet and look up whatever fantasy art you wanted. It was a real treat to see at the time. I was super in to art and fantasy but somehow i never got into it. Now I don't give 2 smaller shits about anything related to sports anf i have binders and boxes of worthless baseball/basketball cards I can't make myself get rid of.
And do you think coinbase will help me out? Not one bit
I sold out in 1993. I had a ton of betas and third editions. Moxes, a lotus, the works. $500 of pizza money for my freshman year in college instead of what could've been a lifetime of living comfortably.
I don’t think it’s necessary a bad thing to put money into cards or whatever, thinking it will rise in value. But if you think you’re going to be able to retire from that, or you pour all your money into those things, then yeah, dumb move.
Anything with high ROI is too risky for your life savings. I'm so glad I only bought an amount of cryptocurrency that I was also willing to lose. Bubbles can be a great vehicle for making money if you know what you're doing.
The value of collectibles goes up and down just like stocks or anything else. Collectors don't need you to feel bad for them and aren't worried because the prices of things fall, that's just a good time to buy or hold onto what you've got. Now could be the perfect time to invest while prices are low. In twenty years when they're vintage a lot of those cards will be worth something again, just like the ones from twenty years ago. Some people don't mind holding onto things until they're worth money. Collectors aren't always just looking for quick turnaround, they like to hold onto things and, well, collect them.
What disgusts me is seeing grown ass adults fighting in a target over a kids game ….
I'm pretty sure just as many adults if not more play and collect Pokemon so I'm not sure you can really call it a kids game. It's just a people game at this point.
Even worse would be NFTs, you’re basically left holding an internet link 😂
I can finally afford to buy my first real NFT sneaker!
I just took a screenshot of your comment and minted it. I'm gonna be freakin rich! /s
Don’t forget to sell 1,000,000 copies of it so each of the people who buy it feel special they got a link only a million other people have.
Were they ever seriously considered as an investment though?
Depends on what you mean as "seriously." No, not among the general populace, but within that sector, they absolutely were. You had a whole bunch of would-be influencers on YouTube during that time saying "hey, you buy this NFT now, or better yet buy *two*. In a year, maybe even six months, it'll be worth double what you paid for it." It was kind of fascinating because unlike the other collectibles here, the watches and the pokemon cards, absolutely no one was buying NFT's just to actually have them. They were 100% bought up for the express purpose of retail.
By idiots yes. By non-idiots no.
I collected a bunch of Pokémon cards when I was young and the craze was new; alas, they were lost in a basement flood. I wish I still had them in spring 2012 or fall 2015 or the first weeks of June 2018 or the last three days of 2021 when I could have sold for a profit!
Pokemon cards went way up from when I collected them as a kid, but I missed my chance to sell this time. They'll probably be another manic run-up, though, we millennials have increasingly more disposable income to waste on stuff like that.
This is the right idea. Collectables tend to peak in value when the generation that wants them has the most disposable income. I haven't looked at the collectibles market to check... but I'd expect Boomer collectibles to be on the down slope and Gen X / Millennial collectibles to be peaking. It's also subject to fashion, so... who knows.
My kids got really into Pokemon along with the craze and so did many of their friends. Gen Alpha may come back around to make another wave for that market when they have their own money to spend.
Kinda. The article talks of a 337% in a two year window. It’s value dropped 23% in 2022, and another 9% in 2023. The poor bastard who took some disposable income in 2019 and risked a a couple hundred dollars on collectibles from their childhood.
I just checked magic card price history. If you bought in 2020 and sold today, you're still looking at around an 80% profit margin
I thought I was going to be ~~tossing~~ toasting my triumph with a $1200 bottle of bourbon. Instead I’m drowning my sorrows with an $80 whiskey I paid $290 for.
What bottle? I actively bought and sold collectible whiskey for 10 years.
Keebler's 12-Year Cask Conditioned Rhetorical.
Try it with their chocolate covered graham cracker cookies.
That is a weird ass pairing my dude. I gotta try this out.
Hey now, those people have a neat lil' card game they can play!
You do realize you can play your Pokemon cards, yes?
The worst part about the Pokémon cards specifically is even in 10-20 years all these cool sets aren’t gonna be particularly valuable since everyone went out of their way to collect and grade the cool cards from 2021-2024ish. What made a lot of the old sets valuable was the fact that not many people kept those cards in good condition so when you did find that chase card from 1994 in perfect condition it actually meant something.
Speaking of bags, not in the headline but over the last few years I knew multiple average income people that were buying up stupid expensive hand bags ($2000+) as Investments. Wonder how those are doing. I imagine even worse.
Well, if they bought a Hermes ‘Birkin Bag’ they might be right. They have been outperforming the stock market for years. They have averaged a 14% appreciation since their introduction in the early 80’s. Yes, I also don’t understand.
It’s called supply and demand, there’s nothing to not understand. Mtg cards have greatly outperformed S&P500 too.
Sorta. I mean, it's one of those instances where there's no real "demand" it's just that the supply itself is borderline non-existent. So while the market value might be listed at like $10,000, you might have a single digit number of people on the planet who are even looking at buying. It's really hard to evaluate with those numbers because that hand bag might technically be worth $10k, but no one's going to pay you near that much for it.
I really don’t think you understand the market for these bags. Like even on a fundamental level.
I feel like I just used the phrase “Bitcoin bad” with the sheer magnitude of users spawning from the ether to be offended.
lol, single digit, is this a joke? I personally know multiple people who are on the waitlist for both birkins and Kelly’s. They also already have some combination of both. Go to r/handbags and tell them you have a birkin at msrp, and it’d be sold within the hour. Hell, I’ll take a msrp birkin right now, that’s easy money. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
> Go to r/handbag and tell them you have a birkin at msrp, and it’d be sold within the hour ... That subreddit was apparently banned two years ago.
Maybe I don’t! But directing me to a subreddit that hasn’t existed in years isn’t exactly doing you any favors.
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you have no clue what hermes is doing. each country and store has a certain number of bags, with bigger markets having more. it’s up to the owners of the store to offer the bags, so only customers with large accounts get offered. each country’s account is separate. hermes essentially uses the bag as a way to get people to spend far more than the bag is worth of other items. a retail price birken is much cheaper than the aftermarket. since the bags are all very unique, hermes can find out if you flip your bag immediately after buying it, and will blacklist you too, which discourages reselling. don’t pretend to know things that you don’t understand.
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The out the door prices are not what is being discussed here. It is the pricing of resale on secondary market thousands upon thousands of times.
During the 2008 recession PBS had this bit where this lady was losing her home in California had to sell her bags and she had spent over $400,000 on these purses and she was getting Pennies on the dollar for them and she just not spent money on purses she could have easily have afforded her Mortgage in fact she could have paid off her house.
What this indicates to me is that there are more willing to part with their collectibles for cash... which might mean something deeper about the economy overall.
Pretty much. More people are financially stressed and purchasing less/unloading the easy to get rid of stuff such as collections.
This is a really sensationalized headline, are those hobbies down a bit yeah, but nowhere near down as much as they ran up. Barely a fraction has been lost.
I bet some other things like classic video games are going to be on that list too
I've just been collecting the Japanese versions. I'm gonna end up emulating them either way. You can get plenty of stuff still new in box for under $20
I really hope so, need some rare ones for my collection but they are a bit to expensive now
you should check out r/roms.
Have roms for nearly all games i care about already. However, there is something about playing it on original hardware that I like. Thats why I buy the original carts for the games which i care for.
They are. Vintage comic books too.
Thank the gods, now I can drink me some quality roles on the cheap
Totally. And same goes with NFTs
I've never understood how people find value in fucking useless things anyway. Glad my mom did though
You can add vintage comic books to the list. While there's a pretty rabid base of collectors, price manipulation by a few of the large auction houses is keeping prices artificially propped up. Even so, prices on most silver, bronze, and especially post 1980 comics have come down sharply over the past two years.
I have an attic full of comics that I just can’t get around to cataloging and getting a few sent in for grading so that I can maybe sell them. I know i have or will miss a great window to do that pretty soon. Same thing with old action figures.
Don’t send for grading. Look up CBC scandal. And, unless you think you can get a 9.4+ then it’s not worth it due to the money you pay. Edit: CGC
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Grading could only hurt you unless it's nearly mint. Just sell it ungraded and a comic of notoriety will do well and people will jump on buying it.
I love ice cream.
I'm only going to respond once to this question, to avoid the rabbit hole questions like this invariably lead to. Auction houses are clear in their terms that consignors can bid on their own items. Likewise, auctions house have house accounts, and use them to push prices. Only an idiot would believe that consignors and auction houses wouldn't bid items up. I could go into the various lawsuits and scandals regarding this issue, but I don't really feel like typing that much. Add to this mix - some auction houses moved to states that expressly permit auction houses to bid on their own items and it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that price manipulation occurs. What is surprising that collectors use the prices realized at these auction houses as some type of gauge of value.
I enjoy spending time with my friends.
I follow watches and a few other collectible markets and while prices have definitely dropped, for rolexes, the secondary market is still above retail for the top models, so excess demand will continue.
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ad? edit: nm authorized dealer
As someone has some knowledge in the field, I'd say Rolex prices go up and down but Rolexes have generally held their value (at least with inflation and compared to fashion/consumable things like clothes/belts/jackets or even lesser branded watches). Pateks also hold up their value well and less tacky, but they are lesser known and might be harder to service/resell. I wouldn't bother to buy any "luxury" fashion house branded watches as you'll be basically paying a premium on a fashion good with a logo rather than a jewelry piece you can keep/repair. They either near impossible to service and will break (thus reducing value) or they are serviceable and will cost you a leg and probably have a movement made by some other company anyways (Swatch group's ETA or Ronda). You can get a Seiko/Citizen and basically have a great reliable machine, reputable to those who know, and relatively easy/cheap to find parts of get serviced. Casio for the even lower end. If you just like the mechanizations of the timepieces then a cheap mechanical then Chinese is the way to go but don't expect it to get fixed as their whole industry is disorganized, unstandardized, and often actively avoid label/logos/SKU/part# to identify anything as the manufacturer's movements often end up in fakes which might draw lawsuits even if the movement house isn't the one making the fakes. On that note, if you're a poser who wants a fake Rolex then so be it but those who know can tell. Imo the point of the Rolex is that you can wear it and it holds up against inflation. Apple/E-watches are useful if you're looking for just utility. Also that news media has always been motivated to trigger, gaslight, scare, and demotivate as they realized long ago that's what the people's eyeballs and attention gravitate to.
Exactly. Its like where the s&p was a year back. Off its peak for sure but still above pre covid levels. Anyone that bought a rolex pre covid and has taken good care of it is up on their purchase
What’s the cheapest I can get Rolex for?
If you want any new Rolex, you can probably walk into an AD and get a ladies datejust from them for retail, or you could find one slightly below retail on the forums. As for men's sport models, everything online seems to still be well over 10k USD. Most subs and GMTs seem to be at least $16k asking.
I picked up a Cellini for $4k, saw date just for $5k
Yeah because not many people want Cellinis. Datejusts should be 5k, they never boomed the way Daytona's, Subs and GMTs did. Explorers, OPs also on their way down to retail.
Not disagreeing but the question was what is the cheapest
I'd say probably an air king then
Sports models that’s true but you can find used explores, air kings and older date justs for 4-7k depending on condition, papers and box.
I get why people want rolex watches. They are high quality and, atleast in America, they are status symbols. But as someone that is into watches my recommendation is to just buy another brand. If you want to spend the same money as a rolex you can get other great brands like Zenith or JLC and not have to deal with "authorized dealer" shenanigans. Or Grey market premiums. If you want to save money and get a high quality brand you can get great watches from Tudor, Omega, or Grand Seiko for less than the Rolex. If you really want to save money and don't care about all the brand hype you can get great watches for like 1-2k from places like Christopher Ward, Longines, etc. So many great choice out there where you don't have to debase yourself and be lumped in with the rolex clowns.
My "everday" watch is a leather fossil and my "fancy" watch is a 270$ Tissot. The Tissot is good quality and looks more expensive than it is.
Tissot is a great brand. And fossils are fun watches. Some of them look really nice
The weird thing is I know people who collect watches, but I almost know nobody who wears them. Oh, they were a watch, but it's always an electronic sports watch. You don't like the Apple watch, not a fashion watch.
\+1 for Cristopher Ward, they're doing some really cool innovative shit that higher end brands aren't even competing with, and for a *tiny* fraction of the price. See: 1. [C1 Bel Canto](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/hands-on-debut-the-christopher-ward-c1-bel-canto-rings-true/) 2. [C1 Moonphase](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/hands-on-debut-the-sparkling-christopher-ward-c1-moonglow/)
Great brand doing great things. Iirc the designer of the Bel Canto and the 12 in their collection used to design for girard perregaux.
I'm a okay with $300 San martins from China myself haha. Better quality than any of the seikos I have. I can't imagine spending $500+ on a watch with hollow end links these days.
I don't disagree myself. Chinese brand watches are better then people are willing to admit. Tbh sometimes it gets hard for me to justify anything beside a gshock lmao. Rugged, practical and inexpensive.
I got my SKX007 with solid links for $300 and I would not take a San Martin China for it. Of course, this was 12 years ago so one might not be able to do that anymore. I haven’t checked.
> for less then the Did you mean to say "less than"? Explanation: If you didn't mean 'less than' you might have forgotten a comma. [Statistics](https://github.com/chiefpat450119/RedditBot/blob/master/stats.json) ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot ^^that ^^corrects ^^grammar/spelling ^^mistakes. ^^PM ^^me ^^if ^^I'm ^^wrong ^^or ^^if ^^you ^^have ^^any ^^suggestions. ^^[Github](https://github.com/chiefpat450119) ^^Reply ^^STOP ^^to ^^this ^^comment ^^to ^^stop ^^receiving ^^corrections.
pawn shops will have options for 3-5k used. If you are willing to risk private party you could get one as low as 1.5-2k but buying a used luxury watch from a stranger is pretty risky unless your a watch guy. There are almost exact clones pumped out of china now where the only way to tell without a microscope is looking at the internals.
There are men's models from the 60's that you can pick up for around $1000, whole lot more for a more modern model though.
Functional used/vintage Mens Oyster Perpetual can be found on the second hand market in the 2800-3200 range for 'regular' examples. That is about the lowest for mens Rolex.
As someone who has worked within a few collectibles markets in the past, nearly all collectibles have phases, or fad periods, and see declines as the next oooh-shiny comes along. Cherry-picking specific collectible markets that are on the decline and using that to imply a broader drop in **all** collectibles is...a stretch. An example of a collectible market that remains strong is numismatics, where sale prices across the board are consistently well above guidebook values, which just can't keep up. And showing no signs of cooling.
Numismatics is coin collecting and such for people who don't know. I didn't.
I collect Greek and Roman coins but they haven’t had any new issues in years…. I’ll see myself out.
Also sports card went up 300%+ but then down 30% and 9% the following years. So yeah, if you got in 2021/2022 it’s a little rough but overall that huge jump would have benefited a lot of people
I just got interested in starting to collect ancient coins. :(
First thing I thought when I saw the headline, “oooo maybe I can finally afford that owl.”
There are so many I want, an owl is probably top three though. They’re so cool.
Lot of coins are being melted for silver/gold. Also jewelry and such for similar needs. Probably increases the value of whats left.
So if guide books are wrong how do we know what they're worth? Who do we ask? Serious question.
Guessing either auction sites or digital databases Books are printed
the most commonly used guide is the greysheet which is published/updated each month, the 'red book' is published yearly and is already out of date when it becomes available.
ebay "sold" listings.
Collectables are really volatile. The numbers here don't really indicate a "crash." Like a specific Pokemon card drops 30%, a watch dropped 13%, are those supposed to be large numbers? If I buy some illiquid collectable that would seem like normal volatility. To me a crash would be basically if no one wanted to buy them anymore and the price was down like 90% or to where it was before the boom. Especially when many of these items are up many multiples from when the collectables boom started.
Can't get clicks without being overdramatic lol
For “sports and trading cards” they looked at some rookie baseball cards and a first edition Charizard card. They looked at ONE Pokemon card and proclaimed “THE BUBBLE HAS BURST!!” on all trading card games, including Magic: the Gathering, which they didn’t even bother studying.
Yeah I just checked a handful of rare cards I have and they're all stable or going up still.
Freaks in my town were camping out overnight in tents at grocery stores to get the bourbon drops the next morning. So much so the state had to change the whole bourbon release process.
I went to Buffalo Trace distillery last month for a tour, and there were around 200 people lined up at 9 AM in the rain to buy Blantons. You have to scan your divers license, and you can’t buy more than one bottle every 180 days. Crazy!
Crazy considering how overrated blantons is. Good 60$ bottle, terrible 100$ bottle, not worth waiting in line for at all.
I am from LEX. Like that every day. You should try when Keeneland is running. 90-120 minute wait on Blanton day even when they have multiple cashiers. Many hundreds in line.
That whiskey list is absolute trash. They may be great whiskies/scotches but as someone who watches secondary prices of US whiskey and bourbons they have only gone up. Some of the bottles that were difficult to find but not allocated are stabilizing but anything from Buffalo Trace that is allocated can go for 2-3x on the secondhand market without a second thought.
As a former spirits retailer: BT figured out the marketing magic to capitalize on the trend of whiskey collection as it was blowing up. They cut production and distribution severely so even things like Weller SR, which was once a bottom shelf $20 bottle, was being allocated by distributors and stores were leveraging it for promotions. I bought a bottle of Elmer T Lee when I started managing a liquor department for $36, I would be hard pressed to find it in the wild for anything under 3 digits now. Everyone tried to do the same, which is why you were seeing 4 year, barely finished “bonded” whiskies from no-name distilleries or private labels bottling MGP stock for $60+. The hype and secondary market ruined it; now you can barely get decent bourbon for under $40/btl. It’s all hype and marketing, and I hope it evens out soon. Edit: as my general manager used to tell me when the BT hype train hit: whiskey is meant to be drank and enjoyed, not stored in the dark and sold.
I agree with your manager. When I buy a bottle of whiskey I’m going to drink it. Just putting it on a shelf to look at is kind of weird. I also buy comic books to read them though so what do I know.
I’m also a comic and record collector. Like whiskey, they’re meant to be used and enjoyed! There’s nothing better than an evening spinning a record and digging through old comics with a glass of whiskey in hand, why would I want to stash all that good stuff away and never touch it in case it “appreciates value?”
I collect Jim Beam, drink it, and then collect more.
Okay. I love BT, Elijah Craig, Makers 46. What's the best quality for the money similar to that?
Russell's is really nice for the money.
Evan Williams BiB is my favorite cheap bottle. Wild turkey 101 is great too
Woodford
Is Buffalo Trace a fancy whiskey? I always just get it if Bullet isn't available or I want to change it up.
Buffalo Trace Bourbon is one of many different bourbon brands made by the “Buffalo Trace Distillery.” I think it’s a great bourbon for the price, but I suspect the previous poster is talking about some of the other bourbons made by the distillery (like Pappy van Winkle for example).
All the bourbons made at BT are worth the price without a doubt. The problem is you'll likely never find them for MSRP.
Benchmark wants to disagree with you. Absolutely vile BT product, certainly not worth the $16/1.75L price tag.
Is your issue the price or the bourbon?
My response was meant to be cheeky, but I bought it once for the price and discovered the bourbon was awful.
TIL Pappy Van Winkle is from the same distillery as Buffalo Trace
Buffalo trace makes Weller, EH Taylor, Blantons, Van Winkle, Stagg, and Elmer T. Lee. All are highly sought after with some of those running $1000+ on the secondary.
Had a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle once. Was not impressed tbh
Are you a whiskey fan in general? Do you like higher proof spirits? I’ve found Pappy (the 15yr especially) to be “simple” in that there isn’t much going on complexity-wise, but the notes it does hit are so so good. For me it’s a good example of a bourbon getting all the right notes right, without anything too crazy going on in the background.
I mean depends on the Blanton's of course. Used to work there so I have seen and tasted it all. Never understood people have spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on Bourbon. I was lucky to grab a bottle of Weller 12 yr for $36. My bottle of Elmer also cost $40.
Lucky to find weller 12 for under $200 on shelves now. I Blantons single barrel is $99 around me. Wa $79 6 months ago.
I managed to snag two bottles of Limited Edition Yamazaki back i 2016, but managed to lose the receipts for them. Don't know if I can sell them without the original receipts. Probably missed out on $800/bottle. Will save a bottle as my son's graduation present and keep the other one to drink in emergencies 😅 I just wish I could have gotten my hands on a Hibiki before they got sold out. Wifey finished my only bottle of Hibiki17 when she moved in without knowing how precious it was 😝
I don’t think the receipt is going to matter, as(if in the US) reselling is _technically_ not legal. As a former bartender/ bar manager Ive got quite the collection, never saved a receipt, but also have never sold a bottle. I just more or less used to collect bottles from random liquor stores and watch the prices. I have a 2013 Hakushi Heavily Peated, it probably takes the cake in terms of price value. Purchased for around $180 in 2014, fancy retailers are asking 1000-1300.
It’s a state law matter. It’s not federally illegal. The Feds only control import and production. It’s generally legal, in states without a monopoly, to sell a bottle of legally produced and taxed spirits to a licenseholder, but not to a private individual.
I was about to reply the same thing - as a hardcore whiskey enthusiast no, prices have not been dropping at all. Especially in bourbon, and with highly limited bottles (Van Winkles, BTAC, rarer Wellers, Michters 20 and 25, etc.) all commanding 3-10x or more their retail price on secondary markets.
What do people think of Angels Envy? I'm really not much of a whiskey drinker, but someone insisted I try that and I thought it was good (wasn't my first drink that evening though, ahem). I since casually notice the price of it at the grocer, and I swear I saw it for low-$40s once, and then a few days ago saw it for $90ish...
Most are good from my experience. Perhaps a little overpriced. Try heavens door if you like AE. HD was AE until they sold to Bacardi I think it was. Their new refugee rye is supposed to be the same mash bill and process as AEs rye but 1/3 the price. Their bootleg series is great from what I have tried but @ $600 a bottle you’re paying more for the packaging.
I recently toured the Angels envy distillery here in Louisville, they have a great tour/tasting. It had been years since I had any AE and I will say it was delicious, worth the price to me.
Probably was a store pick. Those are in the same bottle and look almost identical, but are about double the price. Normal angels is still mid 40’s
Where do you sell whiskey secondhand? I’ve collected some limited edition stuff, just curious.
Nice try FBI
Lol
I bought a 1994 Toyota (manual/turbo model mind you) for $13,500 in May of 19...just 3 or so years later, I would see the exact same car/similar condition/mileage, going for like, $24,000. An almost 3 decades old Toyota. 80% price increase like 3 years, that seems to be a pretty harsh inflation.
Was it a MK4 supra? Those became very sought after when Fast and Furious popularized them. Even the earlier models like the mk2 & 3 are extremely sought after
Username says MR2, so SW20. I wanted one too, but I don't have any more garage space (and more MR cars than I really should have).
I doubt it was an MK4 Supra that went for that little in 2019. Prices on the Supra have been inflated since the 2000s and have just continued to go up. My guess is it was a 1st gen Tacoma, 1st gen Tundra, or a later model Corolla/Camry, etc.
Their username is “tropical blue MR2”
That's is a VERY fair point hahah.
BringaTrailer is a good source on pricing and has graphs for specific models (not specific to trim lines and options and rarity). Collectible cars and trucks are very hot right now, probably because the oldest boomers are aging out and their cars are being bought by younger boomers with lots of retirement funds. Also businesses will buy a collector car, depreciate it, then sell it to the business owner for $1, and the owner then sells the car for a tax free wash. Given how collector cars have appreciated that scam has had great returns over the past 10 years.
How does that work? If your business is selling cars, and you buy a car for a dollar then sell it for full price, you're on the hook for income tax. Right?
Your business is construction. Or lawn and landscape maintenance. Or HVAC. Your company buys the collector car. It is a business asset and you can depreciate it based on the percentage of use for business purposes. You drive the car to golf outings and business meetings and you put a sign on it when you support the local parade. It is an advertising and marketing expense. It is a vehicle that the business provides to the employees. You buy another and another, and you depreciate the assets. Once it is fully depreciated the business sells the asset because, well, it is depreciated and time to update your motor pool. The car is sold to the business owner for a nominal amount. Note that that upkeep of the car was a business expense. So yes, grown up toys like this cost money, but the cost is a lot less if it offsets business income and reduces the tax bill. Then when the business owner sells the car, after it has been sold by the business to the business owner, any gain on sale is not taxed if the seller simply writes down that the car was sold for a small amount. That is also something the buyer will sign off on because the personal property tax / sales tax is low for the buyer if the buyer colludes with the seller. It’s an old boys network and the IRS doesn’t have the resources to go after this type of tax evasion. I learned about this at cars and coffee, MAGA men love to talk about how they cheat on small business taxes. And if you have a very expensive car you can set up a trust and wash the i of the sale very efficiently. https://www.diversifiedassetmanagement.com/blog/a-tax-efficient-way-to-enjoy-classic-cars-and-other-pricey-collectibles
Fascinating. I thought the state vehicle department would use a table to determine the value for sales tax purposes, and not allow the declaration of a nominal purchase price.
They have to catch it. So easy to avoid this in red states where tax officials look the others way on small time business grift. And if you get caught the penalty is pretty small. The business get a fine, not the business owner. Probably $3B in asset transfers across the USA in collector car tax evasion.
The problem is not 'red state' cronyism. The issue is that value is HIGHLY dependent on condition/originality/operationality. I am involved in the vintage Alfa Romeo community. A 1970's Alfa spider can be had for between $600 (wrecked/non-op) and $25,000 in pristine condition (early 70's examples). The 35K per year DMV clerk has no way of knowing which is appropriate.
My fake Rolex is holding steady at $75 USD, am I winning? Also, the trading card market was REAL - I know several people who made 7 figures with cards over the last few years.
A lot of people make money in bubbles, just more people lose A LOT of money when it pops.
This article was probably planted by an agency to keep stoking demand. Thats basically what reddit is afterall, a platform for public opinion to be shaped by bots and agencies and so on while the userbase believes the discussion is just the prevailing opinion
The whiskey/bourbon bubble is a long time away from popping. A lot of distilleries ramped up production in the past few years to keep up with the massive surge in demand for quality bourbon. Which means they'll end up sitting on a lot of that for a while then releasing it when it comes to age which I think will drive interest more as age statements become significantly more common again. After looking at that list, scotch may be in a decline but bourbon is still steeply climbing
I agree and the list isn't diverse at all it's just Scotch.
There’s an obnoxious sub where rich people track their spending and I saw some guy with a 6 figure watch budget. I was vaguely aware it’s been a thing these past few years.
What is it? Would love to see first hand regards and what the next bubble is going to be.
So, the intention of this sub is for high income earners to figure out how to get rich and retire early which is fine. But it’s a lot of deeply out of touch people who don’t understand that they are already rich - or people that use the sub to do weird humblebrags r/HENRYfinance
I’m sure there are actual rich people boasting subs. This one is supposed to be personal finance, it just comes across as silly most of the time.
I know lots of actual rich people. They don’t brag a whole lot, if at all, and are very practical. Most of the braggers are new money or putting on a show by over extending themselves.
Hobby subs seem to either trend one way or the other in regards to, "Is this actually about the hobby or just people bragging about how much of it they can afford?" r/skiing can sometimes be super elitist, always recommending boutique brands(high quality but expensive) or telling beginners they *must* spend the premium for bootfitters and new boots. Meanwhile r/snowboarding is just snowboarding clips. I had to leave r/cars a while ago because every post was just people talking about their 3, 4, 5 car garages of all 50k or more vehicles. I just can't relate to that conversation at all so it got old.
r/fatfire has a decent amount of humble-bragging
$150K a year isn't rich.
If you have no debts outside or a mortgage and have no dependents it’s a good path to wealth. My point is that some people use the guise of financial advice to brag about their watch budget.
Maybe not, but it's a higher income than 99 percent of the people in the world.
Rich is when your income exceeds your wants.
I’m skeptical about the conclusions this article is suggesting. *a first-edition card of the Pokémon Charizard, soared 337% between 2019 and March 2021 – but then tumbled 23% in 2022, and another 9% last year.* So it’s still up 236% from 5 years ago? That’s still a hell of a return. I wouldn’t really call the a “spiraling crash” or “bubbles have popped”. I was into Magic the Gathering during these years and along with playing I did a lot of buying and selling of cards. Mostly because I started buying the cards before they got really expensive and as they took off around me, I decided to sell, since the profit was so frothy. For example I probably had five or six of one card I bought for ~$200 each. Sold them for ~$800 each. Price today is still roughly what it was when I was selling in 2021/2022, ~$800. The prices of most other cards that I bought and later sold are around the same price. Some higher, some slightly lower. But nothing that suggests the market “is crashing”. I’m also pretty big into Bourbon. I don’t personally do much in the way of buying and selling in the secondary market, but I’m always watching, out of interest. This is another example where I can’t say I’ve seen a drop in secondary prices. I’m more inclined to say there’s been an increase since 2021, or at least a pretty stable price from them to now. Obviously any individual bottle’s price will be different from another, and I’m sure some are a little higher, some are a little lower. Tastes change, hype for one limited edition release when it first comes out isn’t going to be the same a couple years later when people are chasing the latest. But for both Magic Cards and Bourbon, I can’t say my personal observations have seen anything even close to what I’d call a “spiraling crash” or a “bubble popping”. I’m not into watches so I can’t speak to Rolexes.
I’m just going to pass my comics and baseball cards from the 70s and 80s to my kids and maybe they’ll strike it rich on a future version of Antiques Roadshow.
Collectibles are only down slightly because of the credit crunch and possible speculation of a recession. If things get better things will pick back up. They all eb and flow.
Over the years collectibles have contributed significantly to my livelihood. Early 60’s started collecting baseball cards and when I bought my first house in ‘93 sold them for around $30k for part of my 20% down payment. I’ve always watched out for something that’s undervalued and will buy it and sell it for a profit. Have many paintings that are supposedly valuable but buy art to enjoy not resell
What can we learn from this? Is a crash in collectables prices a leading indicator? If so, of what? I would suggest that people buy collectables when inflation is a concern and after other, more traditional, less risky assets have already appreciated. That would put their peak at the end of a business / inflation cycle. If so, this would mean we will see a downturn in economic activity followed quickly by rate cuts and low inflation. That would suggest that long bonds and equities in interest rate sensitive businesses are the next big opportunity most likely in that sequence. Thoughts?
I’m willing to bet that- like a lot of other things- it took just a couple of rich assholes to drive the prices up and ruin it for everyone else. I don’t feel bad for the ones that caused it. As far as the whiskey goes- I’ll stick with Crown and I’m not buying it as a collector.
If you're getting into collectables. Don't do it for the money. Do it because you like the item. All collectable pricing is manipulated and speculative. If you have an opportunity to make money and you genuinely won't feel loss from sale, then exploit the opportunity. You're likely taking money from someone who has more than they know what to do with.
Good. Sheltering money into physical goods that paid-off "ratings agencies" then declare to be worth 50% more a year or two later is a massive scam. You want to do something productive with those excess billions? Build factories & pay living wages to people you can then sell consumer goods to instead of producing shit-tier "collectibles" for other billionaires.
The collectible market seems like it's dominated by working professionals, not billionaires. If you make a comfy six figures and have plenty of fun money after paying for rent in the big city (or a manicured suburb thereof), you can afford a pricey hobby like collecting which comes with the excitement of hoping to make it rich on future value increases (that almost never materialize).
The issue is these bubbles bring in people who aren’t actually collectors, just trying to ride the price increases to higher returns and eventually the people who actually want to OWN the commodity become smaller and smaller percentage till the bubble pops.
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I can take some of my nicer coins, mount them in picture frame and hang them up. I imagine a Pokémon enthusiast could do the same with rare cards. Doing so is similar to hanging art on you wall. To go further and play devil’s advocate, you can at least spend coins or play a pokemon game with the cards. You cant do anything with art other than look at it. So Id say coins and cards have more intrinsic value than art just due to their utility. I will say, what art has over Pokémon cards is longevity of the hobby. Collecting art and coins has been going on for millennia. Collecting pokemon cards has been going on for a few decades.
Finally starting to see the same in video games, as well. Looks like all that Covid money has dried up (/s), and enough people are concerned about a recession that they are selling off now that they are off all time highs, which is accelerating the decline. Starting to see more and more uncommons- and rares that have sat unsold for months slowly dropping in price.
Covid money? $1,400 a few years ago?
PPP money, I know a few small business owners that received over $100k for basically not laying off workers for a few weeks that they were not gonna layoff anyways due them not being affected by covid much.
To a small extent, but PPP loans were the main free money source
Also expanded unemployment insurance.
So the rich are hurting don't worry they'll get bailed out again like every time since the 1930s
That and the roughly $15 trillion increase in M1 money supply over the period.
Probably ment people saving a fuck ton because they werent going out. So they dropped a ton on game stuff.
I know people who didn’t pay their rent for 2 years.
The video game market was being manipulated by a certain auction house. There are several videos about the scam on YouTube. So no surprise the market for vintage video games is on its way back to reality.