Larger apartment to house collection

[socaso]

I just started working with a person who told me that he and his spouse have to have a 2 bedroom apartment because the second bedroom is used to store the spouse's rather large collection of Disney doo dads. He went on to tell me that when they got married his spouse's wealthy employer gave them a generous amount of money and they spent it all on more Disney collectibles. Now they want to buy a house and have a kid and they have no money in savings. What I really don't get is the Disney thing. I can't think of any genuinely useful or attractive Disney collectible I've ever seen. That room must look like the land of plastic dust catchers and while some of it may be valuable to other Disney collectors I doubt they'll ever see any real appreciation on the collection. We live in such a high priced rental market I could never justify a second bedroom for something so useless.

[Threshkin]

Most things marketed as "collectable" are bad investments in the long run.

[kite]

It's Mouse themed landfill.
Praise FSM I'm not married to one of them!

[Hunny156]

I spent high school & college working in a gift shop, which is where 75% of all this collectible crap comes from.  I vividly recall the craziness of the Walt Disney Classics Collection, which was a hand painted ceramic collection.  Not cheap plastic junk for sure, but seriously overpriced, and then the craziness began.  Each story had several pieces, but only one piece was a limited edition.  To further add to the nuttiness, the year of production was characterized by some icon embossed into the bottom of the piece.  We would get calls from all over the US, asking if we had Cinderella's dress w/the wheel icon.  My boss took full advantage of the situation and would only sell the limited piece if you bought all the other pieces too!  People snatched them up anyhow, I would ring up thousands of dollars in this stuff, and that was in the late 90's.

I can't recall the other special pieces, but the special piece for Bambi retailed for $195, and went for 10x that when demand went nuts.  Cinderella's dress has similar margins, from $300 to $3K.  I did meet one couple who acted quickly, and purchased several dozen Cinderella's dresses before the retailers began demanding the entire collection be bought along with it, and they quickly liquidated their inventory on this new-fangled website called Ebay.  I hope they reached FI a long time ago!

I just did a quick search on Ebay, and that dress has auctions asking as much as $1,600, but the solds show anywhere between $400 - $800.  Minus shipping & fees, hardly a worthwhile investment!

[LalsConstant]

I have to confess I used to collect things but I was all over the place: rocks and minerals,  pocket knives,  flashlights,  coins, comic books, regular books...

Slowly Ever so slowly I have parsed down to the pieces I really enjoy and I give away sell or donate as I go.

It's good in that I feel "saturated" now like I never need to buy anything ever again.

Every time I move I boil it down some more.  Every once in a while I get an urge to cull and just go nuts.

I will go so far as to buy a small box and say this is it, I can have as much as will fit in this box but no more.

I figured out how to turn this around though : "collect" investments!

[Elyse]

I have a collection that may or may not be frugal.  It cost me a pretty penny up front, but has brought me hours and hours of fun.

I have a nearly complete collection of 4e Dungeons and Dragons books and a good deal of 3.5 books. 

Collection Worth: $3000.

Paid: $300 for all.

I use it at least once a week when friends come over, and some of them are great fun to read.  I can't find them in a library, and I like holding a physical book over using PDF files.  I do have PDFs for the text-search capability, though.

Considering I can now play the game in every single configuration possible (due to all 32 books), I can play this game from now until I die without ever have to spend a dime on other games.  If I get bored, I switch editions for a while.  People always want to learn how to play, so I'm never short on players. 

Maybe it isn't mustachian to have a collection, but at least I don't let it just collect dust on a shelf.

[BlueHouse]

My sister-in-law collected beanie babies.  They had hundreds of them and she seemed to get some thrill out of talking about the next one coming out, then standing in line to get it.  The capture seemed to be even more fun than having it.  They had them stored up in the rafters of their garage for years in plastic trash bags.  No idea if they moved them when they moved crossed country. beanie babies!!!