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Collectibles: Trash or Treasure?

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Categories: Instruction and information; Humor and sarcasm

Word count/read time: 595 words; 3 minutes

Collectible fads have repeated countless times. The tulip bust in Holland replays every year with oodles of new items: Cabbage Patch Kids, Tickle-Me-Elmo, Beanie Babies. Those are just dolls! It plays out faster in the digital age; fads may last a few mouse clicks.

Franklin Mint arguably began the most recent iteration of subscription-style collector sets and trinkets. They even had cruises! Marketing geniuses, they were untouchable in their heyday with the best sculptors, engravers, and other artists at hand.

One comedian chortled about rednecks and their fascination with collector plates. You know you're a redneck when you've spent your entire retirement on collector plates. These travesties percolating from the depths of cyberspace amaze me. This isn't an attack on the artists; they collectively show amazing talent.

Here's the scene: Anxiously awaiting their new arrival, the family swarms the mailman. Junior is jumping up and down, mom is putting her apron away, sis is getting antsy, and baby just dropped a mean number two. Barking dog by his side, dad opens the package, saying, "Calm down everyone. We will all get to enjoy the (horribly over-priced) plate in a minute!"

Is the $0.04 worth of 24k gold on the rim supposed to increase its value tenfold? Or a COA? What about being a "limited edition"? How about "limited addition" as in it doesn't take complex math to figure out it's a waste of money.

Individual plates appeal to an infinitely small group of quirky collectors. To have the audacity to make tens of thousands - not just one but entire series - and convince people to buy them at crazy prices? Someone's making money but not you.

Who got excited when the new McDonald's, CocaCola, or Pepsi plate arrived? Gold Medal Flour anniversary plate? Cat, teddy bear, unicorn, whale, fish, bird, moose, grizzly wolf, cow, woodchuck, leopard, myriad birds, and oh so many more. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Twelve different Chihuahua plates, multiple German Shepherd ones, Pugs, Scotties, Retrievers, Yorkies, Boxers, Dachshund, Pomeranian, Poodle, Sheltie, Beagle, they're running out of breeds. Bring on the Triple Crown winners!

Seasonal, landscape, farm-themed, lighthouses, and fantasy plates squander fine porcelain. As do planes, trains, and automobiles. War scenes? Got you covered. A talking Star Trek plate...does it mock the owner and say, "Boldly buy what no one wants"? Wizard of Oz speaks, too. James Bond stays silent. Norman Rockwell is everywhere.

But John Wayne, JFK, Sinatra, Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis?? Freddie Mercury from Queen got his own set as did Little Women. Sporting greats from baseball, football, pro wrestling, and NASCAR (specific races, too) aren't spared.

Colleges, too. Looney Tunes, Little Rascals, Batman, Simpsons, Gunsmoke, Flintstones, Three Stooges, Campbell's Soup, Peanuts, Garfield, Hummel, Barbie, Betty Boop, Snow White, Cinderella - is nothing sacred? Pray for the Ten Commandments and other religious plates to have any value!

It seems improbable that Harley owners would purchase a cartoonish square plate! Well, maybe to use as skeet (along with gamebirds of the world plates). Ditto for Indian motorcycles. Maybe I can understand dolls plates. No, scratch that. Titanic - may all these plates go down with the ship.

Even precious metal plates rarely get spot. I'd think "no one" would pay $100 for a mass-produced china plate though its very existence proves me wrong. Change "plates" to any other item marketed by these companies and it would still hold true.

Though there's lots of money to be made, there is even more to lose. One man's trash is another's treasure but it doesn't mean it's valuable.

Posted by M: October 29, 2015

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