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Collectibles: Trash or Treasure?

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Categories: Instruction and information; Humor and sarcasm

Word count/read time: 624 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. Mismanagement, lawsuits, bad publicity, and tanking markets tainted their later years.

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 even after decades of buying.

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!"

Individual plates will 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 it won't be 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 and 24kt gold trimming. As do planes, trains, and automobiles. War scenes? Yep, got you covered. A talking Star Trek plate...does it mock the owner and say, "Boldly buy what no one wants"? Norman Rockwell artwork comes in all materials.

But John Wayne (you'd think he was a gods with all the plates alone), 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 drivers (and specific races) 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 would seem improbable that any Harley owner would purchase a cheap cartoonish square porcelain plate depicting a bunch of hogs in front of the drive-in! Well, maybe to use as skeet. Ditto for Indian motorcycles, but at least they're round. Maybe I can understand dolls plates. No, scratch that. Titanic - may all these plates go down with the ship.

Even precious metal plates' values are intimately tied to the precious metal market, not collector value, and rarely get spot anyway. People who think non-silver plates have any value today need a reality check. 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.

This isn't an attack on the artists; they collectively show amazing talent. I know one personally! 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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