Worrying about investments? Think Collectibles.

[MaggieDressler]

Last year I sat with an investment analyst - I’m not filthy rich, but it was a freebie the bank offered and who doesn’t want to do the best thing with their savings. Anyway, I had gotten a bit of an inheritance, and the bank people wanted to be sure I’d do the right thing with my money.

Well, he encouraged me to put 80% of my savings in a retirement fund that would give me 7% interest and make me a millionaire by the time I retired. Sounded good on the surface, but my gut was telling me - don’t jump into anything so I told him I’d go home and think about it. Which I did - long and hard. Finally, I thought about the way everyone was talking about recession and remembered my parents getting 14% interest on their savings in CD’s at one point. So, I said to myself - hmmmm. Interest rates are fickle so who’s to say 7% is really good advice to lock in for 10 years or so. At any rate, I declined his offer and invested in a high-yield money market and bought some short-term CD’s - less interest but I felt a safer bet. Well, a few months ago, when the economy swooped to record lows, I was really glad I had not taken his advice. When I heard how so many people lost their retirements fund money I was even happier that I had not given in to his advice.

So, what the heck does this have to do with collectibles? The answer is simple. While I don’t invest in the stock market which I’ll admit is something I don’t fully comprehend - I do invest a certain amount of money in antiques and collectibles. Maybe it’s because I really understand them, so I feel comfortable bidding a Lionel train or a doll up to hundreds of dollars at auction and then reselling it for three times as much. Sure, when we first got into this, I was leery of spending too much, and that was a good thing - because until you really learn about things you can get caught up in the auction frenzy and make mistakes. I see it happen all the time. People don’t educate themselves enough and think that every Lionel train is worth a fortune, or that any old composition doll will get them a ton of money at resale. You have to know what you’re doing and you have to set limits.

We attended a benefit auction once which included hundreds of small silver bells and Christmas ornaments. Out of all the attendees, it just so happened that we were the only ones there who were resellers. They had advertised poorly and only the people interested in the benefit were present - about 40 people or so. I almost felt guilty as I paid no more than $20 - mostly $10 - for each bell as they were auctioned off. The others in the room looked at us as if we were crazy for wanting so many bells and ornaments. Time ran out - because the auctioneer had been doing each item one at a time. He informed his audience that they would bring the bells to a jeweler and have them melted down for the silver and donate this to the charity. No! We couldn’t let that happen, so we offered to buy the remaining bells for $400, which he happily accepted.

Home we went with a truckload of silver bells and I was not the least bit worried about our investment. We had arrived an hour before the auction started and learned these were donated by an estate - as we turned them over - one after another wonderful silver maker marks were present on all the bells and ornaments. There was an entire set of Wallace sleigh bell ornaments in their original boxes- the first of which we sold for one thousand dollars. There was not an item there worth less than $40.00 and we sold many for hundreds of dollars a piece.

The lesson to be learned here is not that antique sellers are greedy jerks - it’s that people need to do their homework. If I hadn’t had the chance to check all the ornaments and bells I wouldn’t have bid on any I couldn’t identify. So, to me it was a sure thing. I knew the bottom of the silver collectibles market wasn’t going to fall out in a few days - but even if there was a temporarily slump in the economy - I would still have the products, and they would hold their value for the future. More than I can say for most investments.