What Has Turned Out To Be Your Best Collectible Investment? You're Worst?

Old guns, getting a return of $10 on every $1 I spent 30 - 40 years ago.

I do not think about it since not in it for money.

Which is why I prefaced the question the way I did.

I'm not in it for the money either. But, my best "investment" ever is that I have a complete collection of USA George Washington silver quarters from 1932 to 1964. I put "investment" in quotes because I got them all in pocket change, as a kid, in the early 1960s. And the "all" includes the rare 1932 S and D, and 1937 S, coins.

For those who aren't here in the USA, S for San Francisco and D for Denver are mint marks, meaning where the coins were minted. No mint mark means the coin was minted in Philadelphia.

I had an accumulation of toys from the 2000s that my kids and their cousins played with. I sold all the big items and had a box with maybe 30-40 tiny pieces, many broken, helmets, swords, guns, and accessories. I almost through out because I didn't want to mess with all these little pieces. I listed the lot on ebay for .99 cents and it sold for $78! Turns out that there was a 2 inch sword that everyone wanted. Worst investment: $300 on a starter worm farm!

Vinyl records. In 1982 I bought a carton of them for $10 from a local radio station that was refreshing its stock by getting rid of hundreds of old, played records. I put the box in storage and did not look at it until 1998. Among the stash was a 1964 test pressing of a Rolling Stones recording, apparently distributed in limited quantities only to stations. It sold for $500 on ebay. I sold the rest of the carton to a local dealer for another $250.

I have collected antique fishing lures on and off over the years in furtherance of my passion for fishing. I went to an estate auction, the only one I've ever been to, back around 1998 or so and found a box of old lures and ended up winning them for around $25. It turned out that there were 36 of them, all pre-1950 and all unused in the original boxes. Many of them, it turned out, were very rare. I ended up selling them in 2012, through a specialist collectors club, for $3250.

At the same auction, I bought an original WW II German Afrika Korps bayonet in really good shape for $10. I sold it on ebay a few years ago for $178.

Homeowner's insurance: I pay $900 per year for it. The second year living in our house a massive maple smashed in it from a freak storm. Over $55,000 in damage and insurance covered everything past the $1000 deductible. The worst - the actual home itself - money pit.

Oops! Not a collectible above per se. I did sell a Korean cover for $1400 that I paid 25 cents. Worst - boxes of used common U.S. stamps - still got them and probably just sell them as bulk off-paper kiloware one day. I won't make a dime off of them.

I had a large 1959 baseball card collection (I was 11) but, as others, my mother threw them out when she moved while I was in college!! When we were kids we put the baseball cards in the bicycle spokes with a clothes pin. We wouldn't ever use a Hank Aaron or a Willie Mays, so we used some rookie that we had never heard of. I still see the pink card of Bob Gibson that we used on the bike. Really hurts now....as high as $4700.

Ha! Where I am (Washington state, USA) we do have legal state-licensed pot growers. Even though it's technically still against federal law, none of the DEA agents or police here enforce it.

Legal marijuana has mostly been a good thing for the state -- it's created new jobs, it takes the profit away from the sketchy dealers and taxes the snot out of it (though prices have actually gone down as a legal product), ensures that the marijuana that is sold is free from adulteration or harmful pesticides, makes it harder for minors to obtain the drug, and frees up police and judicial resources. Oh, and there's been a big jump in "tourism" from neighboring Idaho, where drug laws are extremely strict.

There are some negatives as well: the law restricts where pot shops can be located and what kind of advertising they can do, so what happens is in many towns you can find multiple shops within a few blocks of each other, and they use as conspicuous and obnoxious advertising as possible (just skirting the law) in an attempt to distinguish themselves from the guys across the street selling the same product at the same price; I imagine having a huge billboard brandishing a (heavily stylized, due to the law) pot leaf next-door affects property values negatively. DUIs are up slightly, probably due to marijuana use, but they are still low in the state when compared to the US average.

In the interest of keeping this post stampy: There have to be cannabis topicals out there, right? I know for a fact there are many stamps showing hemp, which is just a pollinated cannabis plant and is/was a major agricultural product. (The drug is obtained from non-pollinated plants -- the sticky stuff on the leaves, meant to catch pollen floating by, is where the THC is; once the plant is pollinated it doesn't need the sticky stuff anymore, so it doesn't produce it and is no longer psychotropic.) There are the USA "marihuana" tax stamps that the BEP prepared but that were never actually used. I know there are also anti-drug campaign stamps that sometimes picture a 'joint' or something else representing marijuana. You could probably put a couple hundred stamps together in such a weedy collection.

Last October at the Friends of the Mid-Columbia Library (Kennewick, WA) twice yearly book sale: This event is big and in addition to tables covered with books there are boxes of books underneath to put out when there is room. I caught my foot on one of the under the table boxes that was partially sticking out and … Scott 2016 Volume 2 C-F, Volume 4 J-M, 2015 Volume 3 G-I, Volume 5 N-SAM, $1.00 each. There are gaps but these have been invaluable help for organizing my non U.S. collection. The library does have the full 2019 Scott set but they are always checked out.

Fun topic!

Only speculation - never tried to sell any of my collectibles?

Worst is easy: wine! (We drank it all & will never know??!!)

(Collected beer bottle caps for a while?? Talk about dumb!)

Best? baseball/football cards? Stamps? Never overpaid. Certainly not on cards at basic sticker price. Could certainly re-coup cost & more. Wide assortment of sports programs would also be more than cost.

One of my favorites is newspapers/magazines - from historic events - sports & reality. No added cost, since we got them anyway. Everything from moon landing to 9/11 to '80 Olympic hockey team. 1/1/2000 one of my favorites. Storage is an issue - with my wife!

My daughter collects snow-globes. (Bad investment!)

My son collects FIFA soccer cards. (Good! Some of the prices are insane!!)

I do have thoughts (delusional, according to my wife?!) that someday my pictures-taken-from-airplane-windows collection will be very valuable???!!!

I used to spend a bunch of time at the race track. (Horses) Had lots of left over race programs tucked away for tax purposes.

I day cruising thru ebay I found people actually were collecting them. Who knew?

Most were bought for 50 cents to a dollar and had served their purpose. Eventually sold them all and made more than I ever did at the track.

Best - Bought a book around 1985 called "How I Made A Million Dollars In Real Estate With Nothing Down," paying I think less than $10.00 for it.

Listed in on ebay a few years ago, along with some other books I was letting go, for .99 and enough to cover media mail shipping.

That lot went absolutely crazy. I had forty different bidders fighting over that book. It finally sold for $450.00.

Turns out it is out of print and the best guide ever written to real estate investment.

Worst - the ex. While I was deployed overseas, she sold a very valuable silver dollar collection and didn't even get silver value for it...

My two best returns on "investments" were unintentional and accidental.

I bought a copy of a price guide to Stanley Tools for $65 at the Local bookstore and sold it for $325 about 5 years later.

My best stamp related return on "investment" was a purchase from the Philatelic Fulfillment service of the USPS. Two Spring Flowers booklet planes from the 90's I bought for face value. Both arrive without perforations. I sold them for $750 each. Holy EFO's!