There are people out there who collect just about everything, and one growing market is arcade tokens. If you have any Chuck E. Cheese’s tokens lurking in a drawer or jewelry box, they’re about to become slightly more valuable: the chain is about to switch from custom-made tokens to stored-value cards, making it easier to track individual players and restore lost balances. [More]
collectibles
If You’re In The Market For A WWII-Era Tank, This French Museum Has The Auction For You
By 8.18.16
After failing to attract enough visitors to keep it afloat, the Normandy Tank Museum has decided to sell of its entire collection of tanks, military vehicles, trucks, aircraft, and motorcycles in an auction next month. [More]
Family Finds 7 Rare Ty Cobb Baseball Cards Hanging Out In A Crumpled Paper Bag
By 3.3.16
If I hadn’t already insisted on going through everything in my parents’ attic and basement back at home, I’d be calling them to search thoroughly right now, just in case there are any million-dollar baseball card collections hiding amid the dust*. To wit: the family of a deceased man found seven rare Ty Cobb baseball cards likely worth more than $1 million sitting in a crumpled paper bag in dilapidated home’s attic [More]
The Sale Event For PepsiPerfect Was Deeply Flawed
By 10.21.15
A few weeks ago, we shared the fun news Pepsi would be making a collectible version of the fictional “PepsiPerfect” from the Back to the Future movies. It would be released today, at midnight, for $20.15. Sounds fun, and fans planned to wait by their computers for the release time. Not only was the run very limited, but the sale reportedly went live early, making them sell out even earlier than anticipated. [More]
Vintage Apple Computer Worth $200K Dropped Off For Recycling
By 6.1.15
Back in April, a woman in her sixties dropped off a box of what she said was her late husband’s computer junk at an electronics recycling company in California’s Bay Area. She didn’t want a donation receipt, and just wanted the stuff out of her garage. It was only after she left that anyone looked through the box. They found something astonishing: one of the first few hundred desktop computers that Apple sold in the ’70s. [More]
Amazon’s “Make An Offer” Option Lets Customers Haggle Over The Price Of Collectible Items
By 12.9.14
While it’s not uncommon for customers to haggle over the price of items at garage sales, most of us wouldn’t dream of walking into a prominent national retailer and asking them to cut the price of an item just because – that is until now. Amazon unveiled a new option that allows customers to bargain over the price of thousands of collectible items sold on the site. [More]
Wait To Buy An Olympic Torch If You Don’t Want To Get Burned On The Price
By 7.27.12
Any minute now — or several hours from now if you wait for tonight’s NBC broadcast, the Olympic flame will make its way into the opening ceremony in London, and pass from the 8,000th torch in the Athens-London relay to the big cauldron. It’s easy to get swept up in all the pageantry and tradition; enough to make some folks ponder parting with a pile of cash for one of those torches. But if you just wait until after we’ve all recovered from Olympics fever, you won’t spend nearly as much. [More]
Where Do Smart People Sell Collectibles These Days?
By 5.9.12
When you have interesting collectibles in your house that you no longer have room for, what do you do with them? Reader pop top has acquired a collection of mint-condition Cabbage Patch Kids from the ’80s. Okay, she won’t be able to retire on them, but they must be worth at least a few bucks each. Years ago, the question of where to sell them was simple: eBay was the best and biggest marketplace for collectibles. But horror stories of frozen funds and scammy buyers now abound, and she wants to ask the Consumerist hive mind: where is the best place to unload some cuddly dolls? [More]
How To Sell Your Comic Book Collection
By 3.5.12
You’ve given up hopes that your old, dust-collecting comic book collection will make your grandchild a millionaire one day and just want to cash out and move on. The problem is you don’t know how much any of them are worth, who will be willing to take them off your hands or how much work it will take to unload them at a fair price. [More]
Troll Dolls Get Sassy Makeover, For Some Reason
By 3.10.11
Retro toy doll sensation “Trolls” are coming back to shelves with a huge makeover. Instead of chubby bodies and hideous faces, the new dolls are basically “Bratz” with giant hairdos. The creatures are called “Trollz” and are tied in with an animated cartoon series. This is actually their redebut; after a lackluster offering in 2006, they are trotting out the dolls and the cartoon for another go-round. Second second time’s the charm? [More]
Why Hummel Figurines Are Pretty Much Worthless Now
By 1.27.10
Collectibles are a strange thing. People buy them for aesthetic or sentimental reasons, or as an investment. The latter reason is kind of stupid, since if everyone holds on to and cherishes a mass-produced item, it never becomes rare enough for supply to go down and demand to go up. (See: Beanie Babies.) It took much, much longer for the market to crash, but that’s what’s happening now as Hummel figurines no longer suit modern tastes and their aficionados in the Greatest Generation die off. [More]
Hard Rock Sends Collectible Glasses To Make Up For Gaffe
By 12.7.09
A mix-up at the Hard Rock Cafe gift shot left Simon with different keepsake booze glasses than the ones he tried to buy. He sent a letter to the restaurant’s GM, who made things right. Simon writes: [More]
Beanie Baby Futures: Slightly Better Investment Than Bernie Madoff
By 5.15.09
Last year, I visited my parents to help clear out the house we had lived in since 1984. One of my more cuddly tasks was to sort the three garbage bags full of Beanie Babies hanging out in the closet of my childhood bedroom. Most of them found new homes in the garage sale, or were donated to charity.
Obama Collector's Coins Turn Out To Be Stickers Stuck On Regular Coins
By 2.14.09
You may have seen the commercial where Montel Williams hawks some goofy collectible coins with President Obama’s face IN FULL COLOR OMG. If you were planning on ordering some, though, watch this video from KATU 2 TV in Portland, Oregon first.* A father and daughter bought the coins and discovered that they’re just regular money with color stickers applied. One of the news anchors even comments that she could see the face on the coin through the sticker when she looked at it from the side.
Life Still Empty? Buy Videotaped Autographs From The Stars
By 8.18.08
We can’t really mock the self-mocking William Shatner for his miraculous ability to keep earning money as a celebrity, sometimes even by acting, so instead we’ll roll our eyes at the dorks who are paying $150 and up for videotaped footage of Shatner reciting a personalized greeting into a video camera as he autographs a photo. And we’ll be secretly jealous of the entrepreneur who came up with the idea.
Pinball’s Cranky Rogue Spokesman
By 3.29.06
Tim Arnold is the ultimate pinball fanatic. A foul-talking, chain-smoking cranky collector of nearly every machine that ever graced the corner of your local pizza parlor, Arnold runs Las Vegas’ Pinball Hall of Fame. He loves saying things like “Today’s yuppie fucks are too self-centered and full of their own shit and their own selves to bother doing community service. I like a civilized society, and civilized society is based not on only the greed of me and more stuff for me.”
