One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
That is the old saying and it is pretty much the truth. How many tales have been told of someone finding something worth a significant amount of money that was about to be thrown away or at a flea market?
Here there really is something for everyone in other peoples cast offs and unwanted items because the diversity is usually in the buyer, who is capable of having a multitude of interests, hobbies and needs.
While one collector or bargain hunter may like stamps or old sports cards, another may like old records or porcelain dolls. In the days prior to the major rise of the internet, one could go and find a location to buy used items second hand and usually come out pretty happy as they were getting the items that interested them without paying the higher process of a traditional retail outlet.
Today these kinds of ‘deals’ are a bit harder to come by if your hobby or interest falls into a category where the items you seek are considered collectable, which leads more people to seek them out and then try to sell or ‘flip’ them for more money on websites like E-Bay.
In some circles like coins and jewelry, items with real material value, collections or discoveries could almost seem like nest eggs or investments. This was usually because the item in question had some rare historical value or made of precious metal or gems.
The reason for me writing about this subject matter however is because this changing market the internet has brought about goes hand in hand with another old saying: ‘Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.’
I always have had an interest in video games since I was very little, as I was lucky enough to grow up in the first era of gaming with the likes of Atari, Nintendo and Sega. Today I still find games a way to relax or just kill some time…video games are the TV of the modern age.
However, I neither have the means nor the desire to pay the outrageous prices out there for some of not only the newer video game titles and equipment, but the older models and games I grew up with as well.
Over the last ten years or so a bubble has built up in the retro video gaming market that hopefully will soon burst. In it’s most elite circles you have grown men trying to dominate others over the internet while boasting they can retire on a rare collection of circuit boards and plastic.
What they do not realize is unless you have something of a rare historical value as said above, the market for such items is only worth what the buyers demand. The reason people could consider old coins or, of course, jewelry an investment was that usually the materials they were made of could be sold even if the coin’s face was worn away or the jewelry was broken.
In addition, it also hurts the little guy, the people who just want to collect the games and actually play them, not just think about how much money they could make the owner. The comic book industry paid a price for a similar thing in the nineties, raising the price out of the reach of the kids and teens who poured over them and into the hand of collectors who kept them in top condition and in ten years found they were worth less then the cover price.
In short, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, but today’s high price is tomorrow’s blow out sale.
