Estás leyendo la prensa de bolsa del futuro | ¿Aún compras prensa escrita para leer sobre Economía?
Find:

Buy, collect, earn - to earn MONEY!

Published by sam - 30/04/08 - 04:04:01 pm

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

A LOT of people have hobbies or obsessions that lead to collecting stuff. But are you aware that some of your little “treasures” might already be worth more now than what you originally paid for them?

While not everybody can afford to collect and invest heavily on vintage cars, real estate properties, or Lladro figurines, there are inexpensive things everybody can earn from – with the help of the passing of time.

1. Coins – There are individuals who began collecting coins simply by saving an interesting coin in circulation or kept change from a trip abroad. “As a young child, I used to play with the coins in my grandma’s purse and asked for those with designs I found fascinating. I have pieces of 10 centavo coins with a lady on it and the thick five-peso Marcos coins among others,” shares Gigi Visey. Now, more than 30 years later, her collection includes other Philippine coins dating back from 1907 with several commemorative coins such as those of the first People Power revolution. “I think some are already very valuable but I simply enjoy having them and have no plans to sell any … yet,” she humorously reveals.

Similarly, other collectors focus on certain themes like coins from a historic period, coins from one or more nations whereas some even delight in finding error coins like those with either heads or tails on both sides.

2. Trading cards – The same size as regular playing cards, trading cards are previously associated only with sports such as baseball or basketball. In the ‘90s they evolved into cards designed for game play with themes featuring subjects like cartoon and comic characters that became very popular even with very small children.

Values of trading cards are based on a combination of the card’s scarcity, the subject’s popularity, and what the card’s condition is. Older cards, which were made before card-collecting became all the rage, have now become items of great value.

Cards and comics collector Joey Gohu provides an example, “Certain CCG (collectible card game) cards in Magic the Gathering, like the Black Lotus, has reached a local value of over P20,000, when booster packs at the time of its release sold for about P150 for five or six cards.”

3. Comic books – Over time, some comic books increase in value due to several factors: a) the rarity of the comic book, b) its condition which is subject to certain grades, c) the character becoming popular, and d) the artist developing a good fan following.

“First appearance of a certain character or the first comic book done by the artist gets a good appreciation of its value,” says Alstaire Sarthou, who collected comics from the ‘80s to 1998. “For instance Amazing Spiderman No. 1 (1963) initially cost 12 cents but now costs $32,500.”

Mark Poa, another collector, agrees, “However, the increase in value of comics would only be pertinent to other comic book collectors. There’s no overall authority on prices but there are several price guides available to support the speculation and price increases.”

Alstaire clarifies that prices are also subject to the grade of the comic, “meaning if it has no folds and no color degrading of the paper.” Mark suggests visiting the Pacific Comic Exchange Web site (www.pcei.com/grading.asp) for more information on grading.

Joey adds, “In two years, an issue of Detective Comics released around 1988, with a title foreword by Stephen King, jumped in value from the retail price of $9.95 to a whopping $300 on the US comic market.”

4. Toys – Originally intended as playthings for children, some toys are now valued not only for enjoyment purposes but also for their popularity as collectibles. Some examples are limited-edition Barbie dolls, Beanie Babies, and official merchandise of successful movies, books, TV programs, and sports teams. Some collectors even go to the extent of spending large amounts of money to get hold of bigger and more complete collections.

According to Alstaire, one good illustration is the original Voltes 5 toys that were sold for P600 in 1977 but now cost about P25,000 each. There are many more products and items that are great to collect that may or not increase in value over time. What’s important is finding which ones spark your passion. Still, though your primary intention may be to simply accumulate things you like, search for, and network with other collectors to find out if the knickknacks you have been keeping for a long time are now worth more than you realize.

Artículos relacionados

No Comments »

RSS feed for comments. TrackBack URI

Leave a Comment

XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Welcome to Personal Money Management Expert,the blog where you can find advices to save money and to earn more with each dollar. If you want, it's possible to suscribe by mail and receive all news by e-mail.

E-mail:

Este blog funciona gracias a WordPress | Condiciones de uso de los contenidos | Responsabilidad
Entradas y Comentarios feeds. XHTML y CSS válidos.