Rinker on Collectibles

RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1468

Developments That Can End a Collecting Craze - Part I

Denial is part of the antiques and collectibles mindset. Collectors, dealers, and others are more comfortable with dreams and fantasies than cold hard reality, especially when reality conflicts with what they wish to believe. The idiom “nothing lasts forever” is a case in point. Collectors, dealers, and others want things to last forever. They want the “golden age” of their fondest collecting memory to be constant. Once fixed in their mind, any change or challenge to this “golden age” is a dastardly, underhanded attack on the status quo.

The truth is that there is no status quo in antiques and collectibles. The market is in a constant state of flux. Change is inevitable and often irreversible. “Go with the flow” and “Don’t fight it” are better idioms to use to describe market movement.

In addition to talking about the history and value of objects on WHATCHA GOT?, my syndicated antiques and collectibles call-in radio show, I also encourage listeners to phone with their questions about how the antiques and collectibles market works. Hank from West Chester, Pennsylvania, asked me to explain what developments cause collecting crazes to end. His question was in response to my constantly talking about how objects that once were involved in a hot collecting craze now have little to minimal value.

Two types of collecting crazes occur within the antiques and collectibles field. The first involves contemporary objects. The second takes place within an existing collecting category. It usually includes only a subcategory or a few subcategories and not the full collecting category.

The contemporary craze is the easiest to recognize. This craze involves a new product or product group that transitions into a new collecting category. Some categories quickly fade from the scene. Examples include Pogs and telephone credit cards. I am tempted to add Beanie Babies to this list, but they still have a modest collector following. If I revisit this topic in a “Rinker on Collectibles” column 10 to 15 years in the future, I am positive Beanie Babies will appear on the “disappeared” list. Another set of categories manages to retain collector interest for a decade or more. Collector edition bells, ornaments, and plates, Hallmark holiday ornaments, Radko holiday ornaments, Wade cottages, and whiskey bottles are on the list. They linger because of the large quantity of items generated during the craze. It will take several generations before the great bulk of the material makes it way to the landfill or evolves as a stable subcategory within a larger collecting category. Contemporary Coca-Cola licensed material is an example of the latter.

The second type of collecting craze is one which occurs within a general collecting category. Beginning in the 1980s, general collecting categories began developing subcategories that can and often are considered independent collecting categories. Consider this subdivision: Jewelry>Victorian>stickpins. Substitute any of the dozens of secondary Victorian jewelry subcategories for stickpins. Further, these subcategories often are chronologically broader. Hence, there are stickpin collectors whose collections contain stickpins from before and after 1837-1901, the reign of Queen Victoria.

This illustrates that iy is possible to have numerous collecting subcategory crazes occurring within what appears on the surface to be a stable general collecting category. Previous “Rinker on Collectibles” columns have explored the triggers that signal the beginning of a price run in a general collecting category. These same triggers, such as a major shift in fashion or an endorsement by a leading personality, apply to the subcategories as well.

There are two secondary collecting crazes that exist independent of the two major collecting crazes above. The first is the celebrity bounce, a sudden surge in market value that occurs when a famous personality dies or group dissolves. The second is a holiday toy craze. Furby and Tickle-Me-Elmo come immediately to mind. While some of the points that follow also apply to these two subcategories, they differ because of the short-lived nature of the craze.

It is a combination of developments that ends a collecting craze. Occasionally a single development is sufficient, but it is highly unusual.

Media attention fuels collecting crazes. The decline of media attention signals the beginning of the end. The collecting craze ends when media attention vanishes. The ability to sustain, let alone grow, media attention for longer than six months is extremely difficult. The Beanie Baby collecting craze remained in the news for over five years, a remarkable feat.

[Author’s Aside: Although the first Beanie Babies were issued in 1993, the collecting craze did not start until 1995. The collecting craze ended in 1999. Beanie Babies were not the longest sustained contemporary collected craze. Collector edition plates and whiskey bottles spent a far longer “day in the sun.”]

The media keys are quantity and quality. Some collecting crazes such as commemorative editions were sustained by planted stories and paid advertisements in specialized newspapers and periodicals and to mass-media publications such as “Parade,” a favorite of the “Mint” manufacturers. In a contemporary collecting craze, the manufacturer’s goal is to create a situation where the story is so “hot” that a media circus develops. Reporters vie to be the first to report about the latest development in the collecting craze.

The ideal is reached when the collecting craze story transitions from print to television and the internet. Treating the collecting craze as “news” adds credibility. Viewing the news stories as an invitation to participate, thousands of individuals begin buying and collecting craze objects.

“Good” news stories are essential to continuing the collecting craze. Stories about individuals buying at one price and selling for ten or more times that price are the most desirable. Second are stories about limited supplies and new product releases. Interviews with craze experts, most of whom obtained their expertise in a matter of months, are a third source of creditability.

The media avoids “bad” news stories, unless celebrity, crime, disaster, or weather related. When the collecting craze begins its bad news phase, the media may run a story or two. There is never an expose.

It is far more common for stories about the collecting craze to disappear. It takes months, sometimes years, for those involved in the collecting craze to notice. Their love of what they are collecting blinds their vision to the decline. Further, even when they discover the truth, there is an abiding faith that the downturn is only temporary and recovery is just around the corner. Unfortunately, there are no corners in a collecting craze decline, only a path leading straight downhill.

Manufacturers are aware of the rise and fall patterns of collecting crazes. Their interest in sustaining long-term interest, especially adult interest, in their product is minimal. Rather, their goal is to make as much money as possible for as long as possible. Manufacturers of collecting craze products understand that he who has the money at the end is the winner. The person who is stuck with the objects that he/she can sell for only a fraction of what was paid is the loser.

It is a myth that manufacturers have no responsibility for the secondary resale marketplace, especially when speculative in nature. Manufacturers are attuned to how the secondary market functions and willingly exploit its foibles.

The standard approach is to increase the annual number of objects involved in the collecting craze. Although producing a large quantity of product, they short supply a few items to create an artificial level of scarcity. Further, manufacturers delay and shift delivery, oversupplying some markets and undersupplying others.

As the number of craze objects increases, the cost for collectors to keep current increases. In addition, manufacturers develop exclusives for major department stores, toy stores, and catalog merchandisers. Collectors spend more and more time finding the objects they need to keep their collections complete.

At some point, manufacturers simply produce too many items. The primary and secondary markets become glutted. Supply exceeds demand. Collectors have had enough. They stop buying. A momentary lull in the collecting craze occurs. When the majority of buyers attempt to start selling, all hell (or heck if you are a conservative reader) breaks loose.

Part II of this two-part series will explore other developments that can end a collecting craze. These include the role played by specialized price guides, a sales decline in the primary market, the secondary market pricing itself beyond the financial capacity of the average buyer, the role of the internet, and the passage of time.

Harry L. Rinker welcomes questions from readers about collectibles, those mass-produced items from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Selected letters will be answered in this column. Harry cannot provide personal answers. Photos and other material submitted cannot be returned. Send your questions to: Rinker on Collectibles, 5955 Mill Point Court SE, Kentwood, MI 49512. You also can e-mail your questions to harrylrinker@aol.com. Only e-mails containing a full name and mailing address will be considered.

You can listen and participate in WHATCHA GOT?, Harry’s antiques and collectibles radio call-in show, on Sunday mornings between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM Eastern Time. If you cannot find it on a station in your area, WHATCHA GOT? streams live on the Internet at www.gcnlive.com.

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