Rinker on Collectibles

RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1768

Where Did My Generation Go Wrong?

I am a huge fan of Brian Crane’s “Pickles” comic strip. The strip documents the interactions of retired senior citizens Earl and Opal Pickles, their daughter Sylvia (a divorced working mother), and her son Nelson, a favorite with Grandpa and Grandma. The Sunday, August 23, 2020, six-panel strip featured a conversation between Nelson and his Grandpa.

Grandpa, a couch/easy chair potato, sits in his easy chair and is showing his watch to Nelson who sits on his knee. “This Old Watch Was My Grandpa’s. I Got It When He Died,” Grandpa informs Nelson. In the second panel, Nelson asks: “Do I Get Your Stuff When You Die, Grandpa?” Facing Nelson, Grandpa responds: “Well, That’s Not A Polite Question to Ask, Nelson” to which Nelson says “Why Not?” In the fourth panel, devoted solely to Grandpa, he explains: “It Makes It Sound Like You’re Waiting For Me To Die So You Can Get My Stuff.” The fifth panel, devoted solely to Neslon, shows a straight-faced Nelson assuring Grandpa that “I’m Not Waiting For You To Die, Grandpa. I Don’t Even Want Your Stuff.” The strip ends with Nelson sitting on Grandpa’s lap as Grandpa exclaims: “Why? What’s Wrong With My Stuff?”

The past half-decade has been filled with numerous articles and complaints from older generations that “the kids do not want my stuff.” My list of potential future “Rinker on Collectibles” columns contains a note to write a two-part column series of “What Exactly Don’t Your Kids Want.”

As I continue to think about these columns, I realize the real question is not what they do not want but why do they not want it. When members of the antiques and collectibles trade complain about one thing or another, my first suggestion is “look in the mirror.” It is amazing how often the answer lies with the person seen there.

I looked in the mirror; and, I was not happy with what I saw. The explanation for why our children and the generations that follow do not want our things rests with my generation, the last of the Greatest Generation and the first of the Baby Boomers. I love maxims and proverbs. The proverb “you reap what you sow” comes immediately to mind. My generation sowed a number of bad seeds that unfortunately grew to fruition.

I identified 10 trends that began in my generation and heavily impacted the future of collecting. I made no attempt to rank them in order of importance. Change in the antiques and collectibles trade is gradual and accumulative. The consequences of action by one generation often are not impactful until several generations later.

1. Turned the hobbyist into a collector. Hobbyist and collector are not synonymous just as fun and serious are not. It has been decades since “hobbyist” was a viable descriptive term. The hobbyist dominated collecting from the 1920s through the 1950s. The collector arrived on the scene in the 1960s and has dominated collecting since that time.

2. Focus on displaying objects rather than using them. I vividly remember the first time I visited a toy train collector and saw each wall of his house decorated with boards from floor to ceiling upon which there was a train track to nowhere that housed toy trains from one end to the other. It makes no difference if the display is a wall, cabinets or cases, shelves, or china cabinets. The governing concept is simple – look but do not touch. Older generations collected these things because they remember playing with and using them. Removing these play/use memories from their children and grandchildren broke the generation bond.

3. Built collections containing hundreds and often thousands of objects. One of every variety became the goal of the obsessed collector. The person who died with the biggest pile did not win except in his/her own mind. The possibility of a bigger pile always existed.

4. Drove up the individual price of objects to the point where objects became “too valuable to use. Collecting is fun when the average unit price is below $25.00. When it reaches $150.00 to $250.00, collecting becomes expensive. When the high-end of any collecting category reaches an average unit price that exceeds $500.00 for masterpiece (ultimate unit) and upper echelon pieces, the category is well beyond the ability of the average collector to be a player.

5. Turned antiques and collectibles price guides into absolutes instead of just guides. Price guide authors, especially those who arbitrarily raised price from edition to edition, added credence to the belief that antiques and collectibles had fixed values that would only increase over time. Historically, the antiques and collectibles market always recovered from temporary price declines until the price decline of the late 1980s/early 1990s and the 2008-2009 Great Recession. No one in the trade saw their decline coming.

6. Never considered the possibility that future generations would reject what previous generations collected. Antiques and collectibles had an inherent value that transcended time. Individuals with good taste would instinctively recognize this value, follow the practice of their peers, and continue to collect the traditional collecting categories. No effort to educate future generations was necessary. The good times would never end was a corollary assumption.

7. Never questioned the positive hype of the public and trade media. Good news or no news was the mantra of the times. Many of the articles were authored by individuals who collected the topic or by members of a collectors’ club focusing on the topic – hardly objective reporters. The articles always touted the top-end pieces. “Look how much this is worth” was a constant hook to attract readers.

8. Doubled and tripled the number of “acceptable” antiques and collectibles collecting categories. When eBay abandoned its Collectibles Division in the mid-2000s, eBay staffers estimated there were over 30,000 identifiable, independent collecting categories.

9. Taught our children and the generations that followed that “new” was better than “old.” My generation was the last of the hand-me-down generations. Baby Boomers were determined their children would never have to suffer the humiliation this entailed.

10. Never gave any thought to how changing demographics, cultural and social value shifts, the end of nucleated family structure, and technology would change collecting. Collecting remained basically unchanged from the 1920s through the end of the 1950s. No one saw the revolution ahead.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. “I would do it differently if I only had a chance” is a false lament. Once change has been set in motion, it is nearly impossible to stop, especially when it is not immediately apparent.

Collecting has experienced many generational shifts since I was a youngster. I was an observer of them all and, more often than not, a player in many. No one person can take credit for the changes in the trade from the 1970s through the present. It was a group effort, occasionally deliberate but often an unexpected consequence of the actions of a variety of individual groups.

I had the privilege of observing, documenting, analyzing, and sharing my observations with my readers. Hang tight, there still is more to come.

LANDMARK COLUMN: “Rinker on Collectibles” column #1768 represents my column’s 34th “official” birthday. There were a few unnumbered columns in the early years. I plan to keep writing “Rinker on Collectibles,” at least for one more year. “Rinker on Collectibles” always has alternated weekly between a text column followed by a question and answer column. This tradition will continue. I already have sketched out the text column topics starting with column #1800 and ending with column #1820. By the time column #1820, the 35th anniversary column, arrives a year from now, I will be 80. When is enough, enough? At the moment, I think I might know the answer.

When I shared this with Dana Morykan, who edits and distributes “Rinker on Collectibles,” she responded: “I’ve heard this many times before.” She is correct. I have set “end it” deadlines in the past. Who is right? Wait and see.

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.

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