I recently decided to inventory thirty plus years of storage boxes in my parents basement, and what to my wondering eyes should appear in one of them but this…
I also had several opened where I’m sure I have a complete set…I immediately texted Otis thinking I’d hit a gold mine…until he told me the whole set was going for $20 on eBay. Oh, well, so much for the house in the Keys.
Anyway, this was interesting to see on my feeds:
So, beauty is really in the eye of the beholder, no? Can’t say I’m not surprised. I also came across old piggy banks in my storage collection and started looking for rare quarters and coins that might fetch a pretty penny, and it took me to websites where the value of the coins were dependent upon their condition, interesting stamping flaws, or original die sets. Again, my retirement plans came to a crashing halt almost instantly.
Anywho, for today’s Provoker, what do you collect? Do you have a prized possession…or does the news of the Honus Wagner thing above give you pause that maybe it’s really time to offload those Beanie Babies you thought were going to make you a fortune by dumping them in a trash bag and dropping them off at Goodwill?
Discuss.
I wonder if the Honus Wagner card is now worth even more given this info?
So far as things I collect, I keep trying to build up my bourbon collection, but damn if the bottles keep winding up empty after a few days…even faster during football season…
I fell down the wristwatch rabbit hole a while back. Don’t have anything super valuable, but they might feed me or my kids for a little bit.
I decided that anything I collect, I’ll do it because I enjoy it as is. If it has value beyond that, then it’s a bonus.
I used to collect different GA stuff. Now that I’m old, started letting kids have some of it. Still hold on to some but really don’t need it anymore. Hope it will mean as much to them as it has for me!
Prized possession: my father restored a M1 carbine to the specs my grandfather carried on (after) DDay. Carried is doing a lot of lifting. He was with the engineers clearing obstacles and then was told to hit it again. He said he struggled with his load out in the water, so when they asked him where his rifle was he said “if I make to shore… AGAIN…, there will be plenty laying around.” They scrounged up a carbine for him, he chucked it when the ramp went down and found a rifle laying around when he made it shore. He said he liked the carbine be cause it didn’t bang him up like the Garand when hitting the deck and he wished he had the paratroopers (folding stock) model. I don’t know if the story is true but it makes for a good one and he never shared the story until after I enlisted and always approved of my preference for the 1911 over the Baretta. I’m very thankful I was a peacetime sailor but that old gun is special because of the story behind it.
My advice is to never sell it and keep that somewhere sacred. Rare to find especially in good condition. As far as your preference for the 1911, I have to agree.
I used to collect the Coke bottles with NASCAR drivers on them. It was probably 10 or more years ago that I put almost all of them on Craigslist on gave them away. I even had a 6-pack from Jeff Gordon’s first championship season that he signed at World of Wheels. I held on to that one until last year when I sold my house.
Also, I get tired of pushing things around and I get tired of looking at clutter. I started getting rid of anything I didn’t need. All this junk (and most of it is junk) I’ve accumulated might mean something to me but it’s gonna be a burden on my kids when I’m gone. I don’t want them to feel bad about getting rid of “dad’s stuff”. My MIL was a collector and she passed December 2025 so we are living that life right now.
Beanie Babies. That made me laugh.
I have never collected anything with an expectation that it provide any financial benefit. I have some memorabilia items, but they are all just for pure sentimental value reasons related to the teams I rooted for since I was a kid. All these items are things I would never expect to sell and will just get passed down to my kids.
My favorite item is a photo of Herschel my mom took at the WLOCP in 1982. The team was coming out of the tunnel and she just stuck her 35MM camera out over the railing and snapped a shot of #34 as he was running out. The photo is great and she developed it herself. Not worth anything at all, but how I got it is the cool part and provides the value to me.
I bought a lot of baseball cards while I was in the Marine Corps. Mostly stuff from the late ’80s to ’95. The only thing I have anywhere near any kind of value is a Derek Jeter Upper Deck SP rookie from ’93. I put together the entire set, which includes a Chipper Jones rookie, piecemeal by purchasing foil packs one at a time. That Jeter card, if it was GM10, would be worth 6 figures. I haven’t had it graded and won’t because it’s probably a 6 at best. I didn’t really know what I had at the time.
Like a lot of the commentors, as I’ve gotten older I have gotten rid of most of the stuff that I collected. Just ended up in boxes that I moved from closet to closet.
Now I just keep photos of the family and the kids as they grow.