What is the Expected Return on Collectibles? - Beanie Babies & NFT's

in november 1999 right before the dot-com bubble burst francis and harold mountain were all over the newspapers four months after their divorce the couple had shown themselves entirely unable to agree on how to split up their beanie baby collection the las vegas judge ordered them to bring the entire collection into the courtroom spread them out on the floor and go back and forth choosing beanie babies until the collection was split francis told the press i don't agree with the judge's decision it's ridiculous and embarrassing nonetheless she did crawl around the floor picking out beanie babies her first choice being maple the bear at the time the pile of stuffed animals was worth a few thousand dollars but prices were already in free fall the beanie babies bubble is a particularly entertaining one and it highlights all of the hallmarks of a mania mass delusion speculation out of control expectations the herd mentality right now it might appear that we're in another collectibles boom in february this year a michael jordan basketball card sold for 738 000 at auction the exact same card had traded for more than half a million dollars less just a few weeks earlier a clone centaur guitar effects pedal is being sold for half a million dollars at monterey car week a mclaren f1 just sold for over 20 million dollars and the pair of kanye west's trainers that he wore to the 2008 grammys became history's most expensive sneakers after selling for 1.8 million dollars which for all i know might be a good price i'm not really in the market for second-hand celebrity shoes a big part of what we're seeing relates to there being so much money sloshing around right now on top of that consumerism might just be a side effect to people being bored during a pandemic but there are plenty of psychological and behavioral aspects that we can discuss so for those of you who don't remember the beanie baby bubble tai warner was the creator of beanie babies he was also a master of marketing and a manipulator of supply and demand he priced beanie babies below five dollars setting an affordable entry price for anyone who wanted to get in on the trend he only sold them to small independent stores rather than giant chains and he limited the number these stores could ...