LOOKING FOR THE BEST COLLECTIBLE DEALS.

My husband's birthday was this last weekend. As I was thinking about what to get him for a present, I reflected back on past presents I had given him. One of the things that I really loved was the Cairn gnomes in the golf genre. Since they are now in a box, I realize that perhaps they represent what I would like to have and not what he would like to have. Since he now has a collection of 4 of them, I now have a "collection" that I will try to sell. I will probably try eBay first since I have a lot of interest in eBay. I will let you know how it goes.

Went to an estate sale in our neighborhood the other day. Huge sale, but mostly priced way too high. But I always get a lot of good ideas of what is selling and what a "going" price is for them.
Some of the pieces that I was interested in was a small collection of children's toys. Oh, how I wish that I would have saved some of the toys of my childhood. If collecting toys is your interest, I found the following resources to help you.

Also, if you are interested in finding some of the best collectible deals on ebay in currentauctions, please visit this website for possibilities. www.aboutcollectibledeals.com


Toy Collecting -- Bears, Dolls, Diecast, Plush, Tin and More!:

Toy Collectors run the gamut from McDonald Happy Meal pieces to expensive antique tin toys. If you love toys, find your particular niche and specialize!

Beanies and Bean Bag Plush (8) Doll Collecting (31) Bears and Buddies (67) Howdy Doody (9) Collectible Bears, Price Guides and Values @ RobotsTin Toys (11) Diecast Vehicles (9)

Suggested websites for finding collectible toys:

Toys From Yesteryear
Huge selection of classic toys from years past and the modern day.
www.BackToBasicsToys.com

Antique Toys
Vintage toys offered seller direct many items from around the world
www.Architecturals.net

Buy/Sell Toys- Free
Local buyers & sellers - Online Avoid the hassle & cost of shipping
www.LiveDeal.com Articles & Resources
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Puzzles for Collectors
Winter time is great for getting the family together around the table and work a puzzle or two. And it's even more fun when it's a subject that is near and dear to your hearts. These puzzles were picked for collectors!

An Excellent Book for Collectors -- Timeless Toys
This is such a cool book that it's hard to find the right words to convey how much fun it is to read. And it doesn't even matter what age you are, toys really are timeless. And this book proves it.

One Man's Junk is Another Man's Treasure

My husband and I were having a discussion the other day about how one really knew the value of ones's collections. He has a collection of coins that he has had from when he was a child; one coin he is particularly proud of is a 1950 Denver nickel. So is the value what you, the owner of the item, place on it and how do you know that if you take it to someone for appraisal, you will get a correct value. I remember a collection of baseball cards that I had inherited and had no idea of the value. Someone who was more an acquaintance rather than a friend told me he didn't think that they were worth much. He would give me $50 for all of them. Now some 20 years later, I know that they had more value than that. It didn't help to find out later that he actually collected baseball cards himself.

So my thoughts to share with you this time is to realize that most things we have around have value to us personally, but if you have something that you think might have dollar value; please find a reputable individual or company to appraise the item for you.

The following info that I found on the internet addresses this issue quite well.

One Man's Junk is Another Man's Treasure
From Carrie Conaway, Associate Editor of the Regional Review
Jun 11 2004

What distinguishes a collectible from ordinary rubbish is not always clear. Nonetheless, there are two primary characteristics that collectible items share: desirability and rarity.

DESIRABILITY Whether it is destined for a museum or a private collection, to be collectible, an item must be desirable to someone other than the collector. So, your seventh-grade love letters probably won't qualify, unless you become famous (or notorious). But what makes something desirable?

CONDITION Condition is so important that third-party grading services have sprung up in some collecting areas to grade and validate the quality of items. The coin collecting market is one of the best-developed examples, with 70 possible grades of coin in the Sheldon Numerical Grading System.

AESTHETICS Form, color, size and materials also matter for desirability, although these preferences tend to change with popular tastes. For instance, very large items historically were not viewed as popular collectibles because of the difficulty of storing them, but this has been changing in recent years. Rudy Franchi, a vintage movie poster dealer and appraiser on Antiques Roadshow, points out, "The typical movie poster is 27 by 40 or 41 inches and is known as a 'one-sheet'. The market for larger movie posters used to languish, but people are now living in bigger homes, and so they are able to display bigger things. Now there's a big fad in buying the larger sizes, known as 'six-sheets,' that are 81 by 81 inches, as well as foreign posters, which are often larger."

RARITY "There are some books that are absolutely fabulous literature, but there are too many of then," says Ken Gloss, proprietor of the Brattle Book Shop in Boston. "For instance, Shakespeare, next to the Bible, is the most commonly printed literature in the English language. It's wonderful stuff, but there are millions and millions of them so they're not worth much. You're looking for the one that's a little more unusual, that you don't see all the time."
Items can be rare for several reasons: Some items are simply uncommon and irreproducible. Among those who collect materials about signers of the Declaration of Independence, for instance, the autograph of the all-but-unknown Thomas Lynch or Button Gwinnett is worth far more than the John Hancock of, say, John Hancock.

In many cases, what people collect is only in short supply because they define their collecting area so narrowly. But sometimes rarity is created by the manufacturer. In the 1980s, the Swatch Group created a frenzy by selectively releasing Swatch designs to a limited number of distributors, such that every retailer had a different selection, and by limiting sales to one per person. Swatch also launched an intensive promotional campaign touting their watches as a good investment. Swatch Fever spiked, and sales in the U.S. alone increased from $3 million in 1983 to $200 million in 1987. The same strategy applied to anything manufactured in limited edition, such as Franklin Mint plates, Beanie Babies or Precious Moments figurines.

On the other hand, it can't be too rare. "If there's only one of something, there can only be one collector," points out David Wood, curator of the Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts. "What fires people up is things that are relative common, so that you can get a complete collection of it in every form and every style." These sorts of items are easier to find at antique stores, flea markets, and garage sales, adding to the serendipity of the collecting experience and fueling the motivation of the devoted collector to keep searching.

This article, a portion of "Objects of Desire", is courtesy of the Regional Review, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The article in its entirety, can be found on the: http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/nerr/rr2004/q1/objects.pdf

Stay Collected!

TIME FOR SPRING CLEANING YOUR COLLECTIBLES.

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring! All the dust bunnies and grime that collects over the winter season is now there for us to dust and clean off and put that "like new" face on everything again.
As much as I hate to think of doing it, I always remember how good it feels to look around and see everything looking fresh and new again. So I was attracted to this article about spring cleaning collectibles. At least it is a start in the process. I will keep looking for other tips and hints and, hopefully, some time and back saving methods to pass on to you.

I know that just because the calendar says that it is Spring; Mother Nature has her own calendar. So if you live somewhere in the areas that she has a different timeframe going for you, just start thinking about the process and your time will come. Spring cleaning is also an excellent opportunity for you to closely look at your "collections" and make decisions about what stays, what is added to and what leaves. Ways to do all of the above will be explored in future updates to this blog. If any one you have any of your personal methods to make spring cleaning less painful, please add them as comments to this post. I'm sure everyone will appreciate any suggestions.

Spring Into the Cleaning Mode!:
From Barbara Crews,
Your Guide to Collectibles.
Stay up to date!

Pottery, Ceramics, China

When your home is filled with or cluttered with Collectibles, it can be a little intimidating to think about cleaning them all. And even though I never consciously think 'it's time to spring clean' -- this is the time of the year I start pulling stuff off the shelves, weeding out, and putting away. To sum it up, it's when I start looking with disgust at the layer of grime on the kitchen cookie jars. It might be the cheery daffodil blooms that set off that inner alarm clock, but I tend to think it's the prolific sprouting of garage sale signs that does it.
Most of the time a good dusting will do the job and for those days two products that I won't be without are Swiffer Dusters and Pledge Furniture Wipes. But there comes a time in the life of all collectors when dusting is just not going to cut it.

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A Touch of Italian Style
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www.ThePotteryCo.com Yes, that means taking those jars and figurines down from shelves and doing a thorough cleaning. It'll make you feel better, make your stuff look nicer and the chance to change the display around a bit is always refreshing.
Cleaning Ceramic, Pottery and China
Figurines -- I would never, ever, wash these in soap and water. If dusting doesn't get it, use a barely-damp soft cloth (old t-shirts are best) to clean the pieces.

UPDATE ON FLEA MARKET!

I was so hoping that I would be able to write about my visit to the RoseBowl Flea Market in Pasadena this last Sunday. But unusual weather for southern California, which included rain and cold and even hail, kept us from going. My friend and I have pushed it to next month. The flea market is held at the RoseBowl every 2nd Sunday of each month. So we will be going on April 9th. This will just give me more time to do my "research" on certain pieces I have in my collections to see what the going prices are. This will include the pieces I want to sell and the ones to which I want to add.

When I was exploring the Internet over the weekend trying to find other articles and/or tips to share with you, I found a great article from Pamela Wiggans, the Antiques Guide and writer with www.about.com She posed a great question about whether one is considered an accumulator or a collector. Read it and decide which you are. (I've decided that I am both.)

Collecting and Accumulating, It's all Good

There two are kinds of collectors, at least that's what an article I ran across on the Internet told me a while back. They are divided into true “collectors” and what some people term “accumulators.”
In this sense, the term collector has a rather snobbish air that bothers me a little. Perhaps it's because some folks think that to be a bona fide collector you have to seek and find only the finest examples that complement one another to make up a collection.
I suppose this is true for that elite group paying thousands of dollars for fine art or other types of haughty antiques like American period furniture, for example. After all, it pays to be discriminating in cases like that.

Related Resources
• A Little Collection Goes a Long Way• A Primer on Fine American Antique Furniture
But if you're not an uppity collector with lots of money to spend, are you simply an accumulator?
My definition of an accumulator, which aligns closely with that article I mentioned earlier, tends to buy everything in sight when it comes to a chosen collecting field.
Whether it comes to toys, porcelain or any number of other categories, they've got stuff stuck in every nook, cranny and bucket. And, they're probably planning to hit the garage sales next weekend to make sure they don't miss something good.
Is there anything wrong with that? I don't think so. They're having fun, and as long as they're not spending the baby's formula money to buy more junk, it's a just harmless hobby. Well, as long as you're not allergic to dust.
Truthfully though, I think most of us probably fall somewhere in between these extremely defined terms putting true collectors and mere accumulators at polar opposites. Take me for example.

When it comes to vintage costume jewelry, I accumulate. It's a hard phenomenon to explain, except that the more jewelry I own, the better I feel about life in general. In other words, the glitter of rhinestones makes me extremely happy.
Of course, when it comes to other collectibles, like cookie jars, fruit crate labels or my Texas Centennial pieces, I tend to be more selective. I generally buy these things to display in my home, so I want them to coordinate nicely together. I also try to find things that are affordable, if I can.
But what about my perfectly matched set of depression era glass it took years to locate and purchase? As far as I'm concerned, that's as much of a real collection as a grouping of Picasso paintings.

I know lots of people who, like me, collect and accumulate at the same time. For a bunch of commoners, some of them have put together some very interesting and valuable collections.
In fact, I've come to the conclusion that a great collection shows the complete gamut of what's available in a field. It includes inexpensive common items and contrasts with things of a little more rare and valuable nature, but most pieces will fall somewhere in between.
I think true collectors also delight in the thrill of the chase. We're probably just as happy to find a real treasure at a bargain price as one of those furniture buffs were thrilled at the chance to bid on a one-of-a-kind highboy at Sotheby's auction house.
So, the way I see it, whether you're one of those fortunate snobs, someone like me or a tried and true accumulator, we're all in this together. And boy, it sure is fun!
by Pamela Wiggins

antiques/collectibles

"INTERESTING STORY ABOUT DOLLHOUSE COLLECTIONS"!

What a fun trip this has been for me to spend time searching out articles and websites which might provide interesting information for my blog. This story is one that I found not only interesting but memory provoking. I had a dollhouse as a little girl and I now remember that the most fun I had with it was in taking my allowance each Saturday and going to Kresge's to buy a new piece of furniture. So I was a collector and didn't even know it. Please share some of your early memories of collections you had. Perhaps you will have your memory provoked as well by this story.

February 20, 2006--As a child in the gloomy days of World War II London, well-known dollmaker and collector, Faith Eaton, played with a 1940s dollhouse complete with air raid shelter, brown sticky paper crosses on its windows, and blackout curtains. The dollhouse was a small reminder of a big dilemma facing not only London, but the whole world. Antiques columnist Rosemary McKittrick of LiveAuctionTalk.com has advice on collecting vintage dollhouses. Antique dollhouses are historical records of life the way it was. Time capsules. When the small doors open, a miniature world awaits. It could be a captain’s coastal Victorian home, a French parlor, a general store, or a 1920s tin bathroom; such is the world of the dollhouse.Miniature houses date back to the 17th century. But, dolls came to live in these houses and children took them over in the mid-19th century. The word miniature house, as well as dollhouse is used. The distinction being, miniatures were made for adults. Dollhouses were made for children.Advice:• In terms of collecting, dollhouses made from the mid-19th century to about 1920 are the ones collectors usually want. Once a collector buys and fills one, another often mysteriously appears in their lives. • Age, size and type of manufacture are important. The earliest examples are the most valuable. But, condition and completeness is one of the first things a collector notices. • The quality of craftsmanship is also critical. Was the dollhouse made by a factory or by a carpenter? • There’s a big difference in price between buying an empty dollhouse and a fully furnished one.LiveAuctionTalk.com author Rosemary McKittrick has been writing weekly about the art, antiques and collectibles field for 15 years. Beyond the facts, Rosemary is a storyteller. Her fresh, lively narratives bring the world of collecting to life. McKittrick is co-author of “The Official Price Guide to Fine Art,” a 1000-page book published by Random House and co-author of four volumes of “McKittrick’s Art Price Guide.” Contact Information: info@LiveAuctionTalk.com

Stay collected!