On 21 Dec 96, Carin M. Armlin wrote to Dawn Bidot:
 CA>  Heh, yeah...I want The Little Mermaid, but I'm not about to pay $150
 CA> for it (or any other video).  I'll just wait for the rerelease next
 CA> year (if there indeed, is going to be one).  They are definitely
 CA> asking too much for them.
Actually, the price is quite fair considering collector market value.
Carin, don't you collect anything?  Surely you know that certain baseball 
cards are worth thousands of dollars - so are certain coins, certain 45 and 
33 records, certain stamps...  I myself have several LPs (such as Paul Revere 
& the Raiders "Like Long Hair" album on Gardena records) worth into the four 
figures.  And that's just one collectible I have - I have thousands of LPs - 
and my record collection is but one of dozens of collectible collections I 
have - everything from carnival glass to old postcards to movie and TV 
memoribillia to old sheet music to Star Trek models to Disney movies to 
antique radios to comic books to matchbox cars and trucks to gas station 
memoribilia to old bus tokens to antique Christmas lights.  And I could go on 
and on.  All of this stuff is worth more than you might ever guess! 
Collectors - what a concept.
You should go to an antique show.  You'll see things like Depression-era 
glassware, toys (as recent as the 70s), and hundreds of other things going 
for WAAAAY more than they did when they first came out.  Heck, even things 
like Star Wars trading cards that only came out 3 years ago are now going for 
triple what they came out for.  The 6-part comic book "Star Wars: the Dark 
Empire" came out at $3.95 for each issue.  Now that set of 6 issues is going 
for well over $100.00!  It only came out in 1994!  And get this - there were 
some limited edition "Target Store Only" Star Trek 9 inch action figures that 
only came out 6 months ago, and mostly sold for $19.95 per figure at Target, 
and now they are already going for $35 to $40 at collector-toy dealers!  And 
their price rise is *just* beginning, because you could still find them at 
Target as recently as only Thanksgiving!  But they will never be issued 
again, and Playmates Corp. made only 30000 of each figure, and collectors are 
frantically trying to get what few figures they can from the few people who 
will sell them at a reasonable price, before they climb into the 
stratosphere. In a year, they'll be over a hundred bucks each, easy!
The world has collectibles-fever Carin, and almost *anything* old or scarce 
or not made any more is going for major bucks!  Even *FOOD*!  Try to find a 
specimen of the 1970's soda water drink "Keeoria" from Sweppes, or Borden's 
"Frosted Shakes" from the early 70's, or a specimen of "Shake-a-puddin" - a 
1972 snack marketed towards kids that came and went -or even original 
packages of "Fizzies"... and see how much THOSE cost you!
Maybe you don't collect things, and therefore don't suffer from 
"collector-itis" - the disease of being willing to pay dozens of times more 
than original price for something "collectible" - but many of us do.  And 
that's the market you see those Disney prices in the paper, addressing.  You 
shouldn't be so down on how "expensive" those tapes in your paper were. 
Considering the rarity of some of those tapes at current levels, those prices 
were a deal.  Remember, the collector market gravitates to prices only at 
what the market will bear.  No one sells an item for 500 bucks that most 
people will sell for 50.  It's supply and demand, in pure form, and as such, 
it doesn't seem right for you to be critical of it...
 CA>  I heard that someone paid several thousand dollars for a Tickle Me Elmo
 CA>  doll at an auction.  Sheesh.
Now *that* was a poor investment since everyone knows the Elmo toy will be 
out in Febuary by the tens of thousands.
Growing collectibles does require at least a grain of common sense.
--- GoldED 2.50
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