Collector Items That Aren't Worth Much (knives not included)

JB in SC said:
My BIL is a EE, with a MSEE and PhD, he has vintage slide rules and vintage HP calculators. He worked at Bell Labs, AT&T, before consulting for the DoD. He was adjunct professor at a large engineering school, his students had never seen a slide rule.
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I keep one in a shadow box at work. I've had to identify it to any number of young engineers. The only one that kind of bothered me was the young engineer a few years ago who asked, "What is it?"
Me, "It's a slide rule."
Him, "Oh...What's it for?"

Really?
 
knarfeng said:
I got a half dozen slide rules of various levels of complexity. I'm old enough that I know how to use them.
I bought them because as a young man who used a slide rule, I couldn't afford the super nice ones I drooled over. So when I got older and could afford it, I bought a couple, even though I no longer used them.

Nowadays I keep them because you know when tshtf and computers don't work, a slide rule will. ;)
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I have a couple of Posts, a small Pickett circular, and a couple of cheap six inch celluloid pocket slide rules. A few months ago I decided to get out my Post Versalog and realized that I couldn't remember how to use the log-log scales! I couldn't find the book so I watched a few YouTube videos to get back up to speed. Now I keep it handy and pull it out whenever I need to do a calculation. I've been using it lately to do a few decibel calculations.
 
My thread, but I forgot to post this:

I used to collect antiquarian books, aka antique leather-bound books. We bought them 1980's - 2010's. We'd go to book fairs in NYC and buy a 200 year old set of Shakespeare, etc. And they were desirable and were believed to hold or gain value as there were lots of people buying these books for personal libraries, etc.

Fast forward to 2013, when we decided to retire to a condo in Cali. Needed to sell most as our condo would not have room for a bunch of books. Could not sell any of our books, even highly desirable ones like Jane Austen and other classics. We ended up giving most away and took tax write-off. Millenials and Gen Z were not interested in collecting old leather books. And books dealers were having trouble selling their own antique books, never mind buying ours. Such is life.
 
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I have Burger King giftcards unused.....
barf.gif


But seriously my wife has a ton of those beanie baby things from the 90's, I know some are worth money but 99% are just junk.
 
This is a very interesting topic with a lot of implications.

Locutus D'Borg Locutus D'Borg .
How about CDs, or cassettes, 8-tracks, records... those will date you.

That is a spot where technology took the value out of the market in each case.
I see that vinyl is coming back as newer generations are finding that interesting.

I collected disc golf Frisbees in the late 80s through the 90s. I have a small collection, but it was never based on perceived future value, it was about the joy they brought me by having them.

That is really what collecting is about, the enjoyment of the collected items, right?

Maybe knives aren't discussed in the article in Mr. Locutus' op is because they can be used and have value. Knives can be used without regard to "artificial" valuations tied to desirability. The 'guns and butter' principle.

You guy just don't know how to collect; I will be sitting pretty when I sell off my vintage toilet plunger collection. Then you'll see.
 
Locutus D'Borg said:
My thread, but I forgot to post this:

I used to collect antiquarian books, aka antique leather-bound books. We bought them 1980's - 2010's. We'd go to book fairs in NYC and buy a 200 year old set of Shakespeare, etc. And they were desirable and were believed to hold or gain value as there were lots of people buying these books for personal libraries, etc.

Fast forward to 2013, when we decided to retire to a condo in Cali. Needed to sell most as our condo would not have room for a bunch of books. Could not sell any of our books, even highly desirable ones like Jane Austen and other classics. We ended up giving most away and took tax write-off. Millenials and Gen Z were not interested in collecting old leather books. And books dealers were having trouble selling their own antique books, never mind buying ours. Such is life.
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Damn, I would have bought the hell out of your collection.
 
Locutus D'Borg said:
If I knew I would have given you a bunch for free, and some had gorgeous colored leather inlays and gold tooling. We kept like maybe 10 volumes, which are stored.
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I'd have loved some old, high-end Austens. I'm both millenial and male, but Pride and Prejudice is a favorite of mine. Austen had a delightfully wicked wit in her dialogue.

Also in my circles when I was single, I assure you being able to quote Pride and Prejudice was a chick magnet.
 
madcap_magician said:
I'd have loved some old, high-end Austens. I'm both millenial and male, but Pride and Prejudice is a favorite of mine. Austen had a delightfully wicked wit in her dialogue.

Also in my circles when I was single, I assure you being able to quote Pride and Prejudice was a chick magnet.
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I'm a 73 year old male and love P&P. I'm a Janeite. That single book created the whole rom-com industry. I have an annotated copy that a read every 2 years or so.
 
Locutus D'Borg said:
I'm a 73 year old male and love P&P. I'm a Janeite. That single book created the whole rom-com industry. I have an annotated copy that a read every 2 years or so.
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It's kind of like Lord of the Rings and fantasy. Are they really genre tropes if this book was the Original Gangster of the genre?
 
madcap_magician said:
It's kind of like Lord of the Rings and fantasy. Are they really genre tropes if this book was the Original Gangster of the genre?
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Good point. I was an English major, but back then we didn't study tropes, not sure the term existed in 1968-70ish. And we read lots of poetry, which as I understand it is much less prominent in English literature courses these days.
 
Locutus D'Borg said:
Good point. I was an English major, but back then we didn't study tropes, not sure the term existed in 1968-70ish. And we read lots of poetry, which as I understand it is much less prominent in English literature courses these days.
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Probably still very prominent in English literature courses.

... just very different, uh, poetry.
 
The original Rolex Daytona is a good example of an item that no one liked at the time which blew up in value.

Scarcity seems to be key, either not many were made or most were used up or thrown away.
Modern collector and limited editions are not likely to have much if any future value. Buy what you like for what you are willing to pay for it. Speculating on future gains is a sure way to lose money.
 
I have a reissue of the Hewlett Packard 15C. Looks like they just reissued a new batch this year, so the value will keep dropping. The engineers at an old job raved over them, so I got caught up in the hype.

Some Swiss company makes clones of the HP 15C which have fixes, and better hardware in them, that the originals didn't. You can also get Free42 (software emulator of the HP 42 Scientific calculator) for free, which has even more functions. Have a copy of it on my phone from their applet store, but don't really use it much. If you are a Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) HP fan, then you will love Free 42.
 
Sharp Steel said:
I have a reissue of the Hewlett Packard 15C. Looks like they just reissued a new batch this year, so the value will keep dropping. The engineers at an old job raved over them, so I got caught up in the hype.

Some Swiss company makes clones of the HP 15C which have fixes, and better hardware in them, that the originals didn't. You can also get Free42 (software emulator of the HP 42 Scientific calculator) for free, which has even more functions. Have a copy of it on my phone from their applet store, but don't really use it much. If you are a Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) HP fan, then you will love Free 42.
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I'm going to try free42. I've been using RPN since about 1973 and still have a half dozen functional HP calculators. I also used to use slide rules and I have a half dozen of them too for nostalgia.
 
Sharp Steel said:
I have a reissue of the Hewlett Packard 15C. Looks like they just reissued a new batch this year, so the value will keep dropping. The engineers at an old job raved over them, so I got caught up in the hype.

Some Swiss company makes clones of the HP 15C which have fixes, and better hardware in them, that the originals didn't. You can also get Free42 (software emulator of the HP 42 Scientific calculator) for free, which has even more functions. Have a copy of it on my phone from their applet store, but don't really use it much. If you are a Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) HP fan, then you will love Free 42.
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bdmicarta said:
I'm going to try free42. I've been using RPN since about 1973 and still have a half dozen functional HP calculators. I also used to use slide rules and I have a half dozen of them too for nostalgia.
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For years I've been using RealCalc, which has an RPN mode and a visible stack of 4 lines. Ever since using a 48G in high school 25+ years ago, I have a hard time using a normal calculator without screwing up. I've got a 49 somewhere, but haven't used it since the advent of smartphones. I did pay for the premium version of RealCalc (probably no more than a buck or two), so I don't know what features are or aren't available in the free one.
 
Sharp Steel said:
I have a reissue of the Hewlett Packard 15C. Looks like they just reissued a new batch this year, so the value will keep dropping. The engineers at an old job raved over them, so I got caught up in the hype.

Some Swiss company makes clones of the HP 15C which have fixes, and better hardware in them, that the originals didn't. You can also get Free42 (software emulator of the HP 42 Scientific calculator) for free, which has even more functions. Have a copy of it on my phone from their applet store, but don't really use it much. If you are a Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) HP fan, then you will love Free 42.
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I have a HP 12C that I bought in 1981. I loved the RPN function.
 
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