melvind wrote:
Hailey wrote:
I am one of the minority that is concerned about a return on my dollar once the day comes that I disperse MY collection. Of course we all like to find that diamond in the rough, yet when I do acquire and pay up for something nowadays, I do so with keeping in mind the concept of investment.
I don't see how you can think of phonographs as investments. The prices have fluctuated several times while I have been collecting for the last 22 years. And, after the last big drop a few years ago things have never come back and it is unlikely they will. The good and rare stuff keeps its value. The everyday and common stuff does not. I have some of both, but I certainly and not going to get all crazy if I can't get what I paid for them. Someone else will be doing that for most of them after I'm gone anyway.
Rather than what I wish I could have, I will add a list of 3 machines I sold in the past that I wish I still had and will likely not be able to replace now that I am retired. Now to be fair, I got better "stuff" for the money those machines brought me and I don't really have room for them now. So no real loss. But, nothing else I have ever sold means to me what these did.
Edison Amberola III
Edison B-375 Diamond Disc
Vic VI
You answered your own inquiry. “The good and rare stuff keeps it’s value. The everyday and common stuff does not”.
That is my entire point. Years ago, as I came to a crucial point in my collecting, I looked around me and made a decision. I sold everything in the collection that I was confident that within a weeks time that I could go out and replace. The money was then used to finance the stuff that was, and still is, considered rare. I never was one to concern myself with keeping up with the next collector or with how many of something that I had. So, my volume went way down, while my value went way up. And, to this day, I enjoy my collection more than I ever did, and I can assure you that it has been, and still is, an investment.