Rik01: I'm pleased to note that so many are aware that the Franklin Mint is nothing more than a big scam.

What chaps my a$$ is that THEY KEEP ON GETTING AWAY WITH IT. They lie through their teeth in their advertisements and have bilked millions of folks out of their hard earned money for years and not one government agency gives a hoot. Yet we have laws against fraud and misrepresentation.

It also irritates me that the FCC allowed the creation of the 'infomercial' in various forms, which is used to mainly promote products that do not perform as well as claimed. I know folks who have bought various 'ingenious' items and they turn out to be more trouble than they're worth or next to useless.

Eggos -- the plastic boiled egg maker: pain in the arse to assemble, use and clean. Must coat the inside with oil also.

Mighty Putty -- sticks mainly to itself and nothing else.

Miracle Ear -- the snazzy blue tooth looking hearing enhancer is nothing more than an Omni directional microphone that picks up everything in the vicinity and poorly (due to tiny, cheap speakers) blasts it into your ear.

That nifty egg cracker which takes the mess out of cracking eggs. Works great on TV -- but tends to drop the shells and fragments into the container with the egg.

These scams seem to be a tradition here. Back in the 50s, when most folks had black and white TV's, someone produced a 'colorizer' to turn your boring basic TV into a glorious color set.

It was a screen sized sheet of plastic, rainbow hued, that clung to the glass screen and 'colorized' everything, if you liked red skies, blue ground, green buildings and yellow people.

I recall reading about how RONCO, when selling super-duper knife sets, which could cut steel and delicately shave a tomato paper thin, had to go through dozens of knives to find a few which actually worked for the demonstration. Later infomercials incorporated paid audiences, camera tricks and maybe some sleight of hand to make it look like they worked.

Then Ron ...

And this farking thing doesn't fit in your pocket.

LIES!

This just in: collectible items increase in value when there is a scarcity of them. Advertising something on TV to millions and millions of people produces the opposite of scarcity.

/just trying to help.

A few years ago, a friend of mine bought an old fountain pen at an antique mall for $65. I thought he was crazy but he swore up and down it was worth at least $250 cuz he "saw it in a price guide".

He sold it on ebay 2 weeks later for $1800.

Frantic Freddie: phedex
Bottom end guns and Colts seem to be the only ones that keep their purchase value over the years.

Not true,any modern gun will hold its value.I bought my S&W 686+ new for $403 + change,I could probably get $600 for it now,new ones start around $700.

Yeah you're right. I was kind of talking out of my ass there I suppose; There is kind of a bottom used value for a modern gun; the key is to find the right used ones. Good example on that 686. I bought one for 450 used (not a Plus model, but an older one that did not have the safety lock on it), and it will pretty much always bring that and more. I can't imagine getting rid of it though, Its a great, super accurate gun. Matter of fact, I took simichrome to it for weeks to make it mirrored, and put some nice smith grips on it to replace the no-name ones that were on it. I just hold colts as that gold standard. My old man regrets every colt he bought and sold in the 90's, because they're as good as money in the bank. I'm keeping my colts because I love shooting them and just plain having them, but I do know if I ever get in a hard spot that I can sell them if I have to.

Yesterday I sold a PPK for 400, that I bought at a gun shop for 400 a couple years ago. But there is quite a disparity in some of the lesser brand names. Like you are not going to get purchase price back out of a bersa thunder or a kahr, whether at a gun show or a store. I have a feeling some of the upper mid tier of guns won't hold their price over the years, like say kimbers. Brands like Dan Wessons are excellent shooters and all around high quality, but judging from prices at gun shows, used ones just don't command a premium. So I kind of base that opinion on just my own oberservations, I could be wrong. Every one I buy though, I buy it as a shooter that I plan on keeping. So I look for the best quality for the money, and there is a lot out there.

Gun buyers and sellers, at least the ones I know, always know what the value is on them.

Back in the '40s or '50s, my grandfather was a farmer and there were having a big problem with huge infestations of grasshoppers eating their crops. He saw an ad in the back of a magazine for a brilliant new solution to the grasshopper problem. It was guaranteed to kill grasshoppers. So he ordered it.

It was two boards connected with a hinge and an X painted on one of the boards with instructions to "place grasshopper on X and press boards together firmly".

StoPPeRmobile: Rik01: I'm pleased to note that so many are aware that the Franklin Mint is nothing more than a big scam.

What chaps my a$$ is that THEY KEEP ON GETTING AWAY WITH IT. They lie through their teeth in their advertisements and have bilked millions of folks out of their hard earned money for years and not one government agency gives a hoot. Yet we have laws against fraud and misrepresentation.

A couple of months ago I watched a new infommercial with Vince in it. Now all is right in the world...



Problem with your shedding p***y? Use your Schticky.

/approves

phedex: Frantic Freddie: phedex
Bottom end guns and Colts seem to be the only ones that keep their purchase value over the years.

Not true,any modern gun will hold its value.I bought my S&W 686+ new for $403 + change,I could probably get $600 for it now,new ones start around $700.

Quality tells. My carry piece is a colt officer's model .45, my target gun is a S&W Model 52 (match shooter years ago but the eyes - and motor skills - are gone now, so just play).

OTOH, my "investment" pieces are commodities where volume, cost and potential return are the primary considerations. There will be more buyers at the low end than the high end at some point in the future, and "loss" of any one item is a smaller consideration.

Yeah, old.

Get off my lawn.

His investment in worthless coins is only slightly dumber than the money we all put into Social Security.

CitizenTed: This just in: collectible items increase in value when there is a scarcity of them. Advertising something on TV to millions and millions of people produces the opposite of scarcity.

/just trying to help.

So what needs to happen is some kind of apocalypse that causes the destruction of most of these items, followed by a societal rebirth...

Man, does that mean that 1000 years from now, some museum is going to have Beanie Babies, 9/11 coins and plates with Lucille Ball and Princess Di on them on display?

weapon13: What an idiot.
he spent $47,000 on coins?!!!

The only thing I've ever collected worth any value was comics. I've been collecting for the past 40 years and have around 10,000. Some are worth absolutely nothing but I do have quite a few that are worth more than I paid for. For instance, I have a near mint copy of the first appearance of the Punisher in Amazing Spiderman which I bought way back in '74. I also have the first appearance of Mysterio. All my comics are first print.

I also have coins dating back to 1900's but those are worthless.

Yes, I am old.

/Get of my lawn.

Any comics from the 80's or later, are pretty much worthless. Artificially created collectibles and limited editions turned me off from comics back then. McFarlane gold, platinum, silver, etc. Spider-Man. FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU Marvel.

Never got a hold of an Amazing Spider-Man #129, but I do have #1, #2, #3, #5 and #6. #1 is in fair condition, and to this day, I'm kicking myself for not spending the coin for a really nice copy. My #2 and #3 copies are farking beautiful though. Look like they came right off the rack.

World's First Legal Tender Car Coin with Headlights that Light Up!

The headlights of this historic 6th generation Corvette Z06 will light up when you press the Corvette logo on the reverse. Each 71 mg .925 silver clad coin is officially licensed for General Motors' 100th anniversary. It's the first legal tender car-coin with working headlights! To celebrate the 100th anniversary of General Motors, National Collector's Mint is releasing the double-dated 1908-2008 Corvette Z06 Silver Clad Dollar with working headlights. The Republic of Palau's government has authorized this groundbreaking non-circulating legal tender issue and GM has officially licensed the use of the Corvette Z06, the latest generation of the legendary Corvette, the most famous USA made sports car. It will never be released for circulation, but it's available to collectors now through this special release.

The DBS: His investment in worthless coins is only slightly dumber than the money we all put into Social Security.

At least with the coins, he's got shiny bits of metal to look at.

phedex: Gun buyers and sellers, at least the ones I know, always know what the value is on them.

I view the gun market a bit like the car market. Depending on location, the bottom end of value is the weight of the metal, plus any working, intact car is automatically worth $500-1k, depending on the area. Same with a gun.

Then you consider that while a car will last a decade without heroic help, a firearm is more likely to have a lifespan of over a century with proportionate amounts of care.

With that sort of lifespan, even a decade old gun, as long as it's in good shape, will have 90% of the value of a new gun. With rising costs of labor, that translates to used guns holding their value *very well* unless 'shot out' or abused.

StoPPeRmobile: [www.michaelarnoldart.com image 500x375]
lol

To be fair, that's at least decent to hang up in a doctor's office or something. Lots of people like *something* on their walls, and you can only have so many pictures of family before it becomes tacky. It doesn't have to be expensive.

Devolving_Spud: And all of you who bought animation cells 20 years ago from that place in the mall that disappeared years ago...how they working' out for ya?

My Marvin the Martian cel gets more comments now than it did when I bought it as a college student. What's your point? Sometimes it's less about the collectible value than it is about the enjoyment of the item. Never bought it expecting to get rich with it, but why would I want to sell it anyway?

walkerhound: Lagaidh: CSB



Hehe pretty much =)

I loved the "I have a buddy who's an expert in rust" one too

Tman144: bmwericus: Tman144: leevis: I save any coin I find from before 1960, I needed a hobby. I probably have more than 1,000 bucks in face-value but I doubt I'll ever be retiring off of them. An early Jefferson nickel probably wouldn't go for much more than 25 or 30 cents unless it's an error coin.

My GF's father did that. She recently counted up all the coins, then added up the silver weight against the current price of silver. Found out she has about $1800 worth of silver. Not bad for a tin of old coins with a face value of about $30-$50. Of course, trying to get the full value for the coins is another matter.

Well circulated coins and ones without dates are called junk silver and sell for near spot by weight usually, they are 90% silver [Dimes, quarters, halves and dollars pre 1964]

If they are in actually decent condition, then values vary all over the place but when you sell collectables, you don't get retail unless you find a specific buyer who wants exactly what you have. It would be a good idea to beg or borrow a coin book [I think it used to be called 'the Red Book', but it may have been blue...], it lets you get a rough idea of grade and a retail value that will at least let you know if it's worth more than spot.

Older Franklin halfs, walking liberty halves, morgan and peace dollars if in good shape - even so, they aught to be worth about $20 at spot right now, IIRC.

Yea, it's mostly junk silver. Lots of dimes and quarters, but apparently it adds up if you have a bunch of them. She just has no idea where to go to sell them.

I've personally always been able to achieve spot price as a minimum selling silver lots on eBay. www.coinflation.com can tell you the melt value at the current spot bullion price for each type of coin you have.

Then you just do a little multiplication for how much you have for the bullion value. I start my lots at 90% of spot and all of them have sold for 100% or more of the spot silver price.

feckingmorons:

Hmm....

Assume a coin about 1 inch in diameter.

Volume = pi * r2 * h
3.14*12.52*4 = 1962.5mm3

Two sides to the coin = 3925 mm3 = 3.925 cm3
Density of gold is 19.32 g/cm3
Price of gold as of Friday is $53.39 per gram
3.925 cm3 * 19.32 g/cm3*53.39 $/g = $4048.62

Wow Franklin mint has gone uptown.

// Just being a pedantic asshole... I know you meant mg.
// too lazy *cough* hungover *cough* to calculate value for the coin sides

micrometre a measure of length not volume is what I expect is the correct measurement

It's Sunday, there should be no math.

No need to calculate based on the size of the coin but the math effort was appreciated. They usually advertise the weight of the metal clad to the coin itself.

I did a few minutes searching and found an enlightening analysis on the quantity of gold or silver on those so called coins.

They advertise them as having 15mg of .999 pure silver or 24kt gold which equates to the following:

15 milligrams = 0.000482261199 troy oz

Apparently Silver is no longer a precious metal so it's calculated in avdp (avordupois) but those 15mg of silver clad goodness equates to at best a few cents worth. The value of the gold equates to, as of today's spot gold prices: .81 cents :)

Suckers, all of them, but they count on the fact that they're not going to do the math and hear the word pure and .999 etc...blah blah blah and they line up those suckers.

More power to them I guess.

Igor Jakovsky: leevis: I save any coin I find from before 1960, I needed a hobby. I probably have more than 1,000 bucks in face-value but I doubt I'll ever be retiring off of them. An early Jefferson nickel probably wouldn't go for much more than 25 or 30 cents unless it's an error coin.

The good thing is all the denominations dime and above are actual silver.

I don't know where you're finding all these pre-1960 coins, I haven't seen any in ages.

I love how they love to fool people with the "limited edition" claim. Hey fools out there. One million is a limit. So's ten million. Like the saying goes "the sky's the limit". In the end the limit is the number that people are dumb enough to purchase.

nekom: BunkyBrewman: Wait until he realizes how much his Beanie Baby collection is worth.

I'll bet not as much as my pogs! Remember pogs?

This rare 10 cent AAFES "gift certificate" pog with Richard Nixon on it has increased in value since I got back to the states nearly a thousand fold!

aerojockey: "Obama Commemorative Colorized African-Americanized Dollars".

Please.

SpaceBison: This rare 10 cent AAFES "gift certificate" pog with Richard Nixon on it has increased in value since I got back to the states nearly a thousand fold!

These pogs are mines!

i dont fool around wiht the coins--i have a warehouse that i am going to fill up with the free amish heaters.

you can believe that they are free--it says so in the usa today advertisment. and boy, look at the amish folks working so hard on them.

what about US Mint coins? are they good investments?

My parents both used to work in the Franklin Mint. There is not a single piece of collectible junk from that place in our house. Ask them why.

I just made some money flipping Record Store Day items. Gotta strike while the demand is high. Values drop rather quickly.

I always liked the civil war chess set. Way overpriced, but neat enough to be worth having. My friend was a huge NASCAR collector, he was offered $300 bucks for one of his die cast Earnhardts, just after Dale's final crash-he turned the offer down, now it is worth about $10. He has a sad. I had a bunch of Alan Kulwicki, and Davey Allison stuff, sold it all. Bought fishing equipment instead, and have eaten fish for the past 15 years because of that decision..

Ow My Balls: Coins and plates and shiat like that? I don't understand at all. At least I can play the stuff I hoard...

Poor/ignorant people collect them for the same reason they habitually play the lottery. They think they've found their foolproof get rich quick scheme.

snocone: They are in the book beside lawyers you can trust.

You're out-of-date. Nobody uses that book anymore.

dig420: Igor Jakovsky: leevis: I save any coin I find from before 1960, I needed a hobby. I probably have more than 1,000 bucks in face-value but I doubt I'll ever be retiring off of them. An early Jefferson nickel probably wouldn't go for much more than 25 or 30 cents unless it's an error coin.

The good thing is all the denominations dime and above are actual silver.

I don't know where you're finding all these pre-1960 coins, I haven't seen any in ages.

I only get 2 or 3 a month, and it's nothing but pennies and nickels anymore. Most of the other denominations were given to me. Anytime I use a vending machine I try to put in five cents more than the cost of what I'm buying so it gives me a nickel for change. I can't even begin to count how many old Jefferson nickels I've gotten doing this. I even have some old coins from Panana and Canada. I have a Canadian penny with King George on it from right before he died.

Should have invested in beanie babies. They're my hedge against inflation

specialkae: Ok, so bragging time-went to a garage sale last year and picked up a 1939 Zenith floor radio with fully intact cabinet and functioning transistor tubes for $20.

LOL, wut?

With very few exceptions (and there are SOME Zeniths in there), tube radios aren't worth all that much. Consoles are cool, but are truly white elephants, 'cause who's got room for more than one or two?

/I've got a room full of table radios
//I enjoy restoring them.
///transistor tube?

Eirik: I remember a brief fad in the 90's was to collect original animation cels, primarily from Warner Brothers since they sold them in their studio stores. There were a few folk who thought they would go way up in value, but most people I knew who were buying did it because they loved the art. IIRC, most lost value pretty fast since they were usually not that old.

/Wouldn't have minded an original Pinky & The Brain
//Couldn't afford $500
///Collect only what you love



"Oh! That is so cool! That is so exciting! That is so...[looks at cell] crappy."