cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/15669474
This could be something that you bought for a higher price than what most people would guess based on the item, or it could be something you bought for a normal price that has gained significant value as time has gone on.
What made me think of this question is a LEGO minifigure I got with my “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” disc. It is Bilbo Baggins in a blue coat that was apparently only sold in that movie box only at Target stores. Even considering the exclusivity, I would have guessed maybe $10-20 for such a tiny piece of plastic, but there are sold listings on eBay from $80 to $225. I could possibly even get towards the higher end of that number since I still have everything in the original box in good condition. It’s not worth a ton compared to some other items people may own, but I think most people would not expect nearly that amount.
I bought a funny drawing for $20 from Goodwill showing toony animals in an 80s office setting. It was extremely dated, down to portraying a mainframe computer with eyes on it, but there’s something about it I find absolutely charming and it has a place of honor above my fireplace.
A few years later, I looked it up on a whim, and it turned out to be a limited-run lithograph called “Bits” by Robert Marble in 1983, and it was worth a hundred bucks then (closer to $250 now). There’s only 750 copies of it ever made, and mine is a relatively low number (122).
There’s no way in hell I’m selling it, but it’s a really neat little story!
My education according to my student loans.
Haha, I feel that
I recently got my 35 year old car appraised and despite me buying it for $3500 13 years ago and putting nearly no work into it in that time, it’s now worth $12000. Unfortunately I love the car and am unlikely to sell it. But about 1/3rd of the times I drive it, some random person will come up to me in a parking lot asking if I would ever consider selling it, so if I do it’ll probably be pretty easy to sell. The car is a mark 3 Toyota supra in white, with a modest tasteful bodykit that seems to have proven to be ahead of it’s time appearance-wise.
I know with what the entire used car market is like now, that’s not as unexpected as most of these other posts, but it was certainly unexpected to me. Someone just told me out of the blue to get it appraised, so it got me curious enough to go through with it.
My house. 20 years ago it cost $105K, today I could sell it for almost 3 times that.
Congrats on the increase in investment. I’m starting to look into buying a house in the near future, and some of the price increases are crazy. I saw one house that said it was purchased for something like $180k 5 years ago and was pending now for like $320k
Bought a couple copies of a Magic card for $20 each, then they shot up to $80 each. Then it got reprinted and now they’re $25 each. (Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger)
In 1977 I bought 2 1964 fender Stratocaster guitars. Both for $750.
A few years later a friend of a friend needed money and sold me both his 1963 fender telecasters.
Each guitar is worth north of $20k today.
Holy shit! How did you afford 21 964 guitars?
Well, like I said above, I got the 2 1964 Stratocasters for $750 in 1977 or so…
You still play any of them? Have a favorite?
Yes I do play them, constantly.
For decades I played the white Stratocaster, because that’s the color Jimi Hendrix played. The blue one pretty much lived in its case for decades because the color was in my opinion, uncool. I brought it out recently and people flipped for it, said the color was very cool so, now I play that too.
The black telecaster is my all time favorite.
That teal one is an awesome color
Bought 2 acres of wooded land in North Carolina for $60k, 2 years ago and built a house on one of the 1 acre lots. Now an empty 1 acres lot is going for $100k next door. I guess land really is a great investment if you find a deal.
I have two ones of Anchor Blocks. They’re stone building blocks from Germany that my father bought me back in the early 90s. They’re wonderful to build with.
There’s a new company making them again, but for a decade or so they were out of manufacturing and would sell for $500-1000 a box.
https://anchor-stone.eurosourcellc.com/classic-anchor-blocks.html
They’re very cool to build with. Since they’re actual stone, they stack, stand, and balance in ways that wooden or plastic blocks don’t. It’s very rewarding to build with them.
That’s really cool. I never knew anyone made them as stone blocks. Do they still hold that value, or have they gone down after they started getting produced again?
I don’t know about a collector’s market for original sets these days, but a quick search makes it look like the prices have come down a lot (which is great). The first sets are very reasonable for the quality, but trying to get up to the 32A series boxes is nuts. The buildings you can make with those are absolutely astounding, but well beyond my means.
I have a few servers that I’ve put together, both towers and rack mount, that are fairly old in IT terms but would still sell for thousands used.
I pulled most of the parts out of the trash.
I have a few 3" tall pieces of vinyl that somehow seem to still be worth $500+ ea.
My wife and I dealt with some grief one summer by buying Pop figures. But we now have a bunch of figures that are still selling for $500 mint in box. Most of them have been opened and displayed, but we’ve got 5 that are MIB and all but one were purchased at the retail ($10). We were in it for the chase, so finding things at retail price was part of it. It was a great distraction.
I hope you and your wife are doing better now! I collected Pops for a while (mostly just characters that I liked) and got a few expensive ones, but nowhere near that price tag.
I have a lot of family military memorabilia, several pre world war 2 medals, one of the British military crosses (might be Victoria Cross), sword of honour from Sandhurst, signed documents/certificates from George VI.
I haven’t got it all valued together, but I know the pre WW2 medals are £4k+ alone. I’d guess it’s probably all worth ~£10k but it’s nothing I’d ever sell, so it might as well be worth nothing, as I won’t be liquidating that money.
I have a few Gamecube games that people sell up to two hundred dollars. However, I take caution because supply is not demand.
Oh. Maybe I should look up how much mine are worth.
What is the point of cross posting from another Lemmy site when they are interoperable? A “Ask Lemmy” war or competition?
As the other commenter said, I figured I would post it in both communities to get more responses from people who may not be a part of both. I’m not sure if that is what I should be doing (still fairly new to Lemmy), but I thought I’d give it a try.
It was fairly common on reddit. I see no issue.
