How is anime art like Beanie Babies

[sensei]

After hearing Jay Leno poke fun at a California man who hoped to pay for his kids' education by amassing an investment-grade Beanie Baby collection in the 1990s, I was intrigued enough to look up some articles on the matter. The tale is not really a new one: as some of us remember, the lumpish toys became a fad in the mid-1990s, peaked in 1998, then passed out of fashion. (But some were cute: we still put Beanies in our Christmas stockings each year: my daughter gets the Beanie bat, and I get the Beanie rat.) I recalled that there was a perception in some circles that the early, limited edition ones were valuable, especially if the hang tags were kept pristine, and that, like certain kinds of baseball cards, they would eventually be worth lots and lots of money. The California collector in question spent over $100K on a roomful of the most desirable items, and subsequently was forced to declare bankruptcy when the value of his collection declined sharply after 1999.

This financial article nicely puts the whole affair into perspective, describing it as a small-scale but classic investment "bubble." It gives an optimistic collector's guide that estimated that "Stripes," an early Beanie tiger, had retailed at $5, but so few had survived in mint condition that it was now (1998) worth $250, and was estimated to be worth $1000 in another ten years. (Not sure how high a vintage Stripes goes now, but later editions, with "50% fewer stripes" go for $2.50-$12 now.)

So it makes sense that people who took this at face value would spend significant chunks of money on the very most desirable Beanies, expecting to double or quadruple it in short order. But, as The Week points out, the fad was a bubble, with people purchasing the items only because they were said to be scarce and likely to appreciate in value. When prices did not keep going up, investors began dispersing their collections, "scarce" Beanies became easier to find, and the "bubble" burst.

It's something for collectors of all sorts (including those of anime art) to reflect on. I've never seen my own collection as an "investment," at least not as a financial one that will earn me a fortune in my extreme old age. But it certainly is an investment in time, energy, and to an extent, money. Stories like this make me reflect on what I think I, or others, will gain out of this investment. Certainly the boom market in cels and sketches seems to have cooled quite a bit, and it's easy to spot people who bought in the glory years now having gallery offer periods and dispersing their collections on eBay. Is this area of collecting a bubble too?

I don't think so (for one thing, the classic "Stripes" Beanie was ugly!) but maybe I'll let others chime in on this issue.

[JWR]

I am afraid that with certain shows on TV like "Toy Collector" and other such I can see a lot of people suddenly thinking that hoarding the "hottest thing of the moment" in the hope that they can make a killing later on. I saw this 1st hand with the comic book market where companies flooded the market with special covers and other gimmicks to sell as much product as possible. Too late for a lot of gulible fans did they realize that what made the high end of the market was the scarce nature of the "silver age" comics with so few surviving that those that did and were in good shape had collectors paying top dollar.
There is a big difference in have maybe 100 pristine issues of the 1st appearance of Superman and a "Limited Edition Chrome Covered" edition of an X men comic that the "limited edition" was limited to 25,000.

Maybe one day Anime cels/sketches will become the next big thing and we can all make that fabled killing but chances of that are not something I plan on staking my retirement plans on.

[cutiebunny]

Usually, the toys on Toy Hunter don't become valuable until the target market who played with them become adults with lots of disposable income. Most of the toys on the show are 30-40 years old, which makes sense as those that played with them are in their late 30s & 40s. So, it's likely that the Beanie Babies will not enjoy an increase in price for at least another decade, if not two. And even then, with so many "collectors", the odds of any plushie being worth the hundreds of dollars that the price guides assumed that they would be in the future is small. Same thing with Pokemon cards; People were convinced that they would be worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars in the future. And while it's possible that certain cards, like those first edition Charizards, might be in 2030, right now, many of these cards are barely worth the paper they were printed on.

I never looked at my collection as an investment. I never once thought "Wow, I'm gonna roll my Itoyas into the Antiques Roadshow one day and make millions!". I believe that a good portion of my collection has, at the minimum, kept its value as Sailor Moon is a property that enjoys worldwide popularity to this day, and with the new anime now scheduled for Winter 2014 (hopefully), a new generation may become interested in it. As for the original artwork I've collected over the years, my thought has been more towards donating it to a museum for preservation purposes, and to show future generations that, at one time, people actually drew on a thing called paper.

[Drac of the Sharp Smiles]

Like those above, I do not in any way consider my collection to be an investment that will earn money for me. I collect what *I* like, from shows *I've* seen, of scenes or characters that meant something to *me*. My collection isn't meant to appeal to anyone other than me, which is why I make the assumption that, in general, it doesn't. The first thing I tell people who look at my cels and ask me what they're worth is: "They're worth nothing because I'm not selling them."

Honestly, my guess -- if I had to guess at the future -- is that the value of MOST anime cels and sketches will decline as time goes on, both because of inevitable decomposition of the materials used to create the pieces (they simply will not look as good later as they do now) and because fewer people will have actually seen the shows in question. Yes, there are some things that become iconic and hold their value, with Sailor Moon being a good example. (Even my mother can recognize Sailor Moon, without having seen the show, which is what I consider to be a good measure of something being iconic.) However, most shows get watched, are popular for a time, then get shoved to the bottom shelf, then are near-forgotten, if not totally forgotten. I have a hard time believing anyone is going to go gaga over a cel from a show they've never seen, and sometimes cel collectors don't take into account that, while cels are unique when considered individually, cels as a WHOLE are not very rare. If you were looking to simply have pretty cels to display, or buy to educate people about animation art, there are lots from which to pick and only caring about a specific show/character/story will probably make any given one especially valuable.

This is why I sometimes sigh at collectors who ask for offers on things and, upon putting in a reasonable offer, I get told "I'm not going to sell it for less than I paid for it". On the one hand, I completely understand where they're coming from, but on the other, I'm not sure how to politely express that a cel bought at the height of a show's popularity isn't worth as much once the show is kind of passé. The value of cels fluxes. Anyone truly serious about selling needs to consider the *current* value of the cel in question and realize that what they paid for it doesn't matter to buyers when it comes time to sell it. That's part of the reason I don't keep overly detailed notes about how much I paid for my cels.

I have to say, I do remember watching the Beanie Baby fad with wide eyes and being unable to fathom why people were spending so much on things that were so mass-produced..... AND WHICH EVERYONE WAS SAVING LIKE A COLLECTIBLE. The only reason older toys are worth anything is because everyone played with them and few survived. That said, I *DO* have a Radar the bat from the first series of Beanie Babies ever released, when no one cared/knew what a Beanie Baby was. It was a bat, it was cute, I took him home for $5. Yes, he has his hang tag on him still, because I thought the poem was cute. (Later poetry on the tags, IMHO got worse and worse.) I had someone offer me $350 for him as of only a few years ago, but he still sits worthless on my shelf because I like him. I think he likes it that way too. ^_^

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac