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FLIPPED OUT | FLEA MARKET
BUYING BACK
YESTERDAY
We have a saying in the collecting community: “Everything’s worth whatever someone’s willing to pay.” True, their are certain items on the secondary market that are “market “strong”...which is to say they hold their sale value, regardless of economic or consumer trends (vintage “Star Wars” toys spring instantly to mind). However, these particular items are the exception, not the rule.
Thanks in large measure to shows like “American Pickers”, “Toy Hunter” and “Pawn Stars”, collecting and “ ipping” have become
a nationwide, mainstream and very popular hobby. These frontrunners of the art have torn down walls, helped to erase decades-old stigmas and paved the way for thousands of passionate collectors. But like most movements, we haven’t “arrived”; there’s a lot more work to be done.
Most involved in the game would agree that our mainstream status is barely a decade old. But now that our Fight Club has “moved out of the basement”, we’re here to stay, to pay it forward, to inform and hopefully instill in those not yet in the know, a reverence and respect for these treasures. There’s a rich, deep history living inside every rusty sign, car, pinball machine and toy.
Mark Bellomo, author, avid collector and the undisputed authority on vintage action gure
collecting once said “Trying to anticipate what product the consumer will want at any given moment is like trying to anticipate which ower a butter y will land on in a giant eld.” Sure, there’s some degree of chance, and certainly luck (sometimes, making a great score amounts to being in the right place at the right time).
But it pays, literally, to do your research. Finding the right painting, book, trading card or Hot Wheels car can sometimes cover a real car or mortgage payment, or more. But for those of us who love the hunt as much as the kill, it means more than dollars and cents. Much more. In my 22 years picking, ipping and collecting, I’ve had the immense pleasure of meeting and learning from some of the best and brightest in the game, many of whom are now lifelong friends.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s exhilarating to be able to pay your phone bill and buy new tires for your car, all from selling a box of toys you paid $40 for (I’ve done it). But at the end of the day, we’re curators and story tellers. If I’d never gotten
up early on a Saturday Spring morning 5 years ago, I never would have gotten to lay hands on a jukebox owned by Sammy Davis Junior, or hold a coin from the Civil War.
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REVIVAL NO.6 | JUNE 2017
BY TODD GOODNER