Whatever gets you heart beating is worth doing.

 I've been a collector since I was hoarding Wolverine comics as a kid. But like many I never really held or took care of anything well enough to make any kind of profit. It never occurred to make a profit. I hoarded what I liked and when I got bored of it, I discarded/gave away/sold my old collection and started a new one. Or mom cleaned out my closet and it was time forget about X Men and move on to movie posters, or amateur hockey jerseys, or poker chips, or one of the million collecting obsessions I've had over my life,   Regardless of what tickled my fancy at any particular stage I just liked to collect, and looking back I can see now that I've had this passion for a long time.  But in the past few years I've been taking it up to a different level built on the confidence of what may have very well been lucky early successes.

A couple years ago I found myself staring at the first piece of artwork I ever purchased.  A print by George Rodrigue called "Hawaiian Blues" that features his now fairly iconic Blue Dog.  I bought it for 500 clams at the Scottsdale Fashion Square when I was in my 20's.

It was my first big purchase.  But over the years it fell out of favor and on this particular day hung in my daughters room.  I decided to do some research and check on it's value.  What I found is that over 10-15 years this simple print was now worth between 3000-4000 dollars.  Holy Smokes I thought!!!  I don't know about you, but my brokerage account is always a mess and this was a pretty decent return.

Now this is not going to be a blog about "look how much money I made" because that's boring.  But what dawned on me at that moment was that I can own items me and my family enjoy AND not feel like I am spending money in the traditional sense.  So I started to price other items in my house.  I had a brief period where I was mining ebay for vintage travel posters.  Most I bought were crap and I sold at varying small losses over the years.  But some have stayed with me and as I started to value them (how to properly price items is going to be a big focus of this blog if anyone reads it) I found that the returns dwarfed anything one might find through traditional investing.

This one in particular I love because I have three daughters and I liked the image of the upbeat young woman, eager to greet the world.

I did not sell either of these items. But it dawned one me  that smart, educated collecting isn't really spending at all.  Smart collecting allows you to experience the joy and privilege of owning something that will be treasured for generations, if not longer AND generate a decent return for yourself.  If you can get over not being able to see your account"balances" every day and stay within your budget, collecting can be rewarding in so many ways. As I started thinking more about this, my confidence grew, and I've started seeing collecting as a way to enhance my passions and my net worth. Collecting allowed me to make some great new friends and some amazing people.

My general plan with this blog is to put up a new item and tell my zero readers how I acquired it, and how I knew I was paying a fair price.  A lot of what I'll post I am sure is common sense to seasoned collectors, but I'm still fairly new at this.  And I'm learning along the way.  How to use ebay to your advantage, why Craigslist is still relevant, how to know you're not getting ripped off, when to be a value buyer and when to dig deep in your pocket, why networking with other collectors is so important.  I just want to share things I learned and am learning along the way.   Plus I get to show off my collection, which is always fun.  I've been so surprised with how fun and sometimes treacherous collecting can be, and I hope to share that with anyone interested.  So keep an eye out for my first item soon.