The powers-that-be at this periodical thought it would be a good idea to run a series of my older columns, which have been featured for several Thursdays because Thursday has become synonymous with past reflections… better known in Facebook parlance as "Throwback Thursday." For me, Thursdays will always be the night that Hill Street Blues was on (and later, LA Law), but that’s more of a reflection of just how old I am.
One of the recent TBT columns featured me waxing nostalgic about a sweatshirt I bought the night of October 27, 1986, as the Trophy Wife and I were exiting Shea Stadium after the Mets won the World Series (www.promocorner.com/identity-marketing?i=349). Little did I know at the time that I wrote it just how prescient I was, as I commented about not knowing when the next Mets championship shirt might be printed.
More to the point, the column was about why I held onto that sweatshirt, and a few other things as well. What qualified them as "collectibles," at least to me? Clearly, they had special meaning – again, to me – but is there any actual value to these items?
I don't think my wife will argue this point: I don't believe that I qualify as a "pack rat" (a far more genteel way of saying "hoarder"). I've saved all my LPs (hipsters today call them "vinyl") because I invested a lot of time, money and effort amassing that great collection of music (who else do you know that has the soundtrack to the great BBC mini-series "Rock Follies" from 1976 – which brought Rula Lenska to our American attention so that she can later be featured in shampoo commercials. But I digress, as always. There’s a lot of good music sitting on my shelves; I just can't part with it (why I still have hundreds of audio cassettes, too… some of which duplicates the music on the LPs… is anyone's guess).
A tip of the imprinted baseball cap to my mother, who never threw away my baseball cards (some of which pre-date me, if such a thing is possible). Again, a lot of time, money and effort went into that collection. Why I still have them is anyone's guess… even with many rare cards and Hall of Famers, the market for these dried up many years ago. Still, I've got 'em.
So why hold onto these, or the imprinted garments to which I've already referred here and in the previous column? Why do we collect anything for that matter?
Another previous column referred to a gentleman I'd met earlier this year who collected pens. Please don't make me double check (fact-checking is so time consuming, just ask most news outlets), but I believe he said he has over 700,000 pens. Why? Because he liked them and he wanted them.
A California couple turned their fascination with Pez dispensers into a museum. According to one article I read, they had over 550 different models. Umm… that doesn't strike me as museum worthy. That strikes me as "storage unit" worthy, but who am I to say?
At present, I'm drinking an iced coffee out of a Dunkin' Donuts travel mug. Is it a collectible? Not as I see it. It's a promotional item that keeps my drink cold. If I were to lose it, I would not call the insurance company.
As I see it, in order for something to be a collectible, it has to have value to someone other than yourself (thus, my LPs might not qualify). Here's something I lifted off of the Heritage Auctions website… a couple of paragraphs from a piece entitled, "The Intelligent Collector."
“My friend, John Jay Pittman, though not a wealthy man to begin with, built a vast and famous coin collection. He accomplished that feat by studying relentlessly, then shrewdly investing a large percentage of his limited income as a middle manager for Eastman Kodak and his wife's income as a schoolteacher. In 1954, he mortgaged his house to travel to Egypt and bid on coins at the King Farouk Collection auction. John sacrificed his and his family's lifestyle over the course of many decades. He passed away in 1996, with no apparent regrets, and his long-suffering family justly received the benefit of his efforts when the collection was sold at auction for over $30 million. But why did he do it?
“One fervent collector of historical documents refers to his own collecting propensity as a “genetic defect." Most likely, collecting is a basic human instinct; a survival advantage amplified by eons of natural selection. Those of our ancient ancestors who managed to accumulate scarce objects may have been more prone to survive long enough to bear offspring. Even today, wealth correlates to longer life expectancy - and could any form of wealth be more basic than scarce, tangible objects?."
I think the writer had me at "genetic defect." Nevertheless, the question remains: what makes something collectible?
In my son’s old bedroom, we still have some memorabilia from a sports team which no longer exists. Why? It's not the Brooklyn Dodgers. It's the New Jersey Cardinals (you can look 'em up). I don't know if there's any value to any of that stuff. I'm just too lazy to throw it out.
We're all guilty of this – just look around at this very moment. What imprinted item do you presently possess that you feel has a value, even if only to you? Think about it and please get back to me – you can be part of a future column.
As history has proven: the less I write, the better the column.
Mike Schenker, MAS, is a promotional industry veteran and member of the Specialty Advertising Association of Greater New York (SAAGNY) Hall of Fame. He can be reached at mike@mikeschenker.com.