Issue No. 30

COLLECTING DAILY

In partnership with Just Collecting and Paul Fraser Collectibles

Good evening collectors. It’s Saturday, June 6.

What’s hot this week: The Grateful Dead, divers’ watches

What’s not: Fakes!

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Breaking News

Let’s get real. We don’t know what’s real any more. Except for trust.

Look around you: we live in a world where politicians manufacture facts, influencers manufacture lifestyles, and in a back bedroom somewhere, someone is busy manufacturing your next big auction purchase.

Fake news? Fake everything is the problem now.

The collectibles market is booming. And that attracts sharks.

Forged autographs flood the memorabilia trade at a scale that would make your eyes water. The British Philatelic Authentication Service processes thousands of suspicious stamps every year. There’s a big match-worn Pele shirt sale coming up, but if we believed online listings the Brazilian maestro wore shirts enough for around 4,000 games, not the 92 internationals he actually played.

And sports cards? Where do you even begin? Trimmed edges, cleaned surfaces, fraudulent grading cases.

There are people making a very decent living out of mugging collectors like you.

Technology has made forgery cheaper, faster and more convincing than at any previous point in collecting history. The crooks are getting smarter, and they're not slowing down.

So before you hand over your hard-earned cash for that "guaranteed genuine" Muhammad Ali signature, or a Penny Black with suspiciously perfect margins, do yourself one favour.

Get proper expert authentication. Use accredited dealers. Check provenance.

Ask questions until they start looking shifty. Nothing is more important because nothing is more painful and costly than discovering a treasured gem is a lab-grown pearl.

Because the one thing in this world that should genuinely be real is your collection.

In the Know

Selling this week

> Underwater watches: Two watches that are beautiful but have also been used are due to sell at Bonhams next Thursday. The Rolex COMEX (COMEX is a French diving firm) Submariner and Sea Dweller were used by diver Christopher Jeffers. The Submariner has a high estimate of £80,000; the Sea-Dweller £40,000. We say collectors love stories, will the tale behind these deep sea timepieces see them sell?

> Post punk guitar: A 1970s Les Paul owned by Dave Gregory of XTC is listed in Gardiner Houlgate’s big guitar sale opening next Thursday. Gregory is a noted guitar collector and expert, and those looking to snag some of his cast offs should keep an eye on this Wiltshire house.

Sold last week

> Beautiful Victorian coin: A really lovely proof of a British India 1/4 Anna from the 1892 issue sold at Heritage Auctions on Monday for $8,540. Go and take a look at it, and you may be tempted by the offer to buy it from the auction winner for $10,675.

Events & Exhibitions

> Modern masterpieces in London: Sotheby’s sale of pieces from the Joe Lewis collection promises to be another art blockbuster this summer. An exhibition of highlights opens next Wednesday at the auction house in New Bond Street.

> World’s oldest coins: The Manisa Museum in Turkiye has a new exhibit including Lydian coins struck in electrum, a locally occurring gold and silver alloy. These Lydian coins are accepted as the oldest known, so perhaps numismatists should add this Aegean city to their holiday plans.

A – Z

> Historical memorabilia: Winston Churchill’s many admirers should keep their eyes focused on the upcoming Just Collecting Auctions online memorabilia sale. Bidding opens next Wednesday, and I gather one of the most personal Churchill items ever to sell will be listed.

> Numismatics: Investors have been excited by the US Mint’s one-ounce gold Eagle. With just 7,500 of the $5,370 coin minted, one analyst described it as “part asset, part artifact”. This highly limited (wait lists only at the moment) and nicely designed (with a classic Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s Liberty) coin is likely to inspire more similar issues that buyers will do well to get ahead of.

> Stamps: There are some extremely tempting lots in Siegel Auction Galleries’ Rarities of the World Sale on June 23 in New York (catalogue out now). A strong GB section, including standout Penny Blacks, will be a good test of where the market is now, and might offer value to specialist buyers.

> TV memorabilia: The sale of items owned by Friends star Matthew Perry will be minus one lot today. A highly personal, heartfelt letter from his co-star Jennifer Aniston has been withdrawn. The Independent says Heritage haven’t commented beyond confirming the removal.

> Trading card games: Delays will affect the sale of some of the new Magic the Gathering Marvel Superhero cards. Production problems mean some products won’t be at launch events. With rarities going straight into resale markets, collectors should check MTG’s website and be ready for the new launch dates of some packs and boxes.

> Video games: Heritage Auctions are predicting a record sale for “the Holy Grail of video game collecting” and “the most significant video game ever offered at auction”. The 1985 Super Mario Bros. Nintendo game already has a bid of $637,000 and will sell on June 12 to 13. If you or your family are of the right age, it’s beyond time you checked your storage for old video games.

The Long Read

Looking for reliable information on Royal autograph prices? Try:

The Just Collecting British Monarchs Signed Document Price Index.

Whatnots

> A quick dip into:

The Grateful Dead

The Dead feature heavily in Heritage Auctions’ July signature sale of concert posters.

A Jerry Garcia guitar sold for $11.6 million in the multi record-breaking Jim Irsay Collection auction earlier this year.

Why, for collectors, is this the Age of the Dead?

I think we’re seeing prices for early-1960s bands at their peak now. Simply as a matter of passing time. There will always be Beatles and Stones collectors, but those who remember the bands at their peak are getting fewer in number. Three Beatles guitars made the top 10 prices realised in the Irsay sale, but at 7, 8 and 9, not 1, 2, and 3. They were outsold by later-dated instruments – Garcia, Cobain, Clapton, Gilmour.

The Dead are a band of the late 60s, and should be next in line. They were formed in 1965 but are closely associated with 1967’s Summer of Love. But, despite living very fast, the Dead didn’t burn out, and instead built a multi-generational community of fans with gigantic tours through the 70s and beyond.

The Grateful Dead are the archetypal San Francisco band. San Francisco is now at the heart of the world tech industry and one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Deadheads were among the first to see the Internet’s community-building possibilities and some are noted web pioneers. They are a fanbase with money.

Despite their enormous success, this is a cult fandom. Your postman doesn’t whistle a Grateful Dead song in the morning and they didn’t have a significant chart single hit until 1987 – amazing! Fans tend to be dedicated, long-term and completist.

You can also look at current trends in fashion. Colour is everywhere. Unreal, anime and surreal imagery is all the rage. Even flares are coming back. The late 60s aesthetic is very on trend at the moment.

As ever, the best advice for collectors looking for future value is to expect and be prepared for change. Where is the next Grateful Dead? Punk, Britpop and metal are all guitar-heavy styles I’d look at.

You can see the Heritage listings here.

> Inside: a recent collector surveys

To thrive in collecting markets, you need to understand them.

Here’s a survey (published by an organisation with its own financial interests) that shows an interesting window on modern collecting markets.

This 2024 poll for a UK insurance company found around 50% of people with a collection of one sort of another, but with 60% of those people saying they had had no intention to become collectors.

The top 5 collections in this survey were:

No stamps and no coins here. I suspect they would still lead the way in a more targeted survey of actual collectors.

There are big trends here that collectors have observed recently: these are relatively cheap consumer products often manufactured specifically to be collected.

Will they last? Will they pay you back?

Any buyer looking here for long-term value should be aiming firmly at the top of these markets. Not just an ordinary paperback, but a signed, hardback first-edition book; a limited edition mug or magnet tied to a specific and popular event or fandom.

And trainers? Definitely an area to watch for traders and a fascinating and increasingly established collecting market.

Worth your time:

A very good, fashion-focused history of the Birkin Bag in this YouTube video.

Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi has died aged 56. Sotheby’s held a sale of her work in 2012 that has comprehensive and beautiful coverage of her art.

You will not believe how many Marvel characters there have been. This Wiki lists all of their debut comic appearances.

Legendary jazz player Branford Marsalis talks about playing with The Grateful Dead and encountering their legendary fandom.

> Quirky: In the 1960s Paul McCartney had a girlfriend called Jane Asher (it was widely assumed they would marry). Jane Asher had a brother called Peter. Peter had a band with his friend Gordon, named Peter and Gordon of course! Paul gave Peter a song, A World Without Love, that made them British Invasion stars. And in 1965 John Lennon gave Gordon a guitar. Gordon played it on a famous TV performance of A World Without Love. Then he gave it to Peter and Gordon’s road manager. Who put it in his loft. Where it stayed until its auction sale at Julien’s Auctions for $2.9 million in 2024. And that’s the story of Paul, Jane, Peter, Gordon, John, Julien and the Framus Hootenanny guitar.

> Anniversary this week: Princess Alix Viktoria Helene Luise Beatrix of Hesse was born on June 6, in Darmstadt Germany. Better known as Alexandra, the last Empress of Russia, her husband, Tsar Nicholas II, gave her some fine and famous trinkets. Giving Faberge eggs at Easter was a tradition Nicholas inherited from his father, Alexander III. Alexandra received her first egg, the Rosebud, in 1895. In total, the last two Romanov rulers gave 50 eggs (considered masterpieces) to the last two tsarinas. As the dynasty toppled, the eggs were scattered. Some were smuggled out of Russia, others were kept (and some then sold) by the Soviet authorities. Around six to eight remain lost. The Winter Egg was auctioned on December 2 last year, for a record £22.9 million. It was made for Alexandra’s mother-in-law, who survived the Revolution in which her successor was murdered.

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