Issue No. 34

COLLECTING DAILY

In partnership with Just Collecting and Paul Fraser Collectibles

Good morning collectors. It’s Saturday, June 20.

What’s hot this week: Lara Croft (soon), Henry VIII (always)

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How I got into collectibles

By Mike Hall, CEO of Collecting Daily

I’m often asked “how did you end up working in collectibles?”

It all started with Panini football stickers. The year was 1978. I was eight years old and completely obsessed with completing my sticker album. Every spare penny I could muster went on packets of stickers.

In the process I learned which stickers were common and which were rare. Armed with this knowledge, I started trading with other kids. I would happily swap 10 common stickers for one rare one. Over time my huge pile of duplicates became a much
smaller pile of genuinely scarce stickers.

Then something interesting happened…

Other kids started seeking me out because they had heard I possessed stickers they needed. That's when I began charging money. Without realising it, I had discovered the important lesson of scarcity = value. It is a lesson still at the bedrock of what I do today.

There is also a related side story…

It is fair to say I was something of a wheeler dealer as a kid. By the age of 10, my various money-making schemes had enabled me to amass what seemed like a fortune at the time. I had accumulated around £1,000 in dirty coins and crumpled £1 notes, all hidden away in what I called my "special tin".

One day my mother found it.

The thing was, back then, we didn’t have much money as a family. She looked inside my tin and declared, "That's too much money for a young boy to have. We need that for food." She took the lot.

So, by the age of 10, I had also learned another valuable lesson – the damage of taxation. Perhaps that explains why I live in Jersey today!

Market Intel

Selling this week

> Autographs: Royal signatures remain a premium item to this day – they’re always rare and there is always a market for them. To snag one of the most sought-after in all of British history take a look at Just Collecting’s next sale at Invaluable for a Henry VIII-signed court document. You’ll also discover a Steve Jobs-signed business card and Winston Churchill’s spectacles in the sale.

Sold last week

> Medals: Medals awarded to Sergeant James Wightman, the cavalryman who is the main figure in Richard Caton Woodville’s Charge of the Light Brigade painting, have tripled their estimate at auction. The groups of three medals sold for £22,000 at Noonans Mayfair, against a £6,000 and £8,000 estimate. It is further evidence of the cachet of medals from celebrated battles, of which the “Charge” is undoubtedly one. Wightman was taken prisoner by Russia during the suicidal attack but survived the Crimean War.

Events & Exhibitions

> Cracking Exhibition Gromit: A flying machine built for Chicken Run is among the highlights of a hometown exhibition of Aardman’s most celebrated characters and sets. The Bristol, UK animation house, best known for Wallace & Gromit, celebrates 50 years in 2026. “We hope the exhibition will make people think about a career in the creative industries,” said Ngaio Harding-Hill of Aardman. “If you’ve got a story, got an idea, you can make it happen.” Cracking Exhibition Gromit runs from today to September 20 at the city’s M Shed. Tickets for this first weekend are already sold out.

The Deep Dive

Autograph collecting is not an exact science, and this guide explains why:

What makes some signatures worth more than others

That’s interesting…

> Inside: Star Wars characters for sale

Specialist pop culture YouTube channel Schaffrillas Productions polled its 2.5 million subscribers on the most popular Star Wars characters.

This is a great guide for buyers looking at what products – cards, models, toys – might resell in future.

Their top 10 (they collected 32,000 responses) were:

This is quite an eye-opener for a Gen X-er like me who hasn’t followed the later iterations of the series. But, for those looking at future value, these later characters are good buys.

> Quirky: The star of a December 2022 philatelic auction in Geneva was an unlikely one. Jean de Sperati (1884 – 1957) was one of the great stamp forgers, and should be a villain in the hobby. The Italian master’s works were so good that his first legal troubles were triggered because authorities believed the valuable stamps he was sending from Italy without paying the proper duty couldn’t possibly be fakes. He kept a dossier of all the expert opinions judging his replicas as real. When he was finally revealed, Sperati handed over his gear to the British Philatelic Association. He’s believed to have made over 5,000 forgeries in his time. They’re now collectible in their own right even unmasked, and such was Sperati’s skill it’s possible that some still trade as genuine rarities.

> Anniversary this week: Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009. He was found by his doctor, poisoned with an anaesthetic he’d taken to help him sleep. He was just 50, but Jackson had been on an incredible journey from childhood family fame, to global mega-stardom, to vilification and still unresolved abuse accusations. His death was one of the first big events of the global internet age, causing an up-to-20% increase in web traffic. Jackson was one of the most gifted singers, dancers and pop writers of all time, and dominated the music video age – he really was the King of Pop. He’s highly collectible, and, one of his trademark sparkling gloves is the most expensive such garment ever sold, selling for £420,000 in November 2009.

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