Gen Z Collectors, Dennis Rodman's Coins, and Grenade Panic at Auction House

Issue No. 33

COLLECTING DAILY

In partnership with Just Collecting and Paul Fraser Collectibles

Good evening collectors. It’s Wednesday, June 17.

What’s hot this week: Vietnamese deer, video games

What’s not: Collecting pessimism

Breaking News

It’s very much in line with market trends that this lovely image by artist Pham Hau performed well over its estimate. See Market Intel below.

The young people are coming. And why that’s good news for everyone

Online in this job, you’re never more than two clicks away from a doomy article about the death of some form of collecting.

It’s usually philately. Sometimes watches.

Wise heads spot clickbait, remind themselves that most markets are cyclical and move on.

Yes, collecting is all about change. And, inevitably, some collectible items have a lifespan beyond which they lose their appeal.

But I’m positive about the future of the collectibles markets. And that’s because…

Young people love collecting

Survey after survey is showing Gen Z buyers entering collecting markets.

They bring with them new tastes and trends. But they have the habit.

The Observer reported on Gen Z art collectors seeking out personal stories, and operating more globally. BSM Partners recorded new crazes in trinket collecting. Younger buyers are the bulk of vinyl record purchases – they love the aesthetics of big discs in beautiful sleeves.

You can add a broader trend to this. There is a revolt against a digital realm dominated by a small number of monopolistic giants and endless subscription services that mean the consumer doesn’t own anything – they’re just a user.

People want tangible, real things. For themselves.

So collecting has a healthy future, and a continuing one for those already in the market who are ready to spot where a new generation of taste makers are headed.

Market Intel

Selling this week

> Disgusting, valuable trading cards: A set of Garbage Pail Kids cards (the gross-out response to the cutesy Cabbage Patch Kids) are listed at Heritage, closing on Thursday and at just over $1,000 right now. They should go higher.

Sold last week

> Beautiful painted screen: Modern East Asian art and culture continues to perform well. A beautiful lacquer wood panel painting by Vietnamese artist Pham Hau (1903 – 1995) sold for $2 million in Paris last Thursday after listing with a $463,000 high estimate.

Events & Exhibitions

> US urban photography: The leafy London suburb of Dulwich is a world away from downtown New York. So Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography should give the locals a jolt this summer at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. More than 100 US metropolis-centred works by 38 photographers including Stieglitz, Arbus and Leiter will feature – spanning the length of the 20th Century. New York, LA, San Francisco and Chicago are all represented. Runs July to October.

A – Z

> Art: The sad death of David Hockney last week will ignite the already strong market for his original works and prints. If you’ve always wanted a Hockney but have never taken the plunge, get in quick before prices surge. Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) auctioned for £70 million in 2018. It will sell for more when it next appears.

> Beatles: En route from Heathrow to JFK for the Beatles’ seismic first Ed Sullivan Show performance in February 1964, John Lennon takes out a pen. And composes one of his earliest introspective songs: If I Fell. Those handwritten lyrics last sold in 2001 for $171,000. Bidding stands at $512,000 with 30 days to go at Heritage Auctions. It will climb higher.

> Grenade: A WWI grenade brought in for appraisal has sparked panic at an auction house in Devon. Specialists at Dartmoor Auctions called in the Royal Navy, who placed a 100 metre cordon around the building, and identified the object as a German rifle grenade. The Royal Navy have since disposed of it.

> The Savoy: The prestigious London hotel is mid-revamp. Which means it’s auctioning more than 2,000 pieces of its custom-made fittings and furnishings. Highlights include pieces from its Personality Suites, including Regency writing tables and Georgian style cabinets. Runs July 21-23.

> Video Games: A world record for Super Mario Bros has been achieved, with the $3 million sale of a sealed 1986 copy of the game, adding a third to the previous $2 million record. The game’s PSA 9.6 A++ grade makes it unique – it’s the equivalent of a gaming Mona Lisa rather than the herald of a general price lift in this market.

The Deep Dive

Autograph collecting is not an exact science, but this guide will start to explain why:

What makes some signatures worth more than others

That’s interesting…

Googlers are searching out the Sacagawea dollar, though it is rarely a valuable coin for collectors thus far. See Inside, below.

> Inside: some breakout coins

Searches on Google are a wonderful window on the world of collecting.

Here are 8 surging searches in the valuable coins sector.

Buffalo nickel. Buffalo/Indian head nickels were minted from 1913 to 1938 with James Earle Fraser’s designs. A collector’s favourite enjoying a moment.
Old pennies. These are global searches, and sheer numbers would suggest this is the US penny that has come under the spotlight after being discontinued this year.
1943 steel penny. A wartime economy effort, but not a particular rarity; it’s the few copper pennies that survived the switch to steel that have real value.
£2 coins. British £2 coins are second only to 50 pence pieces as modern pocket change collectibles. They’re big, used as a canvas for special designs and commemoratives, and have comparatively low mintages some years. Royal Mint says the rarest ever is the 1986 Scotland Commonwealth Games commemorative.
Quarters. Another sign that folk are checking their pocket change for value.
Valuable dimes. Good luck finding the 1894 S-Barber dime, a super rarity potentially worth over $1 million and with a great, mysterious origin story.
2000 dollar coin. See Sacagawea dollar below:
Sacagawea dollar. This is the 2000 coin, with a portrait of the eponymous Native American woman. It was given a gold sheen with a manganese finish, but is only valuable in errors and the very small number that were flown into space.

The web is everyone’s first port of call for research, and checking out what others are looking for is something every buyer and seller should do.

> Worth your time:

The Victoria Cross is the most hard-won and most collected medal in British military circles. Those tales of daring can feel somewhat distant, but these portraits at the National Portrait Gallery bring them to life.

Guitar nerds should prepare to waste half-an-hour here, on this video guiding you through a 1959 Les Paul Custom.

You’ve seen them here, so that’s the “when and where” but the Guardian asks why celebrity estate sales are booming.

> Quirky: The best collection of Democratic Republic of Korea (what most of us call North Korea) coins in the US is probably down to basketball and reality TV. Former baller Dennis Rodman has been a notable visitor to DPRK since 2015, when his basketball tour to the country was shot on film. Off the court, Rodman is said to be a major coin collector, a hobby he owes to his sometime agent, Dwight Manley. Manley is a genuine giant of American numismatics, and Rodman is said to have gifted him a collection of DPRK coins that came straight from the hand of his unlikely pal, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, Kim Jong Un.

> Anniversary this week: Early in the morning of June 17, 1972 a security guard spotted a piece of tape used to stop a door latch from closing. Around two years later the President of the United States resigned. The latch was taped by burglars targeting the Democratic Party’s offices in Washington DC’s Watergate complex. Their arrest triggered a cascade of revelations of bugging, spying and other dirty tricks that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency. The affair produced a tonne of journalism, and notable best-seller All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein that was filmed with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman playing the reporters. Signed first editions of the book are sought after, going for hundreds to thousands of dollars depending on condition, and the whole, dark affair is its own collecting genre.

❝

For some people, fame kills it and becomes more important than the music or the performance. But for me fame is like rocket fuel. The more my fans like what I'm doing, the more I want to give back to them.

― Lady Gaga, noted autograph signer and selfie giver

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