My father left me a collection of Bradford Exchange “collectable” plates that he felt confident would be worth thousands of dollars one day, because they were limited edition. I could neither sell them on the Bradford Exchange (seller pays shipping) nor sell them on e-Bay, nor sell them at the church yard sale. The 200 plates my father left me ended up being donated to the Goodwill, where hopefully someone purchase them. Most of the plates cost $30 each, so $6000 was pretty much tossed away, not to mention the cost of shipping them up from Florida.
Most of the Beanie Babies are selling on eBay for $1 – $6, which is the retail cost of a new Beanie Baby. On Amazon, the prices range from $.19 to $400. The higher end sounds more like wishful thinking on the part of the seller. Personally, our beanie babies went to Afghanistan with a neighbor’s son when he was deployed. He handed them out to children, who were very excited to get a toy.
I read an interesting article somewhere on how people view money. If you were to sell a $200 item for $100, people are willing to drive across town to buy that item for $100. However, if you sell a big ticket item, say a HDTV, for $1100 instead of $1200, only people who live around the store would take advantage of the HDTV sale price. 50% off a $200 item is perceived as a better deal than $100 off $1200 (8% savings) but in reality, they are the same—$100 is $100. The actual amount of the cash is the only thing that matters. You cannot save or spend percentages.