collectibles

I've been thinking about collectibles and antiques for the last couple of days, since I received and e-mail from a guy who's trying to sell his "classic collection" of Playboy magazines dating back to the '70's, for 300 bucks and, I could check it out on Craigslist.

So I did and sure enough he had 3 knee-high stacks of magazines and I had to wonder, if he cared enough about the "articles" in Playboy to keep them in "pristine condition" and safe from his wife for 40 years, what would make him want to sell them now, for such a desperately small amount of money.

Just for grins and giggles, I scrolled down the Craigslist "collectibles" page a little more and you know, the girlie magazine dude was nowhere near alone. Also for sale were collections of Haitian Bottle Art, a Pepsi Cola Phone and an Atocha coin, 50 DVD Porn movies, a Spiderman cookie jar, a Neptune Fantasy Barbie (whatever that is) and the complete season of 1969 Topps Baseball cards (including that year's world champion Mets) in "EX condition".

It didn't surprise me that there was so much stuff for sale, people are always trying to sell their stuff, but that it was all priced at desperately small amounts of money,
said something.
It was a marketplace of people parting with any and everything of intrinsic or emotional value to them for a miserably few extra bucks.

While my sentimental right brain was asking, "why would anyone sell off the treasures that define them for 30 pieces of silver?", simultaneously my practical left brain was screaming, "it's the economy, stupid!".

Sure I know as well as you do, for all but the Wall Street bankster bonus babies, cash is gettin' harder to come by, (and in my opinion, we ain't seen the half of it yet) but what does it say about us as a culture when, at the first crunch of crisis, we start selling off the things we hold most dear, the treasures that bring our hearts and minds a little pleasure, the stuff we picked up along the way, that helps us remember where we came from?