I think I saw it first as a friend and I were killing time in a mall before the beginning of a forgettable movie: The Barack Obama Collectible Plate. I stopped, considering the design and realizing that probably 51 companies had created 132 different designs of collectible Obama plates, now—not two years later—sitting on a clearance shelf and running for $4.99 at Overstock.com.
No, I’m not writing about the tarnished aura surrounding Obama in the eyes of his 2008 idolizers (though tempting) but our own bizarre fetishism of all things collectible, of our invented industry, of capitalism’s ability to manufacture objects of zero practical worth, attach some signification to them, and thereby make them obscenely valuable—at least until the next invented object replaces them.
I’m not naïve about this: I understand the value of sentiment, of nostalgia, of memory. It’s why we choose to carry photo albums from our burning homes instead of cash, why we treasure a copper pendant because it’s an heirloom. Entrepreneurs are capitalizing on this emotional moment of sentiment, seizing the “Yes, We Can!” historical zeal and giving consumers what they want.
But this does not explain all of it. Not at all. I can rationalize (though not buy into) the Obama plates, the Mickey Mantle signed baseballs, the antique Peter Pan storybooks from our childhoods, and the Red Wings jerseys sold each season (though these $4-quality shirts like their concert shirt equivalents are casually hawked for $22 or more). Some categories of collectibles, however, move far beyond our futile efforts to physicalize our emotional needs.
I can also rationalize the collectors of stamps, coins, and even baseball cards, not because of their obvious value (because most aficionados of these crafts do not think exclusively of future sales), but because they connect to an aspect of our culture or history through which we can build a sense of identity. A friend of mine loves Roman coins because of that genuine brush of history; another seeks three particular stamps to complete a set and has spent several years of internet browsing and traveling through flea markets and antique shops to find them. The joy of the mystery and the quest give him a purpose, not too unlike a World of Warcraft adventure. In this sense, beyond sentiment, collecting helps complete a life story for us, defining ourselves by our Simpsons paraphernalia or obsession with Mounds candy bars.
Yet what of those collectibles which create a symbiosis between several markets, such as Collectible Shrek IV ears at Burger King? Doesn’t the obvious marketing ploy to consume more Biggie Fries and Triple Whopper Supremes give us some pause? What of those which reference nothing outside of themselves, such as FurReals, Purrtenders, pet rocks, Beanie Babies, or random ceramic nonsense arbitrarily labeled as “collectible”? Will my life really be defined by my collection of wax heads of Richard Nixon?
Again, the psychology of such purchases is fairly clear. If it’s popular, then it must be worth something; if it’s popular, then I can be connected to some myth of the happy American life; if it’s popular, then I would be missing something if I didn’t have it; besides my kids want it. And I can say the exact same phrases if my collection is unique: I have the only collection of empty shotgun shell art in the world. I have more Kabaya dispensers than anyone in America (Yeah, look that one up.). Got it. We forego practical spending (and often enough, taste) to buy garbage that won’t be worth a dime two months from now. And please don’t tell me about “investing” in collectibles. If we do, that just puts us on the other side of the consumer cycle, perhaps the perpetrator of such frauds, but as likely as not the fools believing that such values sustain themselves. We see you, with your basements full of Super Mario Bobbleheads, Big Jim action figures, and Batman IV Mylar balloons.
And so we come to it. What is the threshold for absurdity—even of outright tastelessness or offensiveness—that we will not cross, even in the name of a self-deception for an emotional security blanket? How much will we pay and what we will collect regardless of value? Setting aside the guy who collects used staples or the one who has been collecting his own toenail clippings for 30 years (https://archive.bobandtom.com/gen3/collections.htm), how much power does this arbitrary signifier called “collectible” have on our psyches?
It makes us feel unique and yet connected. At times it emotionally taps into our history or culture, into our nostalgia or sentiment. It offers us a sense of identity and of purpose through a cheap physical simulacrum of our needs. In a sense, we can create our own minor mythologies out of our desires for the collectible. It’s no wonder that savvy businesses cash in on our mythological needs by offering us an endless array of temporary substitutes.
In this sense, as disgusted as I am by the gullibility of so many collectors, I am horrified by one of the most recent collectibles, the packaging of beer in the bodies of dead animals. Somehow, even in the limited release (note the plea to uniqueness, elitism), hundreds of people bid hard cash for these bottles manufactured on the Orkney Islands in Scotland. The beer line was called The End of History (note the appeal to the mythological) and was doubly unique in that it was 55% alcohol, the highest alcoholic content in beer history. No matter. Said one bid winner, “If I had not bought this one, I would always have wished I had . . . . It will be a collector’s item. You would be mad to open it” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-10737787). They sold for nearly $800 each. I’ve been to the Orkneys, by the way, and that’s good money out on those cold wind-worn rocks; and what else do they have for packaging?
Apparently we have few limits when it comes to completing our bogus quests. Fitzgerald said of Gatsby that “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in his ghostly heart.” What we imagine can never be fulfilled through physical reality. And the kiss by Daisy can be no better than a Britney Spears collectible flipbook.
1 BrewDog’s End of History beer
P.S. Two years ago I E-Bay’ed a few war games from my youth. One “pocket game” of thin paperboard pieces called Chitin:I which I bought for $1.95 sold to a collector for over $100.00. My set of Star Trek novels did not sell at all.
Post-Script |
Not long after publishing this entry, a gentleman wrote me asking for a photo of my Kabaya dispensers. He wanted to network with fellow collectors.
Without apology, I said I had none. However, I am now proud to be at the top of the Google Search cue for “Kabaya dispensers.”
–MrChiz at 9/3/2010 9:50 AM
Steve Chisnell (um, on the right) is a teacher at Royal Oak (MI) High School. 
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