They collect dust, not cash

They collect dust, not cash

Internet puts big dent in the collectibles market

By Anne Mitchell

The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press

If you are hoping those Hummel figurines in the china cabinet will put your kids through college, or the Bradford plates you've lovingly dusted all these years will help fund your retirement, think again.

Internet selling sites such as eBay have flooded the market with such trinkets, depressing prices in the process.

Also, people aren't filling their homes with so-called "dustables" as they once did. They're too busy, they're downsizing or they want clutter-free homes.

Retailers used to count on a steady stream of customers buying knickknacks doled out throughout the year by manufacturers such as Department 56 and Harbour Lights. These makers created scarcity and demand at will for their old-fashioned houses, village scenes and lighthouses.

But not anymore.

"People are looking more for home decorating products," said Dick Teuscher, who is closing his Sir Richard's Christmas Village in Fort Myers, Fla., after 10 years. He plans to make Christmas decorations a seasonal item at his neighboring Smoke Shop.

"Our vendors are struggling to find a product line that will work" year round, he said.

Department 56, a leading maker of collectibles, reported that its net sales decreased $9.4 million, or 32 percent, this year to $20.2 million. The reason: Independent retailers are buying less, the company said.

John Saxtan, editor-in-chief of Giftware News, a Chicago-based trade publication, said that collectors have become pickier about what they buy.

"Instead of collecting a series of things from one maker, they are collecting lunch boxes and Santas and figurines, but not the whole series. And they want things with a dual function, like a vase that can also be used for flowers, or a teapot," Saxtan said.

Teuscher says eBay is partly to blame. It has become the nation's collectibles marketplace and sets the values. A Department 56 village piece that retails for $65 sold for $25 on eBay. "I can't sell them for that," he said.

The truth is that most of these so-called collectibles - including Beanie Babies, which started the craze - were made in such large quantities they never could have increased in value to the extent that some expected.

"The stores that understood collectibles would always tell a customer 'Buy it because you like it, not because you are going to make money,"' Teuscher said. But there was so much hype that people thought they could stockpile some items and make a killing.

When they realized they wouldn't make money, "they dumped it on the market and killed the market," he said.

Forgotten, But NOT GONE

Where are the Beanies?

Barbara Kingston said goodbye recently to Claude, a tie-dyed crab, and a retired shark named Crunch. She sold the Ty Beanie Babies for $1.75 each, less than one-third of their regular retail price.

They were among the last nine remaining beanbag toys on the shelves at the Paper Mill in Fort Myers, Fla. - a store that in its Beanie Baby heyday sold the squishy little critters by the thousand for $5.95 a pop.

Beanie Babies were that rare thing: an affordable collectible that practically everyone could relate to because they were characters with names and birthdates.

Paper Mill owner Kerry Waterman remembers how customers would be lined up outside waiting for her to open when a new shipment arrived. People believed that some were rare and therefore valuable, and Beanies developed a worldwide cult following.

So, six or seven years later, where are the Beanies?

Many are collecting dust in people's attics and basements, almost forgotten.

Even though the fad has passed, an estimated $750 million worth of Beanie Babies sold in 2002, according to Hoovers Online. Details are scarce about the privately owned company that produces Beanies, headed by H. Ty Warner and based in Oakbrook, Ill

The Beanies still are traded on the Internet and on eBay, but not at the sky-high prices they once commanded.

For retailers, the Beanie Baby craze was the best of times - and the worst of times. Customers would jostle and push to get the Beanies they wanted, nearly ransacking stores.

"A lot of retailers got into it because it was easy," said Dick Teuscher of The Smoke Shop in Fort Myers. He, too, was attracted to the instant sales the Beanies generated.

"I remember people coming in spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars," he said. But he got out about four years ago.

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