From Mickey Mantle... To Mickey Mouse:

By Jeremy Padawer - Webmaster/Co-Publisher, Absolute Beanie Babies.

Have you noticed a change in the windows of your local sports collectibles shop? Imagine the response if one year ago you would had looked into the face of a sports card shop owner and said, "Do you sell stuffed animals?" The response would have been predictable... "Heck NO! We are a sports collectible shop!"

Well sports shop owner, welcome to the world of diversification. My aren't you now eclectic, with your walls filled with cards and Beanie Babies. If you now enter a sports collectibles store, you might now see Mickey Mantle on one wall, Mickey Mouse on the adjacent wall, and Princess Bear on the counter. Now THAT'S PROGRESS!

No, no... Actually, that's just good business. A sports card shop owner might have gone into his field with a real passion for sports cards only, and then allowed sports collectibles (like autographs) to enter the shop in order to hit that market and make more cashola. Finally, when the autograph and card market wasn't satisfying the rent, he/she decided to open up to an entirely different field of collectible: the Beanie Babies. The bottom line is that no matter how interested you are in a particular field, you might at some point have to diversify in order to put dinner on the table.

We really shouldn't be too shocked to see this happening... We see large corporations buy other companies which are completely unrelated to their field seemingly every week. Heck, even Disney owns motion picture companies which produce rated R+ flicks. If you own stocks, you place your money in many different industries in order to hedge your bets. Sure, the sports card shop owner looks a bit goofy with their gigantic sign which reads "SPORTS CARDS!" and sells stuffed toys, but we should have predicted this.

Now, I know that you figured that this next paragraph was coming... Don't read it if you are weak of heart.

As a collector, you might also consider diversifying your collection if you are interested in protecting your investment. As a Beanie Babies collector, you have decided to place quite a bit of hard earned cash into a very specific arena. It is difficult to predict how this boom market might react over the long-term. I've tried to do this in several previous articles (Ten Year Estimates on Beanie Baby Values), but I do not believe that anyone can truly tell you when and if this market will collapse. Now, I'm not telling you to stop buying Beanie Babies! I believe that Beanie Babies are a wonderful collectible item, and if you have ever travelled to our chat section you quickly realize that other Beanie Babies collectors are also quite wonderful. However, I am telling you that you should consider placing your money in various collectible markets. This is smart business AND smart collecting.

Here's to the hobby...

  

Jeremy Padawer - click for more info