The rising cost / value of historical information

[Chris Hall]

I've been collecting WW1 tank memorabilia for around 28 years now. In the early days things were quite cheap, unless they were super-rare like 1st edition books (but I got an autographed copy of Swinton's "Eyewitness" for only £50 a few years ago).

Recently, though, I've noticed prices, and competition, rising steeply, especially on eBay. This reached a peak tonight, when I saw 3 original photographs of an A7V, an unidentified Beutepanzer, and one of 'Liesel' (gutted I didn't get that one !) go collectively for almost £180 ! To me, that's just insane, but it does make me wonder if I should get specialist insurance for my collection .....

What do people think are the reasons for this ? Is it the 'centenary effect' ? Could it be influenced by our little forum discussions here ? And has anyone noticed the same effect with WW2, or later, memorabilia ?

A somewhat frustrated,

Chris

[Adrian Harris]

With absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I would probably blame it on the centenary effect. Lots of media coverage, human interest stories in the press, models being released. It will all spark interest.

There may be an element of profiteering going on but it will be a very short lived market for those who don't have a long standing interest such as yours.

Adrian.

[bryanrmassie]

Hi Chris/ Adrian

Aargh just done a massive post on this and got timed out !!, the point was that television coverage has to be the answer, growing up in the 70's you had the world at war, colditz and a few awful films but now just turn on and get war related programmes from dawn till dusk, ah, the save draft button, doh

Regards

Bryan

[Paul Wills]

Hi Guys,

I've been collecting British and German WWI & WWII millitaria for about 38 years. I started at the age of 11 and as you say things were cheep back then, so cheep people would often give me collections of British & American cap badges. I found out through my father that young women would collect them on dates during the war as keep sake. Some of these girls must have had there fair share of dates though!

1979 my Granddad died and left me £170 and I promptly talked my eldest brother into taking me to our nearest militaria fair. I got him to bid on and buy three WWII German Knights crosses and no one bid against us and I got the three for £75, two had issue certificates and provenance. over the years I sold the other 2 or traded for something else. I have recently sold the last of them at auction and I got £10,000 for it, not a bad investment. At the auction there was so much interest it was unbearable, in the end there were 24 bidders, 10 of them on the internet. I have seen more and more collectors appearing at millitaria fairs since the 90's, so in stead of 5 or 10 collectors looking for the same thing, you now have 50 or more. So that's a big difference from when I bought mine.... The more demand and less material to collect, the greater the cost.

I've now sold all my collection to pay for hobbies and buying cars for the kids, but I still keep an eye out for a bargain.

To answer the question, yes I would get your collection valued and insured, it is not covered under your house insurance.

Paul.

[bryanrmassie]

Hi Paul

Similar thing, I bought a letter with Rommel's signature about 10 years ago for £350, now I cannot find a similar thing for less than $10000, who would have thought !

Regards

Bryan.