Kim's Corner
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Can you track the "value" of an item? Yes - based on past market performance of like items you can track the monetary value of just about any item. You can also track the selling point of any item by checking the price guides or any one of the on-line sites that exist for each collectable genre. For most collectables - Disney brand or not - the direct monetary value of any single piece of merchandise is a market standard. What’s a Sky Way bucket really worth? It’s worth exactly whatever the market will pay for it. On it’s own it has an intrinsic value as a vehicle from a retired theme park attraction - it’s the price that a collector will place on it that determines it’s "value". It’s the kind of thing that drives insurance companies crazy.

Can you anticipate the Marketplace? Sure, but with one BIG proviso - the Disneyana collector doesn’t fit the profile for any other collector - we buy a thing for a myriad of reasons - most of which can’t be tracked or understood or manipulated. We’re a merchandiser’s nightmare - we’ll collect anything - and nothing - with equal gusto. They don’t teach emotional attachment in Merchandising 101. You can track the value of an item - say a lithograph - based on the performance of others that were manufactured before it. Here’s the hitch - some images sell more quickly and create more demand than do others. It’s safer to pick the work of one artist - like Randy Souders - and track the performance of his work inside the Disney art market. When all is said and done - all merchandise is created to be sold - it’s all business. And from that standpoint can be tracked and manipulated as can any other business.

Can you affect the Marketplace? Sure, but you need considerable capital to do it. The fact that Michael Jackson collects ride vehicles lends considerable impetus to there being at least one ride vehicle available for sale at the ODC auction. If the buyer is there the merchandise will follow - make it and they will buy is a corporate mantra. If there is one thing at which Disney is expert it’s manipulating the marketplace - even if they have to create the consumers for that marketplace first. From the low-end postcard collector who can add another item for $0.50 to the high end collector who will spend $1,700 just to be able to come to a convention and shop some more - the market will be found and merchandise will be created and marketed to fill that demand. If the consumer already exists it’s a sure bet that Disney brand product will be manufactured for them.

Create the need for an item and the items will follow. The beanie market is a perfect example - Ty had a huge market share and then the Disney company produced it’s own brand of mini-bean-bag-plush. Ty’s share of the available consumer dollar shrunk as Disney’s grew. Non-Sports cards is another collectable venue which the Disney brand took by storm - flooding it with cards from character driven sets to feature film driven images - and did very well for a few years - to see the offerings slow and fade. Will pins follow? Will coins take their place? Are DVDs going to replace Videotape? Records were replaced by cassette tapes, which are at risk from CDs. Business is business after all and the business of collectables is but a part of the Disney Company’s business.

What isn’t collectable? The short answer - nothing. And the long answer - almost everything. The types of items that will find their ways into personal collections are as broad and numerous as are the collectors who build those collections. Are there reasons that someone collects what they do? Sure. Can you articulate those reasons? Sometimes. Are there criteria that apply to items in any given collection? Sure. Can they be explained? Eventually. That’s the unruly nature to the Disney marketplace - there are sure thing - must have - got to get collectables - but not for everyone in every situation all of the time.