The high-end retailers like Neiman-Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, Tiffany are feeling pressure. They say even their pretty well-off customer base is spending less and waiting for sales, not trading down from a Chanel handbag to a Coach handbag but buying one Chanel bag instead of two. But their highest-end merchandise is selling very well. I think fine art auctions run by Sothebys are also continuing strong, setting records.
So it depends on what economic strata you are talking about. And it makes sense that hard assets have some additional appeal right now.
But, even wealthy collectors have their limits. I remember the classic car bubble of the 1980s, Ferrari Daytonas went to $1MM and 20 years later those cars were struggling to break $200K.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Investment-Bubbles---Past-and-Present&id=839660
http://books.google.com/books?id=hfw2T1GaytcC&pg=PA1988&lpg=PA1988&dq=record+price+Ferrari+Daytona&source=web&ots=BOU1n7kgQh&sig=qiJAYsCtH-hS9BL0sTER9LiiHNQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result
Quote:
Originally Posted by tabs
This is anecdotal evidence however as you all know by now I watch the collectible spoon market pretty carefully. Well even though the country was gripped by fear over this financial debacle Spoons are still selling well. I have watched two auctions since last Saturday and both have gone well to strong. I would say prices were off a bit especially on Colt 1911's but Big Frame Smiths burned up the track. Colt DAs went well for a change. Winchester pre model 70s for the most part did well. With regards to the Colt 1911s they have been burning up the track for about 8 years now, so they have gotten pretty pricey and remain so.
The other spoon auction on Thursday that I watched, dealt with Percussion rifles, antique pistols and revolvers for the most part. The items I wanted to participate on went stronger than I was willing to go. And this was a small town auction in Ohio of 150pieces, usually in those auctions some bargains can be found?
Also a 50s car auction of 21 cars is taking place on Saturday in the Midwest....the pre auction prices seem healthy to me.
Nothing is going cheap....maybe with the monetarization of the bad loans we will be going into a hyper-inflationary period as the USD devalues. I just do not see that food and RE prices will escalate. This is possibly due to the fact that they are already over valued as it is. So prices will stabilize at these levels.
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