Buy something beautiful and make money with it? This is how it can be done!
And you can make a lot of money with it
My grandpa Mobach collected cigar bands. My uncle, blessed with only sons, would braid them into my long hair during visits. My beloved's grandpa had complete stamp collections. He didn't do anything else with them, but it was fun. Collecting is something we Dutch are good at. Although the form of it has changed enormously.
In the past, friends would ask my father, who was a sailor, if he could bring back a strip of stamps from abroad; now everything is nice and online.
Dutch people are collectors
Catawiki, the largest auction site, has also started in the Netherlands. Not so strange, as we spend the most money on our collections. On average, a collector spends €150 more than in other countries. The average collector spends €1663 per year on gathering their favorite objects, and millennials even more than €2000.
Buying and reselling
What is collected varies, but it mainly concerns collector’s items. Millennials especially enjoy collecting and keeping track of the value of their collection. If it rises enormously, they are also not shy about offering their items for auction again. The old collectors might have let the stamps gather dust in the attic, but millennials don’t do that.
What is being bought?
That genre is quite extensive. Think of the Tabi Boot from Maison Margiela and the Small Puzzle Bag from Loewe to the Moschino Fashion Fries iPhone Case and of course the good old Nintendo Switch. Painfully for me is that the iPod, which I still remember how cool it was when it came out, is now considered a classic. The corkscrew from Alessi is also such a huge Catawiki hit.
My girlfriend Ine sometimes bids on a Pomellato ring on Catawiki and when she has the highest bid, she says: “I won that ring.” But it sometimes feels a bit like that. You collect, search, look, and bid. It’s an interesting game that makes life just a bit more exciting, and moreover, you come across items that you can't just buy in the store.
About Catawiki
Catawiki is the most visited, curated online marketplace where 75,000 objects are auctioned every week. And founded in Assen, huh. In Assen! If I were to collect auction sites, my highest bid would go to Catawiki.
