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from the sufficiently-broad-definitions dept.
To me, it looked like a child's crude attempt at a mosaic. About a dozen small square tiles of different colours. Glued to the wall in a geometric design vaguely resembling a face with two square eyes.
It stood out in the otherwise empty and dingy Paris flat. Once my home, I was moving back in, after nearly 20 years away. My tenants, three young single men, were showing me round before they left.
"What's that?" I asked, pointing at the cluster of tiles.
"That's by Invader," my tenant replied. "He's a street artist. He's like a French Banksy."
I quite liked Banksy, but the young man must have seen that I didn't appear overly impressed by his French counterpart.
"You must leave this," he said earnestly. "One day it will be worth a lot of money."
Being British, I nodded politely - but inwardly I chortled at the notion that a few tiles stuck on a bedroom wall could ever be considered a work of art.
[...] It was bigger, but otherwise similar to the one I'd unceremoniously stripped out of my flat.
Invader was a global phenomenon, famous in New York, Hong Kong, London, and of course Paris.
Then came the real blow. To my horror, I learned that one of his works had sold for more than €200,000 (£178,000; $233,000).
So, I had this guy named Claude staying in my place who painted a picture on the wall...what was his name, dear? Oh, right, Monet. But I wanted the room painted fuchsia so I told the painters to get rid of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 04 2017, @03:12AM (7 children)
Or course, if you want something done right do it yourself, no quibble with that, but some people have a busy life already.
How long does it take to research a stamp? If AC gets good, could it be as fast as five minutes on average, is that possible? If there are 20,000 that is 100K minutes or 1666 hours, approaching a full year of 40 hour weeks.
(Score: 3, Funny) by KiloByte on Saturday November 04 2017, @03:31AM (4 children)
Do this research on a sample of randomly selected stamps. Those considered especially rare tend to be put prominently of display, and it is those which you want to research first.
I'm unlucky[1] to have a father who's a collector of razor blade wrappers, this takes a good part of his life and money for over 30 years. A mid-sized collection is easily worth $10-20k when mindlessly dumped in bulk; my father's is far bigger than that. I wouldn't have the slightest clue how to sell it, though (and I hope this issue doesn't arise any time soon).
[1]. I mean, having a father is not that bad, I'd prefer one without this addiction, though.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 04 2017, @04:00AM (2 children)
Seriously? Razor blade wrappers? Sorry, no offense to your dad, but WTF?
Hmmm. Maybe I should start collecting candy bar wrappers or mac & cheese boxes. Apparently, people will pay money for anything!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 04 2017, @04:16AM (1 child)
Weirdest collection I've heard of is sugar packets -- the ones that restaurants put on the tables. Don't think these have any monetary value, but I could be wrong. And I suspect SN posters will come up with something even weirder!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 04 2017, @04:43AM
AOL shipped CDs in metal cans, wood boxes, and so many other weird contraptions. They'd do whatever they could to catch your eye.
They'd give you a 30-day free trial, limited to some number of hours. The amount of hours kept increasing until it was roughly the amount in 30 days.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday November 04 2017, @09:32AM
Just count yourself lucky that you don't have to handle and categorize tens of thousands of razor blades!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 04 2017, @02:19PM (1 child)
I suspect that a lot of stamps, probably the bulk of them, can average five or ten minutes' work. There will be some that defy you. Very uncommon stamps may be very hard to identify. Yet, that uncommon one that took the most work may well be the most valuable stamp in the collection.
Of course, the more you learn, the better and faster you would become at identifying something unique. After you've been at it for a decade, you will find it hard to believe that it took you six months just to identify something that is now obvious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06 2017, @08:48PM
You're working at this far too hard. Just ask Stanleyhttps://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Stanley_Howler [lspace.org].