What were the biggest surprises in your lifetime.

[Thogey]

Fun thread I hope.

What are some top surprises in your lifetime regarding price fluctuations, on anything you were invested in.



Did you win or lose?

[franklin]

That my Olympus film cameras would become obsolete as quickly as they did.

[natsb88]

Zimbabwe $100 Trillion bills. I bought a couple bundles of 50 in 2013 for about $3.50 per bill. I sold them on my website for $6 - $7 each and sold the last ~25 to a member here for like $5.50 each at the end of the year.

They now sell for $40+ each on eBay.

[Landrover]

I bought a couple of t-shirts from Woolrich with a picture of a Toyota Land Cruiser on the back for $3.50 each. I sold two on ebay for $30. Drove right back up to Woolrich (PA) and bought the remaining stock. I told them I was in a Land Cruiser club (I was at the time). They had about 10 more shipped in from another store. I think I sold a total of 18 of them anywhere from $27-35. Now if I could just sell the Land Rover and buy a vehicle that isn't older than me.....

[68Camaro]

Fancy pickup trucks - thought them a fad. (Of course I came from a place where we wanted vinyl seats and no carpet to make it easier to hose the dirt out of them.)

SUVs - ditto.

Boston Market, enron, worldcom. Lost a boatload on them back when I was stupid enough to listen to a stockbroker.

[johnbrickner]

Being into war games (think Avalon Hill way back when I started) I went to a war gamer conference and saw some kids playing a card type war game. The cards had really cool artwork so I watched them play for a while. After a few rounds of completely not understanding the game but liking the art I asked "what are you playing?" the answer "magic the gathering, it just came out." was replied. I walked away from their table saying "that will never last more than two years."

I've never been more wrong about a "war" game and I still don't know how to play it . . . very well at all.

[Treetop]

As a young teen working a paper route and on a local farm I "invested" a fair portion of my earnings into baseball cards. They are worth a small portion of what I had paid for them. Even worse a guy working at a card store one time told me to buy silver dollars instead and that cards were for rubes. Silver was just a few bucks an ounce back then, id have had a few multiples of my saved money if I went with that over the cards.

[Doctor Steuss]

There are a few books that have surprised me. One in particular, I went online to get a copy of one for a friend (I didn't want to lend my copy, because I like the book too much), and the cheapest I could find was about $95. I just checked Amazon, and right now the cheapest used paperback is $145.50. I probably bought the book new for about $13.

On the disappointment surprise front, was when they re-released Traveling Wilburys. I thought I was sitting on a nice little musical investment that would go up with each death, and then... they re-released the damn albums. *Grumble*

[68Camaro]

Being into war games (think Avalon Hill way back when I started) I went to a war gamer conference and saw some kids playing a card type war game. The cards had really cool artwork so I watched them play for a while. After a few rounds of completely not understanding the game but liking the art I asked "what are you playing?" the answer "magic the gathering, it just came out." was replied. I walked away from their table saying "that will never last more than two years."

I've never been more wrong about a "war" game and I still don't know how to play it . . . very well at all.

I'll display my ignorance and declare that I've never heard of "magic the gathering".

[silverflake]

Bought a number of rolls of walking liberty halves and Franklin halves in the early 90's for $35 each. Sure they are off their peak but I am still holding.

Also bought a slew of John Marzano 1984 Topps Olympic baseball rookie cards back in 1985. I believe I used them as kindling in the wood stove a couple years back.

Win some, lose some.

Keep stacking.

[TwoAndAHalfCents]

I have one from the Craps table that I'll share. I walked up to a crowded table with all the players busy getting their bets down. There was a side bet called the "Fire Bet" that just about everyone, if not everyone but me, put a $5 chip on. I wasn't familiar with it so I declined to make the bet. The shooter then proceeded to make one point after another until he got all six numbers before the seven eventually came up. The Fire Bet pays 1000 to 1 when that happens. Sure it was nice filling the rack with red and green chips during that run but I was the only not receiving the $5,000 chip for the Fire Bet payout.

[Recyclersteve]

Zimbabwe $100 Trillion bills. I bought a couple bundles of 50 in 2013 for about $3.50 per bill. I sold them on my website for $6 - $7 each and sold the last ~25 to a member here for like $5.50 each at the end of the year.

They now sell for $40+ each on eBay.

I'll second the vote for the hyperinflation ravaged nation from Africa. Sold a bunch of "Z" notes for $4 each in 2009. Kept watching online for price movement and finally gave up after several years. Recently saw that these were selling for $40-60 each. Fortunately I kept 100 notes for myself with a cost of zero.

[wheeler_dealer]

The lowly zinc 2009 P presidency cent penny. Picked up my order of $400.00 back when I was hand sorting.
Got home with order and was frustrated at receiving all that dam zinc.
Ka-ching, first few boxes on fee bay went for $150. each net. Last ones went at $300. each.
Last I checked BU unopened box asking was around$1000.00

[Kurr]

Same thing, I picked up $250 face of the 2009 railsplitter boxes on a run, called APMEX when I got home, and traded them happily for a 1500.00 check.

I think I still have a full box or better of the opening day rolls, postmaked with the Lincoln City postmark to prove they were opening day rolls, wonder what theyre worth now?

[wheeler_dealer]

Much better return than sorted coppers with minimal effort. I did get lucky with some 2008's as well since collectors/savers wanted them as well.

[daviscfad]

Not directly economic related but April 2015 finding out we would have identical twin girls in November 2015.. still look at them in amazement

[bluejuice915]

Finding out I was a National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalist. I'm the first person from my school in at least the last three years to get this and not be the valedictorian or salutatorian (who of course also got it this year.) Yay me.

[68Camaro]

Finding out I was a National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalist. I'm the first person from my school in at least the last three years to get this and not be the valedictorian or salutatorian (who of course also got it this year.) Yay me.

Well done!

There can be a relationship between grades and learning, but grades are not everything. (I was also a semi-finalist, one with marginal grades who tested well to the surprise of many of my teachers. I didn't grade well mostly because I was unchallenged and distracted by other things, so I would do my own thing in many of the classes - usually reading unrelated subjects, and while relatively "smart" I wasn't so smart that I could always grade well on things that I hadn't studied). In hindsight I would have been better off to have paid more attention to my studies, but what was even more important was that I did still learn - really learned (not just short-term memorization to be later forgotten) - in my own way, and so the learning I did was critical.

(Just don't presume that complete inattention to grades is a worthy model for the rest of life. Eventually we will find ourselves given "grades" that will matter, if nothing else on the results we produce.)

[chris6084]

I've had some interesting luck with CD's

I was going through some of my CD's many years ago looking to get rid of some and found a CD that was not mine. I had no idea where it came from, probably got put in my stack somehow from one of my college roomates. So I put it up on ebay starting at 99 cents and it sold for about $100. I had several people message me after saying that they would pay the high bid if the bidder backed out. One even told me the CD was worth much more. I have no idea what happened with that, because I can buy the same CD on ebay now for $15.

I had another CD at the same time that I had paid $10 for and it sold for $140 to some guy in Sweden. He even mailed me cash for payment.

On the downside, there was a CD store in Phoenix that regularly would do a deal where if you brought in 5 used CD's you could trade them in for 1 new one. I would go to Circuit City, buy 5 99 cent CD's take them to the store making the offer and end up getting a new CD for 5 bucks. One time I missed the deadline and was stuck with the 5 CD's until they made the deal again. I decided to listen to them, and one was very interesting. OFR by Nitro. A very unique metal band. Anyways, I had 2 copies that I paid 99 cents each for and ended up trading in. I've looked them up periodically since then on ebay. That CD is very rare, hardly ever on ebay and I have seen it go for over $70 when it does sell. I could have had at least 10 of them for 99 cents each.

[Recyclersteve]

Zimbabwe $100 Trillion bills. I bought a couple bundles of 50 in 2013 for about $3.50 per bill. I sold them on my website for $6 - $7 each and sold the last ~25 to a member here for like $5.50 each at the end of the year.

They now sell for $40+ each on eBay.

I'll second the vote for the hyperinflation ravaged nation from Africa. Sold a bunch of "Z" notes for $4 each in 2009. Kept watching online for price movement and finally gave up after several years. Recently saw that these were selling for $40-60 each. Fortunately I kept 100 notes for myself with a cost of zero.

The 100 notes that I first put up for sale here sold on eBay for $4,222.00 ($42.22 each). The starting bid on this site was $2,995., and there were no bids (which I understand). Funny how things work out sometimes.

FYI- I still have one extra note that I keep in my wallet.