Before you start amassing Beanie Babies, antique china or baseball cards, ask yourself a few questions. First, do you have an interest in what you're collecting? Basically, would you be perfectly happy if none of it sold and you had to look at it all the time? For example, I collect books. I have also been known to sell some of them through ebay...however, when I don't sell a book, I am not bummed, feeling like I lost out, or like I wasted my money. I simply love books and like feeling like I live in a library...so unsold books just hang around, awaiting another opportunity to be sold or given to a friend. I have a friend who has collected Beanie Babies (and got my daughter hooked!)for a long time. She likes them, thinks they're cute or whatever, and has them in a nice display case in her home. Occassionally, someone will offer to buy one or two for some extraordinary amount of money that she can't pass up, so she'll sell, and then invest the take in the stock market.
So, how do you get started? Well, determine what it is you're interested in, whether it's furniture or the Beatles or Beanie Babies and then do your homework! Get a couple of books and current magazines about your items. Find out what people are buying, what you need to look for, whether there are special markings, tags, dates etc. Read up on condition...what conditions are acceptable and garnish the most money. How do you restore or clean your items, or should you? In some cases cleaning or restoration is the worst thing you can do. Go online and search out the discussion lists, the auction ads and the chat rooms of people who buy and sell what you want to collect. See what people are buying and bidding on. What are the hard to find items...you may just find one at the next garage sale you go to.
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