08-19-2010, 09:31 PM
Comparing the value or desirability of Soviet Orders to DPRK Orders is a lot like comparing apples to hand grenades.
There is and almost always has been a serious collector demand for Soviet material. The values dropped significantly in the early to mid-1990's as more and more material showed up. But there was a BIG, international collector interest that absorbed the material relatively quickly and sent prices back up.
Such collector interest doesn't exist with DPRK material and, I'm pretty certain, never will. I find it interesting and I enjoy picking up different items, but collecting anything in the hope that the value will go up is a fool's mission.
If it does go up, great; if not, no loss.
But at least to me the trends over more than a year indicate to me that prices are going down, not up. The dealer who just sold the Kim Il Sung for $710 was offering it previously with a "Buy it now" price of $1,200 and it found no takers. So the DPRK field really does establish that "rarity" is not the only factor in "value"; there must be "demand" as well.
There is and almost always has been a serious collector demand for Soviet material. The values dropped significantly in the early to mid-1990's as more and more material showed up. But there was a BIG, international collector interest that absorbed the material relatively quickly and sent prices back up.
Such collector interest doesn't exist with DPRK material and, I'm pretty certain, never will. I find it interesting and I enjoy picking up different items, but collecting anything in the hope that the value will go up is a fool's mission.
If it does go up, great; if not, no loss.
But at least to me the trends over more than a year indicate to me that prices are going down, not up. The dealer who just sold the Kim Il Sung for $710 was offering it previously with a "Buy it now" price of $1,200 and it found no takers. So the DPRK field really does establish that "rarity" is not the only factor in "value"; there must be "demand" as well.
