There are good thread active right now about "shelf queens" that has discussed a lot why so many of us have dozens, if not more than a hundred locos when we can run only a few at any one time. For time to time the subject of why we collect comes up here - bit of frum introspection, I guess.
anyway, I was thinking about this while reading the article on the front page of the Sports Thursday section of the NY Times this morning, "A Huge N.B.A. Rivalry: Sneaker Collections." I found this article about players who collect sneakers very interesting and the analogy to collecting toy trains - at least why I collect toy trains - compelling. If you think about it, the situation with the players they talk about is worse than for any of us. You can wear only one pair of sneakers, while you can run several trains at once, but some of these players such as the Suns P.J. Tucker, own several thousand pair. And no one in the article mentioned "investment" once, which I have never believed is behind much of anyone's collecting. But I did check on-line, and lo and behold, there actually are some "classic" sneakers that now sell for much more than when new - but they are apparently few and far between and not at all predictable which. Regardless, like toy trains, you'd better have the box if you expect to get a good price.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01...ollections.html?_r=0
