These past few days I've been contemplating the future of collecting on a Bitcoin standard. How the fiat gains that have been associated with 'rare' collections may soon be a relic of the past. And the impact that would have on industries that rely on us collecting more.

We may see more collectors like car auctioneer Simon Hope, who sold his 3,000 matchbox car collection in 2019 for £300,000, cash-in on their projects. What had taken 60+ years of passion, netted a nice monetary premium in the fiat money era. But what about in the future when the goods depreciate more than the money it took to acquire them? Simon is used as example, because although he is NOT likely to have bought any Bitcoin with his collection, he had his own classic car auction business and so also works in a parallel 'collectible' industry as we'll explore below. By accumulating a collection like that he would also have insured-against it for fire & theft. Whole industries depend on the world collecting more stuff, so how will they evolve on a bitcoin standard?

I wouldn't go as far as saying "you'll own nothing and be happy", but perhaps the WEF were onto something when considering pricing of big-ticket items in Bitcoin. Collecting stuff for monetary gain may only make sense on a fiat standard. When the concept of saving is destroyed by inflation. Today, not only is saving making a crucial comeback but millennial minimalism is a definite dynamic to deal with for collectors.

During my search on this subject I stumbled across this external article, examining the role collecting has on our culture and our minds. It explores the positive effect on levels of happiness, nostalgia and even our sense of community & belonging from collecting stuff. It's worth a quick read. But my question is: what happens to collecting in the future, if the monetary benefits are removed? Or will they even so?

This to me is the definition of a long-term cultural issue. Inflated expectations & emotions from inflated inventories & markets. How did we fix or overcome this? Or does it just come from obsoleting paper currency? I wanted to explore this topic further with you stackers the role that physical collectibles may have in out future and whether they will continue to exist like they do in our world today. So my question for you stackers out there is...

Market Take the entire car industry (not matchbox cars) as an example. Both used & new market values have been inflated in every country worldwide, thanks to the poor store of value properties of fiat. It feels like the hypercar, supercar, classic-car and now even "modern-classic" valuations are waiting for their moment in the mud. With many large collections worldwide. The largest car collection is said to be that of the Sultan of Brunei and his brother Prince Jefri, reported to contain over 7,000 vehicles.

In the last 20 years, some manufacturers have tended to only produce limited quantities of their most luxurious models. One reason for this is the manufacturer knows they will struggle to sell high numbers of their cars and having artificial scarcity of products boosts their brand.

Porsche did this with the 918 Spyder. They knew that due to its $845,000 price tag it wouldn’t be a huge seller. So they limited production in 2013 to just 918 units. Today, you'd be likely paying in the region of $1.5million for a used model that someone has already thrashed. You may have doubled your 'wealth ' nominally, but U.S M2 has doubled in the same period from ~10 trillion to ~20 T. So go figure.

Cars are usually the ultimate depreciating asset, often losing 20% of their value in the first year, if not the moment you drive it off the forecourt. But not in today's fiat world. Even electric/hybrid cars are now keeping the naturally-aspirated used car market afloat, creating artificial scarcity of new gasoline-powered units that people still crave.

Costs The used car market is stuffed full of trendy collectibles. Japanese modern-classics from the 90s in Europe have become the latest trend since 2020. Mainstream car media has recently recognised these as an "investment" rather than just a nostalgic niche. Previously they were priced much more accessibly. This one as retro as it is in particular is going for roughly 1.15 BTC in today's UK market 🇬🇧 . Roughly comparable to the fiat cost it would have been to purchase new in 1990, in nominal terms of course.

Ponziconomics As mentioned above, people are financing cars & using their existing collection as leverage to land their next slot on a limited run of new production vehicles. All to keep ahead of fiat inflation or because they believe they are building wealth with their hobby. People without significant incomes are also extending themselves beyond their means to become another 'car collector'.

'Car collecting' is no doubt prevalent due to the passion involved for feats of engineering and technology. Yet it is surely also exaggerated because the prices of a select few cars are retaining more nominal value in the face of fiat debasement than others. Creating a rat-race and misaligned markets.

As perfect example was not from recently but in the U.K, a former polo-playing friend of the King called Lord Brocket, acquired a collection of around 40 vehicles, mostly Ferraris and Maseratis from the ’50s and ’60s. They were bought with cheap financing back when classic-car prices were increasing. When interest rates rose & values crashed in the early ’90s, he panicked and staged a break-in at his stately home, disassembling the cars he claimed had been stolen and seeking $5.6 million from his insurers but instead ended-up in jail. Perhaps we could read similar stories in the years to come.

Materials The proliferation of carbon-fibre in higher-end vehicles is also an interesting dynamic and perhaps another symptom of our distorted world. Yes the technology and means of production is improving but it has led to even fake-carbon being used in affordable cards or becoming an expensive optional interior upgrade. Gone have been the days of having easily-replaceable panels on high-end vehicles. Today we're seeing larger and more singular curved panels that create stealthy looks and seamless bodies - expensive to replace. Trends like this are meaning replacement parts are exploding, with some manufacturers adding significant mark-up to new parts and limiting production runs. That may mean we may need to get more handy repairing own stuff in future if prices, sizes & availability of parts prove problematic.

Carbon-fibre today is even used in consumer bicycles. It may be an extremely strong and light material, but is it really necessary on a saddle or a headrest? There have been 52 years of R&D into the composite, but given how much time and energy goes into its production, will it be the preferred material of the future if performance weight-saving is no longer so necessary?

Form-Factor All cars today are very round & aerodynamic - something @k00b touched on ironically next to a living and breathing @Car in a recent SNL episode . Calling for the need for more square cars. Box-like cars are perhaps already making a comeback, as we see with the 'modern classic' trend above. Cars are tools and will need to be far more affordable in future. Not an "investment vehicle" or potential penis enhancement. Yes motorsport and supercars will still exist, but we're living in distorted times as far as that market is concerned. Unfortunately many still in 2024 need to acknowledge that fact.

History This article on pre and post-war car history I found to be fascinating. 1930s as a point of reference in time was a time of cars being great status symbols rather than just a means of transportation. The 1940s in the post war period saw more practical models with larger, broader, heavier & cheaper models like Jeeps getting traction, so to speak.

Collectors in their 30s today haven't yet witnessed a downturn in the car collecting market. And perhaps for that reason, exuberance may continue for some time. My mind draws parallels to Weimar Germany, when farmers were stockpiling farm machinery and tractors in order to escape the demise of fiat. Those people survived the worst during the boom-times but were left with immovable rusty tools when the printer was turned-off and demand for them dried-up.

Future Outlook I would never downplay that cars are incredible machines, have personalities when we drive them nor the effects they can have on our mood or emotions. But with increasing numbers of millennials opting-out of car ownership and with @k00b's poll analysing our own usage of cars here on SN , the future of car collecting remains somewhat uncertain.

It doesn't appear on the usual list of recognised collectibles, just given the unit cost involved, but real estate & housing is somewhat treated by the world today as a collectible.

Market Real estate globally has a total value of $379.7 trillion – almost 4x the value of GDP of every place on earth combined. Given the size of that market and the demand for enjoying new places to live and work, some are purchasing multiple properties to rent-out via AirBnB or because of the expectation of superior returns, amassing a 'portfolio' to perpetually live-off the system. Some are owning multiple homes for their own satisfaction, as an alternative place to say for lifestyle reasons. Both are admirable to do if you have the resources, but should we be treating real estate as a collectible or simply a store of value?

The estimated total count of second homes in the U.S. was 7.2 million in 2020, accounting for 5.11% of the total housing stock. But demand soared for 2nd homes after that year suggesting some changing behaviours.

Even for the younger generations as seen below, 1st home ownership is on the up in the U.S, but so is Bitcoin adoption... so will the below trend hold?

Costs Many places exist in the world where real estate can be bought for consistently below the costs of the materials/commodities to produce it. Typically these places are ones that have been ravaged with hyperinflation or extremely high inflation, like Argentina or Venezuela for example. This might be more normal elsewhere where it not for the incremental nature of debasement in most other places. Especially when you consider the carry-cost of maintenance, property taxes, depreciation and their immovable nature.

Home ownership should remain an accessible aspiration for all, but likely not as a collectible. Take this New York STUDIO apartment as an example. It sold for $3.88 million back in September 2023, with the buyer being "a group that collects branded residences around the world.” Presumably they were just thinking about Location. Location. Elation.

Back on 1st September 2023, that "pod" cost 149 bitcoin to purchase, given that 1 BTC was ~$26,000. At 691 square feet, it's roughly the size of about 3x one-car garages. Meaning that property worked-out costing roughly 0.215 bitcoin per square foot or $5,615 🤡

Ponziconomics The entire industry (in many countries at least) is dependent upon the willingness of banks to lend 80%+ of the value of the home. And to do so at increasingly affordable (low) rates. House prices in the U.S. when priced in Gold may not have moved much since the 1970s but priced in Bitcoin they are almost certainly going down and becoming more accessible.

Materials Low-cost materials have been increasingly sought for decades now. To make it cheaper to construct and to try and keep some sort of access affordable. Gone are the days of building a house out of brick, let alone materials like sand stone.

The choice for construction today seems to be concrete (if you can afford it), shipping container (if you can't), pre-fabricated wood (for speed of construction) or some sort of 3D printed material (if you are living in the future). Although as @BlockchainB found this week with his SN post, they're even 'shipping us' luxury container homes now, somewhat of an oxymoron.

Form-Factor The idea of owning your own large piece of land and a beautiful house "in the sticks" was an affordable aspiration for many. Today we have settled for box-like cold industrial buildings to call our homes. Extrapolating out to the future it is easy to believe that claustrophobic pods can come to cities near you. However with sound money at the helm, we will likely put a stop to that coming to pass.

Today, homes too are increasingly decorated too with dull colours to please would-be new buyers or renters. The characterless culture is evident for all of us. I'm not sure any of us can debate that fiat architecture today vs on the gold standard has nosedived. Real wealth to fund construction of our buildings has vanished. There may be a lot of construction and condos in the world and lots of people making money on paper, but could it be that real wealth in the world is lower than ever? Could it be that we can actually afford less, in spite of making more paper?

Perhaps the secret to this thing we call life is to just start collecting "classic houses" which were built with these materials? There's got to be a better way 🫠`

History Some people like Lyn Alden compare today to the 1930s / 1940s era. The 1930s was a decade defined by the Great Depression, which deeply affected the housing market, causing prices to plummet and leading to a sharp decrease in home ownership.

The Depression also caused a decrease in construction as fewer people could afford to build or buy homes. As a result, the stock of available housing decreased while the demand for housing remained high. This led to widespread homelessness and overcrowding, which became one of the most visible problems of the Depression era.

The 1940s were a decade of recovery from the depression and war, including for housing. After a sharp reduction in construction & homeownership during the 1930s, building started to pick up again in the early 1940s. Although the world's resources had been very much exhausted making it harder to source the materials for home building during this time.

The median U.S. home value back then was $2,938 – over 30k in today’s U.S. dollars (apparently). Despite the increase in construction, there remained a shortage of homes due to the population growth of the previous two decades.

Future Outlook With the median average U.S. home price not at $30,000 today but at $417,700 instead, many people I speak to today are waring of buying larger houses using debt, given that a) there are all-time high valuations, b) interest rates are continuing to climb and c) some of us enjoy staying nimble on location. Many have already bought since 2020, locking-in artificially low interest rates and bravo if you are one of those. If the parallels with history run true, you may need to conclude we have been living through a silent depression that is papering over the lack of housing.

Property collectors (i.e. corporates who need somewhere to store their excess cash reserves) when faced with that fact also need to decide their favourite collector's item. Keep investing in housing, despite households having cold feet simply because of the lack of new housing. Or to invest in R&D or a new asset class entirely... that is far outstripping the nominal returns of fiat depreciation. Real estate will be an interesting market to watch in the years ahead. Particularly priced in Bitcoin.

Market Art is somewhat of an indulgence today. Art will always provoke thought and individual interpretation as well as offer a means for expression for its creators. Its a reflection of and has a strong influence on our ~culture also.

The art market is today a huge market for collectors, with an estimated total value of $1.7 trillion . Inside the collectible market (including jewellery, watches, sports memorabilia, collectible cars, wine and more) art accounts for roughly 75% of total sales, with dealer & auctioneer sales totalling $65.1 billion. Digital art accounting for 3% of high-net-worth buyers’ spending and 8% of their collections for reference.

Collectors possessing art will usually do so because it calls to them or their personality, it's something they associate with. However much of the art we see today is commissioned specifically for museums or the auction house or the price appreciation. I would argue we have witnessed the over-commercialisation of mainstream art today. We can find countless examples of more and more outlandish displays in the art world, in order to attract wider audiences and larger sale prices (as this chart shows below).

Costs Art can be affordable and purchased for any budget but we will focus on the higher-end of the market. Many of you may be familiar with the anonymous artist Banksy. Typically his art is found as graffiti in public places in the U.K. His simple painting "The Girl" was created in 2006, with a device inside the frame. It went to auction in 2018 and fetched £1 million ($1.4 million). At the auction, after the hammer went down, him/his team initiated a switch and activated the shredder inside the frame. Seconds later that piece of artwork would become worth more than 10x more and would be renamed "Love is in the bin". The owner has since gone-on to re-auction it off and in October 2021 it sold once more for £18.5 million ($25.4 million). Banksy has also sold a bunch of 'limited edition' prints, setting an all-time record for 13 unsigned prints at auction for $400,000.

5th October 2018 - $1.4 million / 215 bitcoin 14th October 2021 - $25.4 million / 453 bitcoin

Ponziconomics Take Damien Hirst as another example, one of the most wealthy and recognised artists of today. From the 1,400+ paintings he’s made, about 25 he painted himself. This article is a great read for those interested. The rest of his work is all done by assistants, graduates & upcoming talented artists without the recognition but all the talent. He doesn’t do it himself because, he can’t “be f*%$ing arsed doing it”.  His $78 million diamond-encrusted skull was made by royal jewellers Bentley & Skinner. If this not "peak-fiat", when will this end?

Hirst does at least apparently sign his work, but when examining it viewers need to be appreciating his vision or ideation, not his own creation or execution. And he is not alone in this approach. Many other successful artists of today do the same. Putting-out pieces not of their own making, simply to scale and maximise their personal brand and bank balance in today's wonky world.

Hirst has cashed in on the NFT craze in recent years too by burning the physical versions of “his” paintings, at the request of the digital owners. The state of art & economics today. Burning physical products to falsify value and scarcity. If that doesn't scream of a society desperately grasping for an actual store of value, I don't know what does.

Materials Today, artists are branching out much more into the physical world than just mere paintings. Creating statues out of resin, concrete and formaldehyde-filled actual animals. Gone are the days of forming structures made of more expensive materials like marble, clay or brass. Cost & production quality is irrelevant today and so is therefore best avoided. Sensational story-telling is everything.

Art is also moving digital. The economies of scale in the digital world to swap-out and create variations of the same piece of content, are huge. It allows artists to mass-produce content like Hirst would have dreamt of decades ago. Is it any surprise to see us clamour for zero-cost JPGs and PNGs without a true anchor of value?

History The governments around the world provided significant support for art in the 1930s, employing thousands of mural & canvas artists, at the peak of the Depression and beyond. The people needed to be distracted entertained.

Many professional & amateur artists created works in response to the circumstances they faced. Such creativity could be interpreted as the necessary expression of self-preservation. A means to remain sane. Wage workers were placed front & centre of mainstream art. Images that pitted industrial machines against people invoked Karl Marx’s theory of exploitation under capitalism. e.g. in communist artist Hugo Gellert’s 1934 Das Kapital.

Art also needed to become political in the 1940s, not just profitable. Yet during the global conflict of the 40s, the art market experienced a massive boom in occupied countries. Its discretion, the inflation-proof character, the absence of market interventions and the possibility to resell artworks abroad meant it was viewed favourably. Dutch art even during 5 short years rose 5x in real terms , thanks to German top officials purchasing abroad. Belgium also experienced a similar situation. Newspapers reported the “abundance of sales”, the “firmness of the Art market” and an “intense activity”.

Fashion is a $2.5 trillion industry. If fashion were a country, it would be represent the seventh-largest economy in the world according to McKinsey. Since the 2000s, the fashion industry has doubled.

If we look at the watch industry it is worth US$ 71.1 Billion of that. The watch market went crazy after 2020, Rolex watches particularly, but are since coming back down to earth. There's an entire Rolex price index viewable here for those interested compiling of the top 30 models.

Materials Watches have increasingly digital dials today, with fewer and fewer moving parts inside. In the early days of watchmaking, artisans painstakingly crafted each and every component by hand. Up until around the twenty-first century, elements were made of materials like precious metals, chrome-plated brass, and then stainless steel. Here are a few materials that have been used over the years.

In fashion, we've gone from using natural cottons and to fiat fabrics like polyester. The production of polyester, used for much cheap fast fashion, as well as athletic-wear has increased 9x in the last 50 years.

@Natalia did a great SN post on her 'maker' experiences in Turkey, one of the powerhouses of the world for clothing production. Crafting and weaving many natural materials using largely forgotten traditional techniques. Because today clothing has gotten so cheap to manufacture at scale, so easy to order at speed, it is now easily discarded after being worn only a few times. One survey found that 20% of clothing in the US is never worn & in the UK it is closer to 50%. I'm sure that's not the case for the typical bitcoiner.

Ponziconomics Balenciaga as a brand and business is the epitome of fiat. Benefiting from the critical press it receives. Not only is fashion full of seasonal and generational cycles, it’s full of social experiments. And they don’t get much more experimental than balenciaga who have created over the years 'products' like:

History There may be some parallels to draw - if we're moving from resource abundance to potential scarcity over this next decade. A trend for women that enjoyed massive popularity in the 1920s was that of sportswear worn as daywear. Sportswear had long been an acceptable form of casual-wear for men, but in the 1920s it also became acceptable for women. In the 1930s fashion saw a huge influence from Hollywood meaning women’s fashion evolved from the boyish look of the previous decade into the feminine silhouette of the early thirties.

Fashion during the 1940s was dominated by restrictions and rationing. Utility clothing and uniforms became mainstream for obvious reasons, bought with ration "coupons". Restrictions stayed in place until after the conflict until 1949 in some countries, given there were still shortages of materials in most Western countries for some time thereafter.

If there's one of these categories of collecting that I appreciate the most, it is most likely the antique jewellery & coin-collecting industries. Not least because people need to put-in the real proof-of-work to develop an eye for a gem or a bargain, but they also need to understand their beauty in the materials, the condition & history.

Furthermore, the community spirit that comes from auctions, garage sales, 'car boot' sales & more is substantial. There's also a strong P2P cash culture for transactions. Many owners may be of the older demographic today with houses full of stuff, but this market has been happening ticking-over for decades (without a bubble in sight). If anything items could be suppressed somewhat due to the sheer disinterest of younger generations.

I did however appreciate this story that came out in recent days. A set of 10 and 50 cent coins "accidentally created" with imperfections by the Royal Australian mint in earlier decades that are now expected to sell for more than $1,500 due to their accidental scarcity. LOL.

Tip - If you ever find yourself unlucky enough to be in the U.K, one of the best places to purchase historic jewellery is Brighton and a set of streets called 'The Lanes'. There you will find quality jewellery dating back hundreds of years, with incredible rich histories. If you find an item or ring that you like in the "old school" shops, they are often able to resize them in a matter of hours.

With all that being said about collecting antiques, cars or art... the idea that we each need to each have a ~garage full of tat to stay ahead of inflation is... how should I put this... sub-optimal. I know some day when I least desire it, I am going to need to clear that garage out. When I either move to my 14th "investment" property specifically to enjoy a new view of Central Park, or need to make space for my Porsche 918 (which I secretly hope will double in nominal terms next year, because I set fire to the other 213 in circulation).

We've only covered a few non-traditional collectors markets above, but the majority of people are collecting one of the below:

If you made it this far, I owe you a few sats for a beverage. The intention of this post was to question why we collect things and whether we do so for our own personal satisfaction. Or do we do it to line other people's pockets and because all of the new products are being diluted worldwide?

On a Bitcoin standard our affordability for collectibles increases, but so does the opportunity cost of collecting anything besides satoshis. We could end-up with more high-quality items, rather than fewer lower-quality ones instead, but will we get the satisfaction from them?

Bitcoin may well see to it that we re-align our possessions around what brings us meaning and utility. It will also bring us simplicity and humility. But what about our collections?

I leave you with this one great philosopher's wise words...

I also wanted to call-out some great Stacker News posts on parallel subjects of coinage, books, saving & scarcity...