So when a 200-year-old dime sells for a million dollars to a coin collector, what is that?
More hysteria, I guess... It doesn't have anything to do with intrinsic value. It's all based on a form of status based on scarcity—that I have something you don't. If you ask me, that's actually a
negative value. I never really understood that, but it's a trait some people just have, for some reason.
The value is correlated with the color, rarity, and condition, not the expectation of uncleanliness.
But the reason they were made that color in the first place was so they wouldn't show as much grime. I just think it's funny that a quality as mundane as dirt-hiding would lead to something being worth that much dough, no matter why it ends up being considered so "collectable". :?D
In various collector circles color plays a non-trivial role in determining value. A green diamond is more valuable than a clear diamond. Cobalt is more valuable than amber to bottle collectors. Same diamond, same bottle, different color...
Sure, I realize all that. I just think it's goofy, the whole notion of people coveting things just because they're superficially different from similar, more plentiful things.
I think it may be a kind of low-level anxiety. You feel compelled to have something because you hate the idea of someone else having something you don't. It has very little to do with the item itself; it's more about the
lack of it.
There's a great movie called "
The Gods Must Be Crazy" (1980) about a remote tribe of African bushmen that lives in harmony, taking care of each other and sharing what they own. One day a plane flies over their village and someone tosses a Coke bottle out of it. The bushmen, who've never seen a plane
or a bottle, think the bottle must be a gift from the gods—and for the first time, they start fighting over something. They realize that to preserve their tribe's peace and well being, they have to get rid of the bottle. So one tribesman is chosen, and the rest of the film (which is charming, and got very high reviews) is about his journey to return the gods' gift. It's a great reflection on people's desires to own (i.e. hoard) rare things.
I think IBM keyboards are awesome because they're so well made and feel (and sound!) so good to type on. But pay over $1K for one because it's gray rather than beige? Well, it's a free country—but if that's the kind of thing you do to feel meaningful, maybe you should try getting out and doing some volunteering. :?|