In recent months, I have taken a step back from the community, mostly due to work and family life; I still follow kendama and play on the rare occasion that I have some free time. Due to limited availability, I have boxes of kendamas lying around that my wife wants me to get rid of because I "am never going to play all those kendamas." In a way, she is right, there are a lot of kendamas that will likely never see play, at least not by my own hand. However, I can't find the strength to get rid of them, and I usually justify it by telling her, "a lot of these are collectors items." This brings me to a few questions for the community. First and foremost, is the act of collecting kendamas just for the sake of having a kendama collection worth it? What makes a kendama collectable? What determines the value of a kendama that won't see play? Do Next Gen kendamas add to or subtract from the value of older collectables? What items are coming out now, that could be collectors items down the line? Also, how many of you have untouchables out there, and what are you finer goods? I want this thread to be a general discussion on the topic for those who love kendama, and will always love kendama, but have sliden more into a collectors mindset. I know this is almost blasphemous against the Holy Church of Destroy All Damas, but what about the Reformation of Collect All Kens!? Appraisal Requests Welcome.
Sorry to hear you've had to take a step back but definitely understand about life intervening. Worth is relative. Collecting for investment means planning to sell in the future so that's a different mindset I think. For myself I just collect things that mean something to me personally that may or may not hold any value for others. I don't have plans to sell them so there's no monetary value I can assign to them. The other thing is some can over value things that based on their personal feelings for a given item. It happens a lot in the hotrod car arena. We think we know what's in a car project but it's rare others share that perspective unless it's really special in some way. If someone is looking for something specific then it's going to be of more value to them. e.g. They've got 9 of 10 in a series and you're selling the last one they need to complete the set then they'd likely find it worth a higher price. A fair number of my "collector's" models were gifts from friends who know I like interesting kendama; most would hold no interest for regular folks. If I had the space, and fewer earthquakes, I'd love to make a kendama "museum" like Sweets or the JKA. If you're looking to sell items in your own collection you might poke your head into DS Exchange for price references. There's been a lot of good stuff being posted over the past year or so. It might be kind of a soft market right now however since it seems things I would have thought would have been snatched up quickly are still available REZs for example.
@goenKendama This is one of the most well thought out responses to any post I have seen to date, thanks man. I am kinda in the same boat with collecting things, it feels like most of the kendamas I own just hold some sort of sentimental value, even though many of them have never been played. I also have ones that hold equal or great sentimental value because they have been played to sawdust and are now hardly usable. I don't really think any of my kendamas are going to skyrocket in value, not like the OG Mugens or anything, and I have plenty of other investments going, but I think down the line, some pieces might be worth quite a bit. You mentioned REZ kendamas, and its kinda weird, I got one of the last produced and haven't played it at all. Not sure what the value will be in 5 to 10 years, I feel a lot of people who have them either play them til they break or never touch them. I am kinda just keeping mine so I can be like, "yeah, I have an unused version 2 REZ ken!" What ever happened to that REZ that he cut in half? Now that would be an item to have?
@lategreat808 You flatter me sir and you are most welcome. Also I believe I understand about the "sawdust" collectibles. Our old sensei would tell us that we should launder our workout gi but not our belts since all of our hard work, energy and spirit had soaked into it over the years; kind of feel like my retired kendama are the same. As for the REZ that was cut in half, it was sold on DS here.
I think at the end of the day it's your choice to keep the kendamas not your wife even though she may harp at you lol. Keep them and if they are really taking up space put them in a box and or get a wall display to keep them out of the way. It's a real shame that you are considering letting them go. Personally I shred every kendama I own but I fully understand keeping special ones untouched and put on display as they are gems in the community or to your person. I say keep them all bud!
Kendama re-selling has always been a buyers market for the most part. Depending on how rare your fresh item is, some rich weirdo might stumble across kendama down the line and would be willing to pay well above sticker price for things that you cannot find anymore. It's up to you to choose when to sell, I think of them like antiques or, rare metal trading for beginners, but also with a far more niche market. The original market of high valued kendamas the OG's will remember will be the mugen market, while these were the most playable JP produced kendamas at the time, they were also produced in finite quantities; this made them highly sought after for both players and collectors at the time.- Nowadays pretty much everything is equally playable and it primarily comes down to preference, this shifts the market towards aesthetic and how finite of a quantity was produced.(this increase in playability in the next-gen may devalue a dama, {but again PREFERENCE} if someone is seeking something older, they should expect to pay at least sticker price for it.) Shoe flippers buy sell older shoes all the time, and sometimes older shoes will suddenly gain value based on other design releases that came out more recently. --You can apply this Idea to the newer Kaiju release from sweets, after it's release I saw a few people on DS exchange looking to pick up those older DBZ damas that had the same motif- re-adding value to an older shelved product (but only if you chose to keep them fresh.) Keeping a dama fresh won't always work out in your favor, but you can always play what you decided to save at one point so no harm done in the long run, Kendama is a life long activity and keeping one fresh isn't a bad thing as long as you still have one to play in the moment. Freshies also make for better gifts for first timers in my experience.
I have a pretty big collection, when I first started playing there were only a few companies, so I aimed to own a kendama from each of them, at least. That eventually became less interesting though, around 2012-13 there was an explosion of little kendama companies, all kinda selling the same thing, but with a different logo engraved on it. Now I still collect, but am just selective in what I find interesting and worth holding onto. I play the majority of them, but have a few I've kept nice. Personally I like historical pieces (I have an almost-finished collection of every JKA kendama in red), and art pieces that are more one-of-a-kind, or at least handmade. Kendamas that have a story, a soul. Of course there are a lot of really cool designs, shapes, etc, being released fairly regularly these days. I'll still buy those to play, but I wouldn't really consider them "collector's pieces". Generally, I'd think that "collector's pieces" only become "collector's pieces" after the fact, at least in terms of market-value. Like @goenKendama's shoe example, future trends may dictate prices, and in ways that we can't currently predict. Consider: back in 2005, who would have predicted a ~$20 mugen would become worth ~$300 just a few years later? Though I suppose with artistic pieces, it can be more obvious that a kendama would have 'collectible value'.