Beware of Investment Risks!

Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” The same is true for me, though in my case, with trying to make money by investing in toys, I only found one investment method that did not work, at least not yet.

I’ve always been a big fan of Star Trek. Yeah, I know you can laugh. But what I didn’t realize was that not everyone was as big a fan as I was. I thought I could buy all of the toy action figures and sell them for lots of money when they became lost relics of the past. Here’s what really happened– I spent nearly $500.00 and bought over 70 action figures. I left them unopened and put them in storage. That was ten years ago, and to this day I still have them. What dismayed me was that I cannot find anyone who would want to buy them. The market just isn’t there, and because of that the values of the toys are less now than what I paid for them.

I am in no way an expert at collecting toys, this is just my own experience. Some people may do very well with their investments. It’s just hard to tell which toy will be worth hundreds of dollars in the future and which one will be forgotten and worthless.

So back to Thomas Edison’s way of thinking, I don’t think of this as an investment failure on my part but rather a costly lesson in how to invest and what not to invest in, a lesson well worth my time and money.