[Smurfysmurf]

I am not sure about the European smurf market, but the US market seems to be dead for smurfs right now..at least on ebay. This is good for people like me who buy them as I have gotten a lot of good deals this past year on smurfs that I never thought I would own one day. It seems a lot of people are getting rid of their old collections at the moment.

If I was thinking about selling my collection I'd be worried as I don't think I would get half of what I spent or what it is worth. This is why I advise anybody who thinks about selling to wait it out for one or more years until the economy is better again. Of course, if you need to sell them because you need the money you can't wait that long

I have a few doubles right now that I want to sell, but I am very slow in getting them out and sorted because I don't think I will get for them what I would have gotten for them two years ago. When I sell them it will be because I need the space, knowing full well, that I will not get for them what they are worth.

[André]

Hi Maureen,

I wish I was a optimistic as you when you write 2 or 3 years:

You wrote: "If I was thinking about selling my collection I'd be worried as I don't think I would get half of what I spent or what it is worth. This is why I advise anybody who thinks about selling to wait it out for one or more years until the economy is better again. Of course, if you need to sell them because you need the money you can't wait that long"

My guess is that the same thing will happen in Europe now.

When I was reading about the amount the G20-group decided to put into the world economy to save it, I started thinking.

You all know that the world economy depends on consumtion. And we have consumed a lot of things the last 10-15 years. What happens with the worldeconomy if the new generation of consumers decides not to consume in such a rapid way as we have been doing these years? They maybe decides not to change to a new house, car, cellphone, computer etc. as rapidly as people have been doing the latest couple of years. And think if they actually are pleased with living more enviromentally conscious and more primitive. What happens then????

And where do the money go????

As you all know, if you can predict this you will probably live a good life the rest of your days. For example if you can predict when the investors move there money from the stockmarket to the oil, metal or other rawmaterials and the opposite way, when the time is right for real estates, art, right antiques etc. you could earn a lot of money.

They said on TV that after the worldcrise starting 1929 it took 15 years to get back to same spot again. I really don´t think it will take that long this time. But I would be very surprised if it only took 2 or 3 years, since they are telling us it is the worst crise since the 40s.

Sorry to sound so pessimistic it is not my intention. I just want people to be aware that the things the politicians are saying may be wrong. It is actually their job to try to make us believe that it will change soon and try to get us to start consuming a lot again. If they succeed we will probably see the economy start growing again soon. But what happens if the don´t succeed.

I really hope I am wrong about this.

And I think it is better to be prepared that it could take a while with bad economy and be pleasent surprised if it gets better, than the opposite way.

/André

[Smurfysmurf]

Andre, I think you sound more realistic than pessimistic.

I have to admit, I haven't watched the G20 so I can't comment on that.

Living in the US (I can't comment on the European side of things right now), I am very worried about the future. When big auto companies, that were the backbone of the US economy for the past 100 years start to go under...what else can and will happen?

We have a President, who might really try hard (sorry, I don't like him) but hearing him speak, I can only wonder, where will the money come from for his big plans, and who will be paying it? It's going to be our children and grandchildren, so they may not have the opportunity to spend as much money as we have been doing because they have to pay off our debts.

I have heard the 90s being compared to the roaring 20s and think it's a good comparision. Let's face it, we knew it was coming, so we shouldn't be surprised, the problem only is, we didn't prepare for it and now we have to pay the price for it.

In the US the crises began a few years ago (I think 8 years) but it was slowed down by the government putting money into the economy (bail outs, stimulus packages and building up the military). We all knew the recession was coming, and I think if everybody had let it happen back then, we would be much better off now, but of course that's when politics come into it, because who wants to have a recession on their watch. As it happened the recession still occured on our former President's watch.

Here is a more optimistic thought though..when you look back at history and see when great things happened (albeit they seemed small at the time) it was during times like these, so I think, looking back we will be able to say again that this recession wasn't so bad, because without it we wouldn't have (fill in the blanks). It also strengthened the people living back then, because it's only during hardship that you find out what you are capable of doing.

I have spoken a lot with older people back in Germany and also up here in the mountains of Tennessee, and no matter how different their lives were, they all went thru the recession in the 30s and the war and it's aftermath. Times were hard for all of them, and I often asked them "How in the world did you surive and deal with all this?"
Their answer was always the same, no matter where they live "We had no choice so we dealt with it and did the best we could." I always wondered if my generation would be able to surive times like these....Right now, we are finding it out....and I think, we can and will survive it

[André]

Yes Maureen,

you are right about all.

But I have no problems with this more primitive living. I have been working in Lebanon and know what the meaning of poor is.

It is not like the swedish newspapers write: Swedish families are poor, because they can´t go on holidays to the Canarie Islands every year. This just makes me laugh.

And I don´t think it will be no large crise but I think it will be bigger than most people think.

And like Dusty wrote I think the prices of the smurfs will drop very much in Europe. And if I would sell my smurf collection ( which I am not because I love them and don´t see them as "savings" ) I would sell them right away. But offcourse this is just my opinion. Could very well be wrong.

/André

[Smurfysmurf]

That's interesting, Andre.

I think it's already to late to sell them off for the American market. Right now you can make killer deals on rare smurfs on ebay and have been able to do so for the past year, because too many long time collectors are selling or were selling.

It's interesting that it took so long to hit the European market. For collectors it's good, as we can get our hands on some really nice and rare smurfs that we otherwise wouldn't be able to get

[André]

The finansial crise hit the european market in october/november last year, but they tell us that so far people haven´t noticed it so much. So it has just started here in Europe.

For example in Sweden they tell us the unemployment will double from today until 2011. And I guess it is the same scenario in many other european countries.

But you never know!!! For example a Smurfmovie could change this radically???? This could increase the intrest for Smurf very much.

And actually the smurfs are not more expensive then other toys you buy in the toy-store. They are actually affordable things to collect for many people.

/André