Technology is constantly moving forward. Scientists and engineers are constantly trying to improve the things that companies put out on the market for consumers to buy. As this happens, the products that you already have in your house or in your car or in your pocket become obsolete!
On top of that, things just tend to break down over time. For instance, the average lifespan of a smartphone is only about two and a half years. And when you consider that a new iPhone 13 Pro can cost as much as $1,600, that’s a lot of value lost in a very short amount of time. And that’s a little thing we like to call depreciation.
Depreciation affects pretty much every consumer product that’s out there on the market. Think about it: pretty much everything you buy is going to be worth less the moment you buy it because it’s now “used,” and it’s going to be worth way less a year or two years after you buy it.
Don’t believe me yet? Check out our Ideal video about luxury cars that depreciate like crazy! So, yeah, don’t expect a good return on investment on your toaster oven or your Maserati Ghibli. But, there actually some products out there that appreciate in value. And, if you buy and sell these products at the right time, you can end up making some serious cash.
These are 7 consumer products that appreciate in value and could make you a pretty penny if you buy and sell them correctly.
#1: Retro Video Games
If you’ve ever had one of those nostalgic moments where you’re like, Remember those days that I used to spend hours with my friends playing Gamecube? and then you go on eBay to see if you can buy a few of your favorite games and see that they’re trading hands for thousands of dollars?
That’s right, there are some classic video games that are selling for way more than they did originally. I found NES bundle that’s selling for $60,000 dollars on eBay! Alright, well, that’s an extreme example because that bundle includes every game that was ever sold in North America, except one.
But, there are also some individual video games that have skyrocketed in price since they came out. Let’s look at Super Monkey Ball 2 Pack, which, if you didn’t know, is an absolutely amazing game about exactly what it sounds like: a monkey in a ball.
When it first came out Super Monkey Ball 2 Pack probably sold for like $60. These days, they’re selling on eBay for as much as $2,000! And there are plenty of games on plenty of consoles that have followed this trend.
I found a bunch of Gamecube titles that have appreciated to quadruple-digit prices. And these games hold their value better if you keep them in the original packaging. So, if there are any games out right now that you think are going to become classics, it might be worth buying an extra copy and then selling it for a profit 20 years down the line.
#2: Vinyl Records
While vinyl records are definitely not the most popular way that people listen to music anymore, there are still a ton of hobbyists out there who collect vinyls and are willing to pay pretty insane prices for rare and well-preserved records.
The thing is that these collectors want records that are in excellent condition. So, even if you have records sitting around that you think might be worth something, they’re probably not all that valuable if they have any wear and tear on them.
However, there have been some records that have fetched some pretty insane prices. For instance, a copy of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy sold for $150,000 at auction. However, that was because that particular copy was signed by Lennon just hours before he was shot. But, unsigned albums like The Who Sell Out can sell for as much as $1,100 online. And Robert Johnson’s Me and the Devil Blues sells for around $12,000 easily.
And there’s a pretty solid chance that these kinds of collectible records will continue to go up in price the older they get as long as they’re kept in good condition. So, if you stumble across a classic album on vinyl at a good price, it might be worth snapping it up and then reselling it for a profit in a couple of years.
#3: Luxury Watches
Among consumer goods that appreciate in price, luxury watches are among the most well-known. In fact, some people will even go so far as to say that they’re buying an “investment watch.” And, while it’s probably pretty risky to pour thousands of dollars into a luxury watch without doing much research, when done correctly, there’s a whole a lot of money to made in luxury watches.
In fact, they even track the prices of luxury watches like they do with stocks! I found a specific price chart is for the Rolex Submariner, a watch that has seen a whole lot of appreciation over the years. From 1994 to 2016, the price of the Rolex Submariner increased by about 297%. That comes out to around a 5,000-Euro price hike.
And, in general, most Rolex watches tend to appreciate if taken care of, specifically their sports models. And there are also a ton of other luxury watch models that have seen appreciation over the years, such as some examples from Patek Philippe, TAG Heuer, and Omega.
If this is something that you think you might want to get into, you should know that the most important things are the rarity and the condition of the watch. No one wants a beat-up watch even if it’s a rare one. And a pristine watch isn’t going to be worth anything if there are hundreds of thousands of them on the market. You also want to make sure that you buy your watch from a reputable dealer that can verify its history and origin.
I’d recommend going through a company with a good reputation, such as European Watch Company and avoiding places where you could potentially get scammed like eBay or Facebook Marketplace.
#4: Vintage Wine
It seems like more and more people are getting into vintage wine collecting every day. And that’s probably because having a cellar full of vintage wine bottles just says, “I have money but I also have taste.” So, in a lot of ways, being a vintage wine collector is a bit of a fashion statement.
However, if you’re able to collect the right wines, you might see the value of your collection appreciate heavily over time. Many wines grow in value the older they get, so it makes sense that you can buy bottles of wine and then resell them years in the future for even more than you bought them for.
This has become such a lucrative business that there are now actually index funds that are linked specifically to the prices of wine. The Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 is an index that tracks the overall fine wine market and it rose over 270% from 2001 to 2021, which is a massive increase.
The Sotheby’s Burgundy Market index and Sotheby’s Bordeaux Market index have also performed exceptionally in the last decade. And some people have suggested that investing in wine might even be preferable to investing in traditional stocks.
So, if you want to get into the wine investment game, you can either go online and put your money into a wine-specific investment fund or you can go ahead and buy an expensive bottle that you believe will go up in value.
Now, of course, there’s no guarantee that a bottle of wine will be a good investment. But, by investing in one of the reputable brands, you give yourself the best chance of them holding value when you go to sell them in 20 years or whatever.
Plus, when people come over to your house, you can show them to your wine cellar and they’ll immediately think that you’re super classy.
#5: Vintage Apple Products
Ever wonder why all of your friends here in the U.S. have iPhones, and only like one or two people you know have a Samsung? Well, it’s because Apple has been able to build one of the strongest and most loyal consumer bases of any company putting products on the market. People see that glowing Apple logo and just assume that the product is cutting-edge technology. Plus, they automatically assume that it’s going to be way cooler than any comparable Samsung or Lenovo or whatever.
Because Apple users are so dedicated to the brand, a huge market has grown for retro or vintage Apple products. I guess that people are so eager to get their hands on these throwback products that they’re willing to pay huge sums of money for them, especially when they’re still sealed in the original packaging.
For instance, a first-generation iPod Classic in original packaging apparently sold for $20,000 in 2014 and a 30-gigabyte U2-edition iPod Classic, which originally hit the market with a price tag of $350, sold for a whopping $90,000 on eBay 10 years after its release! That’s insane!
Now, not all old Apple products are going to experience that level of appreciation; however, there are a lot of vintage Apple products out there, from computers to iPods to memorabilia, that have gone up in price.
And, if you can identify which ones are becoming sought-after collectors’ items, then you could potentially snap some up and turn a profit on them in a few years. I found a second-generation iPod Mini that’s selling for nearly $1,000 on eBay and an original Apple 1 computer from 1976 (the year that Apple was founded) selling for a whole $1.5 million! How’s that for price appreciation?
Well, you probably won’t be able to afford a million-dollar vintage computer, but it might be worth buying a new Apple product, keeping it in its packaging, and then reselling it years down the line.
#6: High-End Art
Yes, in case you weren’t aware, there are a ton of people out there who make their entire living by investing in famous pieces of art. And that’s because some of pieces of art fetch unthinkable prices at auction. The most expensive painting in the world is Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for over $450 million back in 2017.
And, of course, most of us don’t have that kind of cash sitting around to just go out and buy an original da Vinci. However, there are some pieces that you could potentially buy for only a few thousand dollars that may go up in price.
If you want to do some browsing, you can go on online auction sites like Artsy.net and check out some of these more low-priced art auctions. You might even be able to come away with a valuable piece at a reasonable price. Or, if you want to see some art trade hands for some serious cash, you can check out one of the online auctions held on the Christie’s website, which is one of the most famous auction houses in the world for fine art where pieces from some of the most recognizable names in art sell for millions of dollars on the regular.
Of course, I have to recommend that you absolutely do not get involved in investing in art unless you know what you’re doing and have done a massive amount of research. Some pieces of art may appreciate heavily and make you a ton of money, but the majority are going to become more or less worthless as time goes on and the artist fades into obscurity.
However, if you have a background in art history, you’ve been following price trends for certain artists, and you’ve done a ton of research about the history of a specific piece, then there’s definitely an opportunity to make some money by investing in high art.
Once again, though, this is best left to the professionals. That’s why there are people who have made entire careers around collecting art.
#7: Vintage Photography Equipment
Much like vinyl records and vintage Apple products, there are photography enthusiasts out there that are willing to pay huge sums of money for collectible photography equipment. For one, many of these old cameras have fascinating histories to them. And, two, a lot of photographers are finding that they like the effects produced by shooting on old cameras.
For these reasons, a lot of vintage photography equipment has skyrocketed in price over the past few decades. Just check out the Leica M2, a camera that debuted in Germany in 1957 and is now selling for $1,900 on eBay. Or look into the Alpa Reflex 1 from the 1930s that’s selling for nearly $4,000! Both of these cameras were revolutionary in their time periods and that’s what’s made them valuable collectors’ items.
So, if you’re super into photography and you know everything there is to know about the top-of-the-line hardware there is today, it might be worth buying up an extra camera and putting it on layaway, so that you can sell it for a huge profit sometime in the future.
Or, if you just love to take pictures, you can buy up a vintage camera and see what kind of interesting effects you can get with it. And, if you’re buying one of these old cameras, you might want to have it cleaned, lubricated, and adjusted by a professional servicer. That can help an old camera function better and retain its value far into the future.
But, like every other product on this list, you shouldn’t try investing in vintage cameras unless you’re extremely well-versed on the subject. While many cameras can appreciate in value over time, even more of them become essentially worthless as new products come out and they become obsolete.
Do your research and, if you think that a camera is going to hold value far into the future, then you should consider buying it.
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