Welcome to the world of Childhood Treasures.....
Collecting Cards as an Investment
The information offered
on this website is offered free of charge.
If you find the information useful, then please link or share this
website with a parent, teacher, librarian, museum curator, bookseller, or
collector.......
Thank You.
Card games are different from ordinary playing cards in their lack of court cards such as Jack, King Queen and not having the suit marks of Clubs, hearts, etc. Instead the cards are designed to be grouped in some other way. Produced for amusement and education they are often highly decorative with pictorial and employ a vast variety of themes.
Lots of different rules have also been created, the most popular been those where sets of cards have to be completed. These include the Happy Families type games. They have also been used to teach about the world, geography, foreign languages, the wonder of nature, creating a wonderful field of collecting for every enthusiast.
No matter what your hobby is, you can bet there are card games associated with it, be it sports, cars, travel etc. For instance if you are a railway enthusiast there are many games about trains,from steam engine to the London Underground. There is even a Pepys game called “Menuette”, the object of the game being to collect a full meal menu of cards.
Other people might even decide to re-collect some of the games they had when they were younger or even some of the games they wish they had had. You know, all those Christmas present games you were hoping for but never got. Well now is your chance to collect them.
This website is written primarily for the collector with the aim of highlighting an interesting field in the collecting of vintage card games. People collect for many reasons, be it pure acquisitiveness, out of nostalgia, an appreciation of the artwork or simple curiosity. It may be that the sensitive will not take too kindly to the idea that some people also collect mainly with investment in mind. There can be no denying that many playing card games are becoming increasingly scarce and with their rarity, raises their commercial value.
It is not easy to treat the subject of prices in a form that will give it a useful life, as they are changing all the time, be it invariably upwards in price. Firstly the point cannot be made too strongly that when looking at the collecting of vintage card games from a financial standpoint, quality is the over riding factor which will insure that a pack will hold its value. The optimum standard to aim for would be a fully complete pack with its accompanying rules, in its original box in mint condition or nearly unplayed with. You might think that this is an impossible standard to aim for in something that in most cases was primarily a children's plaything but surprisingly mint packs do occasionally surface. On the whole, most collectors, including myself, regard these unplayed examples with a little sadness and are quite satisfied with a pack that has been used, but has been cherished and looked after.
Prices can change very rapidly. With the advent of the Internet and on-line auctions more of the common packs became available and their prices momentarily dropped but the older more scarce packs held their value. As more people became aware of them through the ease of the Internet, the amount of collectors has steadily grown and as the available stocks dwindle even the most common games have regained their former prices and quickly past them.
Now with the use of Search Engines it is quite an easy to check the going price of a certain pack, although condition and prices can vary from area to area as it has now become a truly international market.
We hope to use this website to help promote our love and interest for collecting Games & toys and other collectible childhood treasures, around the world. We intend to build and make it available as a reference site for other researchers, dealers and collectors seeking accurate information on their collection.