I thought this article was interesting because it lists casino and gamgling items as one of the hot new collectibles for 1998.

Published Monday, October 26, 1998, in thePhiladelphia Daily News.
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This eHammer nails trends

Gambling, ship antiques are hot

by Frank Dougherty
Daily News Staff Writer

A company called eHammer, one of the new players in Internet auctions of antiques and collectibles, has just finished polishing its cyberspace crystal ball in order to predict the hot collectibles as 1998 draws to a close.

Odds are casino and gambling memorabilia will be a good bet by the end of the year. There's a growing demand for vintage slot machines, older Las Vegas poker chips and souvenir ashtrays from old Rat Pack haunts like the Sands and the Desert Inn.

The sports-collectibles market is being driven by spinoff interests by collectors of items like wooden golf clubs and canvas golf bags, as well as wooden fishing poles and hand-tied flies and lures.

Interest is growing, too, in field-and-stream items like old binoculars, fishing jackets, hand-carved duck decoys and older hunting and fishing prints.

Ocean-liner memorabilia is going full steam ahead due to the popularity of the Oscar-winning film "Titanic," said Lee Infield of Leigh Infield Associates, a Manhattan firm representing antique and collectible dealers.

Passenger lists, menus, deck plans, baggage tags, tableware and linens and vintage photographs are soaring in value. One firm is offering pieces of coal taken from the ocean floor near the sunken Titanic.

Great liners and lines of the past popular with collectors include the Olympic, Normandie and Queen Mary, and most Cunard Line ships.

Knicknacks, plates, pincushions and planters stamped "Made in Occupied Japan" are becoming popular with low-end collectors. These items were manufactured during the post-World War II occupation of Japan by American troops.

But the "occupied" stamp only lasted for 18 months. It was ordered removed by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who thought it demeaning to the dignity of the enemy.

EHammer can be reached at www.ehammer.com

The Daily News has received a number of inquiries about buying collectibles via the Internet.

Well, the deals and the diversity are out there.

But the collectibles market is a business where items are sold as-is, with no guarantees.

So exercise caution.

Earlier this month, an Associated Press report told of a lawsuit filed by a doll collector who bought a Barbie via the Internet.

In a $200,000 suit for breach of contract, Barbie collector Janice Amundson charged that the $1,800 "near-mint condition" Barbie she bought was having a bad hair day.

"When she opened the box that was delivered in the mail, she found that the doll's hair had gotten brittle, and was falling out," charged Joseph Hovermill, the attorney representing Amundson.

The doll is a "Color Magic Barbie" produced by Mattel in the late 1960s, fitted with hair that can be dyed blond or black. In the September 1998 edition of Hot Toys magazine, a 1966 Color Magic Barbie has a list price in the $1,500-$2,500 range.