Instant Gratification - a Case Study

So I'm wandering eBay for the last few weeks looking for the items mentioned in previous postings and I come across a poster I like the look of. It's promoting this summer's release of the Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins from 2005 which thankfully ignores all previous Batman movies and starts anew. I find that there are a handful of these posters available on eBay and I throw a few on my watch list to see what the eventual sale prices are to gauge what the market value is before I buy one. Wouldn't you know it.. Heath Ledger up and dies (he plays the role of the Joker), sending the price of these posters through the roof 2 days after I start looking for one. Average selling price was $14-$22, and overnight it climbs to $180+. I decided to watch the goings on on eBay and track the mad rush to grab this particular poster, which appeared to be the 'rookie card of death' for Ledger. That mad rush lasted about 12 hours as near as I can tell, with a peak selling value of $180. Now there are several postings of both the A and B poster (B is the Ledger poster) for 'buy now' of $60 and I'm expecting that it will continue to fall as the day plods along.

When I wore younger, more impulsive clothes I'm sure I would have been in the fray but I'm happy to sit back and wait a few days for prices to normalize. I imagine that reprints will be the next big piece of this event, so be wary if you happen to be looking for one. The quality is never quite as good on a reprint in my experience, and they're usually a smaller, less impressive size.

Progressing Nicely

The collection phase is well under way with somewhere in the 90 piece count range now.
Most of the items are pretty flat when it comes to anything other than strict technological comparative value. The level of detail in the way coins are minted and stamps are printed is noticeably improved, license plates remain largely unchanged, music is somewhat cyclical with a 'hitch' every generation or so that wakes up the current generation to the popular music of the previous generation(s) which at present is taking the form of all of the sampling of real music in the rap music culture.

So, focusing on print media seems to be the best way to round out the various eras overall. I've seen strikingly similar events through the years.

Here are some telling, notable titles from various news magazines:

1968 - "Russia in the Middle East" (Afghani war attempting to secure s foothold in the middle east)

1973 - "Arabs, Oil, Evil" (Oil Embargo against the US, painting the middle east as evil because they stopped selling us oil)

2006 - "When will it end?" (Iraq occupation based on an invasion for reason other than originally stated)

That sums up the last 40 years rather elegantly. US depends on oil. US finds oil in the middle east while looking for water (1933) and wrestles control of it through local government manipulation including war, genocide (through backing madmen through the years), wanton large scale murder and all of the other delightful shit we've all grown to blind eye into 'it's over there, why should I care?". We still crave oil. We still meddle in the affairs of countries that have grown obscenely rich and incredibly corrupt, and we won't stop anytime soon. Our elite rich are covered in it oil and they influence (run) everything. Perhaps this whole green house gas/global warming thing will wake governing powers into reducing oil dependency through alternative fueling and such, but in all likeliness it will be after hundreds of thousands more are dead over dead dinosaur juice.

I digress. Time capsule.

I now have enough in the way of items to begin sourcing a good storage solution.

RTC Find: The pivotal pieces

April 1973, the
'1 cent stamp' issue.










Also April 1973.

RTC Find: Creem Magazine

Creem Magazine, April 1973.









With Spidey on the Cover.

Articles on Rundgren and

the Rolling Stones. It even

has a heroes and villains

pinup, heh.

RTC find: 1973 License Plates

A notable find for the RTC.

Pristine license plates from 1973 with the old stickers from '74 and '75 still on them, also in pristine shape.

Somehow they made their way to Missouri and were then posted on eBay. They're now mine for a mere $6 + shipping.

Reverse Time Capsule (RTC)

It's a simple enough concept.

Assemble a list of representative sample items from a given time.
Span it across 3 generations (in this case 5 people).
Source, acquire and catalogue the items.

Enjoy the collections and use them as reference for future generations.

I figure the process will cement my sense of self, as well as pique the interest of my family (which it now has) in the scavenger hunt-esqueness of it all, and provide a birth year legacy for my son who in time will hopefully continue the exercise (or tradition if you're a romantic). I'm amazed how technological evolution churns out these great tools (like eBay, blogging, wikipedia) and it's purely by accident that we find (well it could just be me that wakes up to practical interesting uses for the continual waves of new and cool tools crashing over us) ourselves able to facilitate a project like this through the tips of our fingers. This project would have been completely impractical and improbable just one generation ago.

So, first steps first.

Decide on the representative facets. I tried to find things that have persisted since 1950 so their respective comparative evolutions would be fairly evident. Not just in the contents of the item, but the format in which it is stored and/or delivered. In this way I'm tracking the advancement of technology, social perception (which even at first glance is hilariously cyclical), communications, and several other elements at the same time.

Decide on the time(s). I chose birth month and year of both of my parents, my wife, myself and my son. CAUTION: Do not surf eBay using excel listings late at night or you will undoubtedly mix years and months and end up with a few cast offs. I just won an auction for a Popular Science magazine from my wife's birth year and my mom's birth month. Annoying.

So I've started with music, printed periodicals, coins, stamps, comics, books, and license plates. That should keep me busy for a while, as the research for each can take a while, then the sourcing and acquiring can be a little tedious depending on how far back you're going.

Music. 1973 was an amazing year for music. Dark side of the Moon, Houses of the Holy, Goatshead Soup, Goodbye YellowBrick Road, The Piano Man, Band on the Run, Tres Hombres with debut albums from Aerosmith, Queen and Skynyrd, not to mention about 200 other albums, the majority of which were incredible too in their own rights. I'll work on LP versions of each, which will then spawn the purchase of a record player.

Magazines. The cross section of magazines I chose includes some great titles. You'd be surprised how few magazines were around back in the 50's and of those that were, even less from back then are are still around today. Hot Rod, Esquire, Popular Science/Mechanics, Reader's Digest, Life, TIME, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest, National Lampoon and Home and Garden have all made the list so far. Not all of those 'zines them stretch from 1950 to 2006, but a good number of them do, and a few of them made the list strictly for that reason.

Coins. I chose to attempt to assemble the standard 6 coin sets from each year, preferably in a mint proof set. Penny, nickel, dime quarter, half dollar and dollar coins. 2006 was a breeze, with 1973 and 1968 being not too much harder, but 1951 and 50 are a mess. $700+ for a mint set has changed the original goal to a loose collection of the coins. At $80 for a nickel in decent shape from 1950, it's going to take a while to get that set rounded out.

Stamps. A simple USPS stamp set from each year will do here, at least for now. I haven't messed with them much yet.

Comics. I compiled a spreadsheet (like I have for the other categories) of all comics released in April 1973 and I'm working on 1968 now. I'll pick a dozen or so from the list and gather those next.

Books. I plan on finding one each of a fiction, non-fiction, children's and cook book from each year. That'll take a little research to get something relevant and interesting of each type. Fiction from 1973 was easy - Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors, so Breakfast of Champions it is.

License Plates. This one will be fun. I've decided to mix year and city of birth for these. I found mine already, but working on my wife's is becoming a challenge. Apparently Texas plates are rarely turned in, as they never actually expire (or something, I'll never figure out Texas) so they're harder to come by and most of them have bullet holes in them. Alright, that was a stretch, but they're spendy and rare so far.

Simply through the collection process I've stumbled over a few interesting tidbits from 1973. Cameron Crowe's first article for Rolling Stone was published the week I was born, Watergate broke a few weeks before my birthday, the US pulled out of Vietnam, the landmark Roe V. Wade case overturned the state ban on abortions, the World Trade Center and Sears tower opened, the DEA is founded and NASA launched Skylab. Those are just the things I've picked up from looking at the covers of magazines and reading the descriptions of items. A little digging should turn up all kinds of cool and weird things from the time.

I'm looking at steamer trunk type storage for all of this stuff. I haven't decided on what type or size yet, but I figure one for me, one for my wife, one for my son and one for my parents combined should do the trick. When it comes to storing everything I may have to consider seeking off site storage.

Organic Evolution - The Reconditioning Begins

The first 'fruit' from this whole reconditioning exercise has presented itself. I got to thinking about the songs and movies during the list creation over the last week or so and the theme of my birth year kept cropping up. From that nugget came a little research into the general 'look and feel' of April 1973, which spun into the eventual idea of assembling what would be an ideal cross section representing life and times in that period. Basically a reverse time capsule comprised of items collected from all facets of life in an attempt to get in and crawl around my birth month and year. From music to fashion, fiction, non-fiction, entertainment, media, politics and every other conceivable piece of the daily life pie would be represented.

I'm sure everyone eventually starts looking at their life and who/where/when they came from and this is nothing new in the grand scheme of things but it's a personal revelation and a new branch of personal evolution so I thought it noteworthy enough to give it it's own entry.

It gets a little more sinister though, as most thoughts do. My cynical self also wants to track the descent into spun, revised, mis-reported and blatantly (brazenly?) tainted media over the years. I'm looking into collecting samplings of life from 1950 and 51 (parents), 1968 (wife), 1973 (me) and 2006 (son). The whole project should be quite interesting. Thank whatever god/thought/idea you believe in (but continue to keep it to yourself) for Ebay.