I just helped my in laws move a lot of stuff out of a storage facility and into their new house. They’ve had their stuff in storage since Feb, 2013. Over 6 years.

And guess what happened when we started to move their stuff out of storage.

Most of it went to the rubbish tip. I threw a tonne out for $390 in tipping fees

So I was curious as to how much my in-laws would have paid for storage over these six years and I almost drowned on the water I was drinking when they told me $33K.

$33K to store things which they thought as valuable years ago and it ended up in the tip.

I said to em, “you know how nice you could have fitted out your house with new furniture for $33K.”

Would you pay $33K to store stuff?

I wouldn’t.

I’m either a seller or a giver to the local charity or a tipper. The only thing I’ve moved from each house move has been my record collection.

And it got me thinking about my record collection (Vinyl, CD and Cassettes). I saw them once as valuable. I had all of it under lock and key in an alarmed room, once upon a time.

These days, I don’t have them secure at all. While I still love listening to the music, having the record in hand doesn’t have the same feeling as it once did. Maybe because my eyes can’t see the lyrics anymore, especially when they are tiny. I still collect them because I am a collector, but in the end what’s the point, I’m thinking.

My Dad has a pretty massive record collection and after he got his stroke and faced death in the face, his priorities became very different.

In the end, value is in the eye of the beholder. What I see as valuable, another person won’t. And I remember reading an article about how Elvis memorabilia has gone down in value because people who normally buy it, are dead or they have enough of it, which they are also trying to sell.

So how valuable will our collections and the artists works be in 40 years time?

That’s why the Copyright Corporations like the record labels are trying to lock up the rights of creators works for their whole life plus 70 years after death (and they are trying to get laws passed to make it 90 years after death).

Because there will be value to some.