[ExI] 3d print wealth

spike at rainier66.com spike at rainier66.com
Thu Oct 24 14:54:44 UTC 2019



I heard that a Star Wars toy sold at auction for six figures:

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/07/star-wars-toy-sells-for-record-breaking-112926-at-central-pa-auction.html

If this story is true, I can confidently assert this is the only children's toy which came with its own...um... object they vaguely pretend is a rocket.  OK sure, a rocket.

Absurd!  Then it occurred to me: there is enough detail in this photo, I might be able to 3D print a passable Boba counterFett.  I could sooo get rich off of this, and it isn't even entirely clear it would be illegal.  It brought a crazy sum at an auction from some fool who desperately needed to be separated from his money, but it isn't currency or anything.  The seller wouldn't even necessarily make any false claims.  She puts a 5 digit price tag on it at an estate sale with a post-it note saying something like: Heirs don't let Boba Fett go cheap.  It is worth a buttload of money.

Some sucker buys it, she skips town rich, done.

OK then I had another thought which was inspired by a local friend's neighbor.  They were a childless couple in their 80s, travelled all over the world, collected art and so on.  They had lived in the same house for over 40 years and it was quite clear they had a pile of money.  They used to invite my friends over when they returned from travelling, show them some art object they had collected from somewhere, related the circumstances behind the object, clearly very pricey stuff.  But last year, the missus fell ill and never came home from the hospital, then a month later an ambulance was seen in front of the grieving widower's house and he never came home either.

I don't know what happens in those cases, but there were no known heirs, no family visitors ever in the 30 years my friends knew them.  They were just a quiet loner couple with a lotta money.  There was an estate sale.  My friends didn't go, but wondered about it after the fact.  The late couple owned all this stuff that had enormous value only because of the history behind it, not because of the object itself.  

The Boba Fett toy would be worth a dollar or two as a toy, (which comes with its own red sub-toy (for Malibu Barbie (and possibly Earring Magic Ken...))) but the story behind it makes it worth six figures.  If you didn't know the story, the Mona Lisa would be just another portrait of a woman, ja?  

So all this stuff my friend's neighbor collected had value only because of the information behind it, which died with them.  Stories can be unexpectedly lost and stories can be counterfeit.  If stories somehow create wealth, this leads to all manner of paradox.

spike

  






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