For twenty Christmases, my mother gave me a Hummel.
Each one came in a little white box, wrapped in tissue paper.
A boy with a fishing pole. A girl with a goose. Two children under an umbrella.
I lined them up on the shelf in our dining room, and every year the row got a little longer.
I always thought of that shelf as a kind of savings account. Someday, I told myself, those figurines would be worth a lot of money.
I felt the same way about the Christmas plates I ordered from a magazine ad, one a year, for twelve years. And about the six Longaberger baskets I bought at home parties in the 1990s.
This fall, after we sold a few things and learned what people really pay, I finally checked. Here is what my Hummels, plates, and baskets were really worth, the few kinds that still are, and what I decided to do with mine.
Why I Was So Sure
None of us bought these things by accident. They were sold as collectibles, and we believed it.
The plates came with papers that said “limited edition.” The Hummels were made in Germany. The baskets were woven in Ohio, and we paid good money for them at a friend’s house over