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Comment by bgilroy26 | Hacker News Reader

Are Beanie Babies similar to Magic the Gathering cards?

Fashion sneakers, Beanie Babies, and MtG cards all have had prices inflated above the price for comparable goods (regular sneakers, teddy bears, and regular playing cards), you can say that. Fashion sneakers and MtG cards have had longer runs in popularity than Beanie Babies had and sneakers have more intrinsic value to people than either MtG cards or Beanie Babies do, but they're all different.

You can say that they are all fads, but owning shares of a company, learning a particular programming language, or picking a university to apply to are all subject to waves of popularity that can obscure their value for people as well.

The question seems disingenuous.

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> The question seems disingenuous.

I know. And I even thought about that before I commented, but I don't know how else to ask without three paragraphs of what would basically amount to "I'm not racist, but" clarifications.

It really does seem like a weird bubble, though. Sneakers do have intrinsic value - you can always walk in your collection, which is more than you can say for Beanie Babies or MtG cards - but it's still just a handful of companies producing something whose value stems from arbitrary production restrictions.

Why sneakers? Why not hats or socks?

But I guess it's just arbitrary, like wine, or collectible angel dolls, or that weird fancy cut glass stuff I see in malls whose name escapes me, or comics.

I think there is a whole scene of street fashion which is basically this, but applied to hats, hoodies, and other garments.

Folks like their beautiful (to them) objects and they like to share that with their friends.

I don't think there's any deep answer to the question of why sneakers. The high value may stem to some extent from limited production but it also arises because there's a willing market.

> I think there is a whole scene of street fashion which is basically this, but applied to hats, hoodies, and other garments.

Indeed. /r/streetwear is a fun subreddit for pics. The extremes of that side of fashion (the tech wear stuff, goth ninja, etc) can get really expensive, really quickly.

> sneakers have more intrinsic value to people than either MtG cards or Beanie Babies do

I'm pretty sure MtG cards have a lot of intrinsic value to the people who play with them. Much more than collectable sneakers.

Also, I don't think regular playing cards are comparable goods to MtG cards. You can't play MtG with them!

But if people didn't care about counterfeits, you could make your own cards, right? For any non-collectible card game, noone would care if the cards are "authentic" or not.

This is sort of like the difference between original art and a high-quality replica. Market value has its own logic that's often independent of use-value.

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