Hacker News Reader

Comment by anonymfus | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if a merch for other fraud schemes existed how much would it cost and who would buy it? Imagine Bernie Madoff's t-shorts.

View on HN

So I happen to know a bit of that world. I’m a collector of memorabilia of failed capitalist endeavors. The point others have made is very true about merch being hard to authenticate when you could just recreate on any custom T shirt / hat / mug site. But for some companies, Enron, Pets.com, and a couple others, merch still commands a high price (not Fyre level though). Personally I prefer to seek more rare and “inside baseball” artefacts but in some cases merch is the best I can do (or an autographed book).

My dad still has a ton of Netscape, Novell, and mp3.com branded gear from when he worked there in the 90s. The last time I went home I saw it just laying around in the garage with his bootleg cassettes and my childhood beach toys.

Now some of it makes an awesome talk piece at the office, or at least it did when we still had one. :)

If your dad is open to it, these three happen to be among the ones i have never been able to find anything (mp3.com especially) so I’d be interested

They would fit nicely : http://mattmg83.github.io/cynicalcapitalist/portfolio.html

I remember the Enron sign outside their HQ selling for $20,000 at the time. I actually think that was probably a decent investment.

I remember seeing some Enron merch at my Dad's desk. He had no idea of it's value and just laughed when I pointed it out.

(Enron pulled some shenanigans that were quite an annoyance to my dad at work. He had a greuling month working with them.)

He had no clue that he could sell his little trinket on eBay.

Friend of mine had a Bear Stearns cigar box (humidor? My poor underclass brain knows not the word). Was pretty good for a laugh.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com