This list will grow as I am able to express additional concepts.
- As any
one model becomes expensive, the market finds acceptable alternatives and makes
them expensive.
- The more a
collector car is worth, the more it tends to appreciate.
- More valuable cars are more easily able to settle on new accepted higher values.
- The more a collector car is worth, the harder it is to assign an absolute ceiling to its value, and the more easily it can exceed accepted values.
- The less a model is worth, the
more susceptible it is to violent fluctuations in value.
- (HT to the Auerbach Doctrine) More valuable cars are more subject to market manipulation.
- People start being able to afford collector cars in their Forties, and they buy the cars they liked when they were kids. If it was on a poster then, it's going to be collectible when that generation reaches C-level positions.
- Veteran-era cars are prone to "age creep," the tendency for succeeding owners to assign ever-earlier dates of manufacture to them; i.e., a 1901 becomes an 1899, then an 1897.
- Rare cars are prone to "rareness creep." With each successive owner, factors that might depress the value tend to be omitted, i.e., owner one used a replacement block when restoring it, but owner two doesn't tell owner three. At the same time, factors that enhance the value gain credibility--a rumor that Elvis once rode in it becomes "this was Elvis's first car."
- Sexy body work and a high fun-to-drive factor can ameliorate badge snobbery. Dino values have increased
400 500% in the last decade.
- A single exceptional sale--i.e., 23-window VW Transporter--can effect the market for the model. This effect can be transitory; or it can draw attention to a previously overlooked car and help establish a new, higher basement price.
- Obscurity can mitigate any other factors that would otherwise increase value. Thus Etceterinis, with a few exceptions such as DeTomaso and Bizzarrini, are worth less than their name brand counterparts, regardless of pedigree.
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