The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
2:45pm on Thursday, 7th April, 2005:
Comment
It seems that people are buying up souvenirs created for the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. The reason is that these souvenirs were printed with the original date of the wedding on it, 8th April, but due to the untimely death of the Pope it's been postponed a day. Thus, the date is wrong; thus, these souvenirs will be worth a fortune in a few years.
No, people who are buying these souvenirs, they won't be worth a fortune in a few years. Souvenir manufacturers have had months to make these things, but have less than a week to make the ones with the right day on them. Those are the ones you should be buying, because they're so scarce; ones with the wrong date on are common in comparison.
Also, don't think that just because the date has changed everyone will now be making things with the new date on. They can still make them with the old date on and sell them to gullible fortune-seekers. In New York, some 50% of the souvenirs that show the skyline still have the twin towers of the World Trade Center on them. Have they had those in stock for four years? No, of course not! They continue to manufacture them, because people continue to buy them in the belief that they'll be worth more than they paid for them in a few years' time. You'll still be able to buy them ten years from now! So it is with the royal wedding: if there's a demand for mugs with the wrong date on them, manufacturers will make mugs with the wrong date on them.
I wish I'd bought one of the mugs they made for the 1977 Silver Jubilee, upon which was written "Elizabeth Rex". Now that would be worth something to collectors...
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Copyright © 2005 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).