One auction-buyer paid $1,300 for a set of silver coins. Another practically bought the entire lot of Jackie Kennedy, Princess Diana, Scarlett O’Hara and Gibson Girl bisque dolls in fabulous outfits. One guy did the same for most of the die-cast cars, fire trucks and other vehicles that were sold five and six to a tray – at one point paying $100 per tray.
Another buyer snapped up two boxes of single gold-filled British Virgin Islands coins, the boxes heavy with coins in plastic wrappers. He paid $500 as the rest of us looked on in astonishment and wondered if he knew something that we didn’t know. Someone even bought all three Franklin Mint signs that bore the image of Ben Franklin.
That’s how it went last weekend at an auction of Franklin Mint collectibles at the company’s archives in a town just west of Philadelphia. While Franklin Mint products usually make it to the list of the worst collectibles to buy, you wouldn’t have known that by the way they were readily purchased by dealers.
I’ve never been one enamored by Franklin Mint’s kitsch – that’s how one article described them – and whenever I saw one of their ads in a magazine I breezed right past it. I know that anything “collectible” isn’t worth much now or ever.
That didn’t stop folks, though, from buying up millions of Franklin Mint’s products over the years. The company closed its big campus in the Philadelphia suburbs in 2004, and a limited number of products are now sold online.
The auction was held in a building in one of those suburban business centers, and the auctioneer said the place was the mint’s archives where owners brought stuff that was not sold. A small front room held display cases with porcelain figures of Princess Diana and Jackie Kennedy in various poses, Michelle Obama and Erte women, along with a model Airstream, faux Faberge eggs, and 1957 Chevys and other car models.
A large back room was filled with tables and shelving holding many more dolls, die-cast cars in boxes, bronze and painted bronze figures, clocks, Scrabble sets, knives and swords with intricate handles – they looked gaudy to me – and Star Trek memorabilia (including a replica 3D chess board that’s selling on the mint website for $275 but didn’t even come that close at auction).
One long row of shelving held bisque dolls stacked on top of each other: Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, Scarlett O’Hara, the Gibson Girls. At the top of one shelf was a sexy and playful grouping of three Marilyn dolls.
John Wayne must have been one of the mint’s favorites because one table held several bronzes of him, along with others of the famous Iwo Jima and the Vietnam War memorials, Native Americans, eagles and more. There were also a handful of purses, which I found surprising because I didn’t know the mint sold purses (and dinnerware sets).
Franklin Mint and its founder Joseph Segel are considered the pioneers of the collectibles industry. He started the company in 1964 specializing in coins of gold, silver and precious metals that buyers could purchase as a set. A serial businessman, he got the idea for producing the coins after the U.S. Treasury Department decided to stop making silver dollars and Segel saw people standing in line at banks to buy up what was left.
Seeing so much interest, he decided to issue solid sterling silver coins in limited editions, forming the National Commemorative Society and selling the coins for $6.50 to people who signed up as members. He also issued a newsletter to promote upcoming issues and more. Dissatisfied with the quality of the coins others were making for him, he and a partner created the General Numismatics Corporation and minted the coins themselves in late 1964. A year later, the company’s name was changed to the Franklin Mint.
The company also began minting coins for foreign governments, and got into other products. Segel stepped away from the company in 1973 and later founded QVC. Back at the mint, the company expanded into collectibles. It hit a rough patch in the late 1970s when its promise that its silver coins were a good investment was challenged. The company was sold twice over the next decade, including to Stewart A. and Lynda Rae Resnick.
Franklin Mint sold its collectibles in general-interest magazines and through direct mail, attracting customers from all over the world. In the 1990s, sales were more than 700 million. Many of its mass-produced items were displayed in its museum in a building on a huge property in Delaware County, just outside of Philadelphia.
In 1996, Lynda Resnick bought the faux pearl necklace that belonged to Jackie Kennedy at Sotheby’s auction for $211,500 (the estimate was $700), and the mint made thousands of replicas that sold for $195 each.
All was not rosy at the mint. The company saw its most public fight in 1998 when the British royal family sued it for using Princess Diana’s image for a doll that it had started making in 1980. A lower court ruled against the family, stating that Diana would have had to be born in California for the royal family to have rights to her image. The ruling was upheld on appeal, and the two entities settled out of court.
By then, the collectibles market had ebbed, and sales had plummeted for a number of reasons, including eBay where Franklin Mint items can still be had at basement prices. In 2004, the company closed its museum and retail stores, and cut back on its catalog offerings.
The mint’s items were sold as limited edition, but that does not mean much because they were produced in such high quantities. Today, most are worth much less than what folks originally paid for them. The antique experts, the Kovels, placed them on their “10 collectibles not worth collecting anymore” list a few years ago. Another story described them as having “zero resale value,” quoting an appraiser who noted that collectibles lose 80 percent of their value after they are bought.
Another site suggested that now is a good time to cheaply build a specific collection of certain Franklin Mint items.
Obviously, some items have retained their value, possibly the sterling silver and gold (even though those with little precious metal are worth no more than the “melt value” of that metal). There are many guides on the web for determining what those items are, along with searches on eBay.
Here are some of the other products sold at the auction:
