The fabulous prices for Soviet Christmas tree decorations were explained by “bad money”
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Literally a few days before the installation of New Year trees begins, prices for decorations for them reach their maximum. This year, advertisements for the sale of collectible Soviet Christmas tree decorations at fantastic prices—up to several million rubles apiece—were discovered on the Internet. Where did this excitement come from and whether it is possible to get rich by selling toys from your own mezzanines – MK found out.
Advertisements published on federal portals are spreading across social networks: for example, a glass watch from the Klin factory from the 1950s (the one that says “It’s twelve minutes to five on the clock”) is being sold by the author of one of the lots for 3 million rubles. It’s funny, by the way, that for the same money someone who is not poor and loves things with hands can buy a mechanical watch in a transparent case framed in white gold, or a digital gadget watch with a precious metal case and a crocodile leather bracelet.
Other prices: a boy from the “Peasant Children” series of the same 50s – half a million rubles. The same price is for a glass owl, a little cheaper – a chestnut (400 thousand rubles) and a cone (350 thousand rubles). Tips and some pendants from the 40s cost 100 thousand rubles…
An interesting fact: many sellers with record prices are not in Moscow at all; they sell toys by mail. In correspondence with sellers, you clarify: is the price exactly for one? They answer in the affirmative and sometimes even dissatisfied: they say, what stupid questions.
“The price of Christmas tree decorations varies as much as, probably, no other antique,” explains Sergei Ivanov, an antique dealer from Yaroslavl. — I see three main factors. First: toys can be expensive and cheap “from new”, for poor and rich Christmas trees. Even the Soviet ones were very different in price, some were sold for 30 kopecks, others for 10–30 rubles. Second: how old and rare the toy is.
According to MK’s interlocutor, certain series of toys became desirable targets for collectors (primarily Moscow) after researchers began writing about them. This applies, for example, to propaganda toys (late 1930s: airships and even the rarest balloons with portraits of leaders), “Pushkin’s Fairy Tales” of the late 1930s and early 1950s, “Peoples of Russia”.
For their rarity, Ivanov added, cotton toys from the pre-war era, as well as ersatz from the Great Patriotic War, receive an “increasing factor”. The most famous type of such ersatz is balls and other toys made from substandard light bulbs, which were produced by the Moscow Electric Bulb Plant (MELZ) and handicraft cooperatives in many regions of the country.
“The third factor: the “content” of the toy, how much they want to buy it and hang it on the tree “with meaning,” says the antique dealer. — Let’s say, among antique toys, balls are of minimal interest, figurines on clothespins are much more interesting, thematic series are even better. More signs of the Chinese horoscope – if among the Soviet toys there are ones that coincide with them (mouse, bull, tiger, hare, rooster, horse, ram), on the eve of the corresponding year they are valued especially highly. But in the coming Year of the Dragon, only toys from 1988 will be in price. This is already the end of the Soviet era…
A separate topic is the Christmas tree accessories: cotton Santa Clauses and Snow Maidens, which can be bought for 1000 rubles and for a hundred “kilos”. There are almost no patterns, pure luck. “The goods are difficult to transport and poorly stored, I prefer to add them right away,” says Sergei Ivanov. – Moreover, those who do not know how to properly pack these Santa Clauses are now sitting without buyers. Well, or they go to Moscow; nowhere else is there such “bad money” for toys now.”
According to MK’s interlocutor, purchases of such “frivolous” goods as collectible Christmas tree decorations have now practically stopped in the regions (even in such large cities as Yaroslavl) – antique dealers are saved only by the proven technology of delivery by mail or courier services. Meanwhile, there are just more Muscovite buyers. This was confirmed by two more interviewed antique dealers working with Christmas tree decorations in Perm and Vologda.
“The scale of money is gradually changing, people either don’t buy anything at all for entertainment, or for them 10–20 thousand is no longer money for a good thing,” says Olga from Vologda, who recently sold a collectible MELZ garland that had never been on the Christmas tree for 40 thousand rubles . Last New Year’s Eve, she couldn’t sell this thing for 30 thousand.
It seems that something similar is happening in the field of new Christmas tree decorations: collection-grade decorations from a well-known Polish company in Russia, miraculously brought to central stores, cost over 50 thousand rubles, and some cost twice or three times as much.
And toys from other manufacturers are not cheap: on September 10, a theft was reported at one of the capital’s warehouses, where 45 toys worth a total of 500 thousand rubles were stolen. Therefore, on average, a piece is more expensive than 10 thousand rubles.
Since such things are not bought with the last of the money, we have to conclude that we are celebrating the New Year 2024 well enough to sometimes even squander money on pleasant little things. But before you pay, you should look at more advertisements: for example, the watch already mentioned, advertised for 3 million rubles, can be found on sale for 3000. This is for the conscious and thrifty.
Newspaper headline:
Glass watches at Rolex prices
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