Real estate crisis? What real estate crisis? The market for seven-year-old plastic doll houses has NEVER BEEN HOTTER! If you don't buy today, prices will absolutely be higher tomorrow! And the next day! 100% financing available! Foreign investors are taking advantage of the weak dollar to snap up America's trophy properties! At least on eBay.
Seriously. There are three Bozart Kaleidoscope doll houses are on eBay at the moment, including two [2!] sealed in their original boxes. Artist Laurie Simmons and architect Peter Wheelwright created the modernist house, which was the flagship of Bozart's ambitious--yet kinda doomed--toys-by-artists concept. I think it was $200 new, but mint-in-box examples have since sold for up to $1200.
Which makes the $2000 Buy It Now price seem kind of bubbly. And the current $750 bid on this one seem positively reasonable by comparison. And the $355 for the fully furnished, gently used one seem like a freakin' bargain.
To investors in the modernist doll property market with a mortgage and a Kaleidoscope in the garage, my seasoned analysis as follows:
SELL THAT DAMN THING NOW! HURRY, MAN, HURRY!
Bozart doll houses, in order auction ending time [ebay via mark]
superb, but used: 12 hours 9 mins (Jan-22-08 19:37:54 PST), currently $355 +s/h [update: sold, for $677]
MIB: Jan-23-08 21:42:37 PST (1 day 14 hours), Buy It Now $2,000+$110 s/h [update: didn't sell! no bubble here!]
MIB: Jan-24-08 19:19:19 PST (2 days 11 hours), currently $750+24 s/h [update; $1048 shipped. wow.]
Folks in the Boston area who would like to see one: there's one on display at the Museum of Science in the "models" section.
Prices are already on the move.
"Some eBayers are questioning the authenticity of my merchandise due to low prices. I will now set a higher listing..."
[lolol. seriously, I'd pay extra to see a passable handmade knockoff of some of that Sirch stuff. -ed.]
I tried to buy one for my daughter right when they were almost gone (hey! I even contacted the creators), and finally found a store with 1 left in stock. At that point, they decided they weren't going to sell it for the msrp, but allow customers to up the ante on their initial suggested price of (? I forget, but it was over $500, may have been $750; I tend to block out such painful details).