There is a collector inside everyone and whether your preference is for fridge magnets from every corner of the world, or coins from every country that you have visited, collecting coffee mugs can be entertaining and perhaps financially viable if you intend to exchange parts of your collection on auction sites over the Internet.
Where to buy your coffee mugs
Some people simply purchase a new coffee mug from every place that they visit. Almost every village, town or city has an arrangement of coffee mugs available to purchase with their location stamped firmly on the outside. As you travel around the world, the purchase of a single coffee mug is not going to increase your overweight suitcase charges.
Others reach agreement with friends and family that wherever they are travelling to, they collect a coffee mug from each location. In return when you are passing through an airport, you will purchase an item that they can add to their collection.
You can get other items for your collection from everywhere else you visit as you travel the length and breadth of the country. Museums, castles and sports stores all have something to offer.
Some particularly rare coffee mugs can be collected after they have been made in small quantities for special occasions like school reunions, for a 5K run around your village for charity and for the day that your children’s primary school won their local cup final.
Investigating the variety of Internet auction websites can lead you to pleasant surprises as many people look to offload their coffee mugs, especially when they believe they have something special to offer. If you manage to find one of only a small number of coffee mugs Elvis Presley had made for his employees in the late 1960s, you might have to pay more than usual, but you may be able to turn it around as a sound investment in later years.
Using car boot sales
As with everything else for sale at a car boot, you might find coffee mugs on sale for just a few pence alongside others where people are asking exaggerated prices. If you become a moderate expert in coffee mugs and their prices after touring the Internet, you will soon learn which coffee mugs are a good purchase as an investment and which may form a great selection for your collection. Almost everyone would want a coffee mug made especially for the Queen’s Jubilee to mark the 60 years leading the Commonwealth, but finding an original coffee mug made especially for her ascension to the throne in 1952, would be a great accomplishment.
It’s all in the display
For every coffee mug collector that insists on using a different coffee mug for each coffee drink, every single day of the year, there are more people who simply wish to display their coffee mugs as a personal collection so they can share and discuss particular parts of the collection when friends visit to share a coffee.
An excellent collection of coffee mugs can be purchased quite quickly and without too much expense if you are selective in your judgement, but you’ll have to wait a while to beat Charles Hubbell’s collection of over 19,000 mugs. He only started collecting at age 75, six years ago!
Damien Higgins loves a nice cup of coffee. He writes for Eden Springs who supply office coffee machines.
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