This Felt Patch Horton recently sold for $225. Is that what it’s worth?
Price is one way to assess the value of an item, but it’s not the only way. And for many collectors, it’s not even the primary way. For many collectors, an item’s value is about so much more than what price it can fetch on the marketplace. Much of the fun of collecting comes from a personal connection with items–love Horton and want a stampede of elephants decorating your collection Wall? Have a favorite number or variety or need a rare item to complete a set? Everyone’s got their own unicorn!
That being said, each item does have some designated characteristics which can give it an objective value to others when trying to trade or sell: Edition Type, Variety/Variant, Mint Count, and Print Number. That’s what you see at the bottom of the screen (and on the items themselves) when looking at an individual item:
Edition Type: Standard Edition (SE) items have no limit on the number of copies that can be sold, but they are minted in series, e.g. S1, S2, etc. Limited Edition (LE) items have a fixed, predetermined number to be sold. LE items tend to have a higher perceived value by most collectors. Collectors Edition (CE) items are special, super rare, limited edition items.
Variety/Variant: The type of collectible, e.g. button, patch, pin, sketch. This is often used as a visual indicator of the rarity within a set or chapter.
Serial Number: The unique number assigned to each copy of an item. Lower serial numbers have higher perceived value. Serial numbers are distributed randomly in packs.
Mint Count/Rarity: The total number of copies minted for the item. Lower mint counts have higher perceived value.
Putting it all together: “LE | Flier #3/3000” means this item is a Limited Edition Flier variant with serial number 3 and only 3000 were minted.
Of note, the algorithm for leaderboard ranks is based only on an item’s serial number and mint count. Low serials and low mint counts lead to higher ranks.
BUT…
Even this is not the only way to value an item. As mentioned before, each person may have their own subjective values. Here are some traits other collectors may value:
Special serial numbers:
Special items to a person:
Favorite characters.
Pretty art/design.
Pretty variants.
Mistakes/misprints.
Tibles ID. This is the unique serial number for everything minted for the whole project. It can be found in the item details and looks like Seussibles#1753, where 1753 is the on-chain token ID. The first one minted is the genesis NFT.
Some things may be more important to you than to another collector, and that’s where what you like/love/need will affect your perception of an item’s value. It’s great to add some commentary to trading posts so others can have an idea about what to offer or ask for in return for your trade request. More on trading later!