‘What’s something that cost a lot of money back in the day, but is basically worthless now?’ – 22 purchases which have tanked in value

Remember when iPods came out and we all splashed hundreds of pounds on them, only to end up with a phone that did the same, and a lot more, a few years later?

Annoying, right? But, if it’s any comfort to you and your purse, people have been buying things that rapidly lose their value for many years.

They’ve been chatting about this on the AskReddit page after JonSoloFLPX asked:

‘What’s something that cost a lot of money back in the day, but is basically worthless now?’

Plenty of people had thoughts about the items that used to be aspirational but have dramatically lost all value, like these…

1.

‘Elvis memorabilia has plummeted in value as Elvis fans die off and the younger generation don’t care about him.’
–Nuthetes

2.

‘I remember when I was a kid, my dad hit his 25 year anniversary at his company.

‘He was offered a choice between a gold Rolex or a computer system with all the bells and whistles that 1997 had to offer. 21″ CRT driven by a dedicated graphics card with 32mb vmem, a 320×240 webcam, a 2x cd burner, a separate dvd drive, and a photo printer that took about 20min to spit out a decent-quality photo.

‘Obviously he took the computer. It’s totally worthless now, unlike the Rolex, but damn it was a sweet machine to have in the house at the time.’
–webrender

3.

‘My mom recently passed away and my 65-year old brother took the Beanie Baby collection. Never mind that she had great and great great grandchildren and he has no heirs. He is under the delusion that they have some value other than selling the whole garbage bag full for $20.’
–Mental-Coconut-7854

4.

‘My old man’s prized possession was a dual VHS recorder he used to dub movies. I think the thing retailed for about $600 new, which was probably about a grand back then.’
–bernese_mountain_fog

5.

‘I have a Wurlitzer organ in my basement that I got from a thrift store. It had the original bill of sale from the 1950s in the bench seat and it cost almost $6000 back then. I bought it for $1.25.’
–mr_baby_pigeon

6.

‘Vintage china sets. I always see tons of them in resale shops for maybe like $30. Very pretty, but if it can’t go in the dishwasher, it won’t survive with me. Plus, lead…’
–ivyleaguewitch

7.

‘The big sets of encyclopaedias everyone bought.’
–HolidayDue

8.

‘When I was in Brisbane, a taxi license was worth hundreds of thousands before Uber came along.’
–Worth_Fondant3883

9.

‘PC Networking Software. There used to be a software company named Novell that sold software to enable servers and PCs to network. The company used to be HUGE.. government contracts and everything.

‘Then Microsoft completely destroyed the network software market by offering their own networking software for free.’
–Simply_Jeff

10.

‘A double cassette player with duel speaker (sort of like a typical boom box) cost $500 back in 1990, that equates to around $1200 in today’s money. Crazy expensive!’
–Admirable_Count989

11.

‘Those old big clunky TVs. People paid thousands for a screen the size of a normal pc monitor. AND IT HAD COLOUR!’
–Tojaro5

12.

‘Pocket calculators. When they were first sold, they cost $400 in the 70s which is roughly $3500 today. When I was a kid in the 90s, they used to be given away as promotional items for businesses. Now they are virtually gone because of smartphones.’
–genericnewlurker