FINANCIALjobs.com presents:
FINANCIAL GAME
By Dennis Geselowitz
March 27, 2000 ARTICLE:
 
          Making Money In Collectibles As Opposed To Stocks:
                                           Gogh Dodgers

Ever since my wife dragged me to a Van Gogh exhibit at the LA County Museum of Art, I have had this fantasy. I’m sifting through stuff in my attic, and I find an old painting, which I pick up to see if the frame is worth keeping. I see some letters scrawled on the bottom right of the picture, and I rub off dust to reveal the letters "V-i-n-c-e-n-t". Those seven letters have made an old painting priceless.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have realized a little of that fantasy for me. The seven letters "D-o-d-g-e-r-s" on otherwise worthless items give Dodger items value too. Like Van Gogh, scorned during his lifetime as a misfit, the Dodgers have endured public disapproval, but, unlike those of the artist, the Dodgers' things have already begun to accumulate value while the Dodgers are arguably still alive.

Take a Dodger cap, for example. I wore one while jogging on Saturday, and afterwards I went to the supermarket still wearing the cap. The cashier was extremely solicitous, handing me some free candy with the comment: "You’re a Dodger fan: you’ll need this." The bagger insisted on pushing my shopping cart to the car, as though I was entitled to assistance.

The Dodgers have seemed bent on matching Vincent’s self-destructive style, too, surpassing the drama of Van Gogh’s severing an ear, by cutting players like Mike Piazza. Then they hired Carlos Perez at $5 million a year to give up 5 runs an inning while pitching at an average speed not much over 55 miles an hour. They proved at least the converse of the old adage: you can make a sow's ear from a silk purse.

Obviously having looked at Van Gogh’s Cornfields paintings, Woody Allen once commented that his road forked in front of him, in one direction to misery and utter despair, and in the other to total destruction. He hoped he would have the wisdom to choose between the two. The Dodgers’ chances of improvement this year offer a similar choice, but I take comfort that, like Van Gogh, the Dodgers will leave us with some valuable collectibles.

Dennis Geselowitz, presently a CFO, got an MBA from USC, took one year of law school during his MBA program, passed the bar exam on his first try with just that one year of law school, and not surprisingly obtained his JD from USC.   Write him with questions, comments, or anecdotes from your own Financial Game: geselowitz@fjadnet.com 
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