You name it, people collect it -- from die cast cars to trading cards to comics, collectibles are big business.
“The collectable market is a $200 billion market, annual,” said Christian Braun, the CEO of the website hobbyDB.“I like to say I collect collectors.”
On a tour of his toy-filled Boulder office, of course, we play with the toys people there take very seriously.
"hobbyDB is attempting to catalog every collectable ever made," said Braun. "We're using the same method as Wikipedia does, so anybody can add entries to hobbyDB."
hobbyDB’s website is part encyclopedia documenting collectibles and part Amazon, a place that lists individual items to buy or sell.
“There aren’t any good sites to find the price of toys now,” said Wayne Winsett, the owner of Boulder’s Time Warp Comics, a collector who helped test the site. “That’s why this is so exciting because it’s breaking new ground.”
hobbyDB covers more than 150 different kinds of collectibles and other online databases are now moving their information to the site.
"Now, It's the largest database of collectibles by a factor of ten," said Braun. "We think, eventually, we'll have 100 billion entries.”
It is a virtual collection, vetted by curators at a VIP advisory board -- a collection of collectors.
“And if what you collect isn’t there, we want to add it,” said Braun.
Braun said the company left Europe to start the business in Boulder because two-thirds of the collectable market is in the United States.
hobbyDB is free to use, but there is a fee for buying and selling.
Denver7 Reporter Jaclyn Allen covers breaking news, investigative stories and Cool Colorado companies. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. If you have a company she should feature, or another story idea, email her.
