What to save from election ‘08

The confetti is in the vacuum cleaner bag, the champagne bottle in the recycling bin, and the yard signs await their fate in the garage. Now that the Presidential election is behind us, you may be wondering what mementos from this momentous contest would be worth saving as future collectibles.

Some 23 percent of Americans have already decided that a newspaper announcing President-elect Obama’s victory is a keeper, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Just counting Americans 18 and over, that means roughly 52 million papers tucked away in closets and attics. So, while a Nov. 5, 2008 copy of the Daily Bugle or whatever might make a fine keepsake, it’s unlikely to put your grandkids through college someday.

Brian Krapf, president of the American Political Items Collectors, agrees. “Newspapers with the exceptions of a very few are worthless,” he said in an e-mail interview this past weekend. “They are printed in tremendous quantities on cheap paper with a high acid content, which causes them to yellow and become brittle in a short time. People saving these are hopefully not counting on cashing in for big bucks in later years. At all of our shows across the country, we inevitably have people coming in with JFK assassination papers, Nixon resignation, moon landing, etc., and we unfortunately have to be the bearers of bad news.”

What might be worth something? Krapf’s money is on “buttons and other memorabilia produced by special-interest groups, such as labor unions, cause groups or local and regional political groups,” he says. “Those items were specifically made to promote their agendas and were produced in limited quantities.” Less likely to appreciate, he adds, are buttons and other items mass-produced on behalf of the political campaigns.

If you didn’t scoop up anything of value, never fear. Come 2012 you’ll have another opportunity. —Greg Daugherty