11 collectible crazes that ended up being huge wastes of money

Great Big Story/YouTube

Remember the utter frenzy created by Pokémon cards? Or the "one-of-a-kind" Cabbage Patch Kid Dolls?

Sucked in by marketing ploys to scoop up these "one-of-a-kind" items that could eventually be worth a fortune, many consumers have found themselves with piles of junk in their garages rather than the promised goldmine.

"You have to be really aware of 'phenomenons," Rudy Franchi, an appraiser who has often appeared on PBS' hit show "Antiques Roadhouse," told Business Insider. "People get swept up in a mass craze to collect something ... until it creates a giant bubble that bursts."

Here are 11 such collectible crazes that didn't live up to their potential.

Mandi Woodruff contributed to an earlier version of this article.

Andy Warhol cookie jars

After pop culture icon Andy Warhol died in the late 80s, friends and family discovered one of his greatest obsessions: antique cookie jars.

The jars turned into hot-sellers at his estate sale, with some fetching as much as $250,000.

But what collectors didn't realize was that their value expired not long after their owner. "I tell people at the roadshow that (the jars) are worth today what they were always worth — about $200," Franchi explained.

80s movie posters

Some vintage movie posters from the early 20th century have been sold for upwards of half a million dollars.

The same can't be said for more modern flicks, thanks to a couple of factors: For one thing, it's easy to recreate posters online, and secondly, theater employees hoarded posters so much in the 80s and 90s that supply began to outweigh demand.

"There's a difference between rarity and scarcity," Franchi said. "Now there's an absolute flood of movie posters from that period. It'll be a long time before they find homes."

Modern baseball cards

The 80s and 90s saw a massive baseball card balloon that made many modern ball cards (post-1970s) basically worthless.

"Manufacturers were coy about how many cards they were printing," Zac Bissonnette, consignment director for Heritage Auctions, told Business Insider. "Once you had eBay — a searchable database of everything everyone wants to sell — it became obvious that stuff that was thought to be rare wasn't rare at all."

Don Mattingly rookie cards used to sell for $50 a pop. Now you can find them for pennies online.