Comments on: Hippie Bear Ornament

By: Joshua Glenn

Joshua Glenn — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:51:20 +0000

Mimi is one of those rare writers who purposely takes the tackiest objects off our hands in order to write about them — maybe there’s a connection between that and the fact that people check the BUY IT NOW prices for similar objects when “her” objects are listed on eBay?

By: Rob Walker

Rob Walker — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:50:03 +0000

Interestingly this is the second time that Mimi Lipson Significance has crushed the free market. As noted in this earlier post, her story about the Halston Mug elevated its value well above that of identical mugs available on eBay at the same time.

http://significantobjects.com/2009/11/25/the-significant-objects-mug-mug/

My views on this are already well known: I think our stories really do make the objects we sell one-of-a-kind, and thus worth every penny.

By: Joshua Glenn

Joshua Glenn — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:15:24 +0000

Sue, thanks for this note. We’ve used the BUY IT NOW feature as evidence that our experiment worked — because, yeah, why would you buy any of these objects for $20+ when often the same thing is available elsewhere on eBay for much less? It seems our objects have been rescued from the state of mass-produced meaningless via the addition of a story. Your experience helps confirm this because you actually DID buy an (apparently) identical item elsewhere on eBay and feel disappointed. Perhaps we’ll footnote your anecdote in a scholarly essay some day…

By: sue

sue — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:57:11 +0000

Hi Mimi; this was totally great. i wanted that ornament so bad. one i am a child of the 60′s and my whole living room has bears from around the world and you have to be a bear ornament to hang on my tree. so i wanted the ornament. rationally by the time i found your ornament it already exceeded my allowed ornament expendature. but i watched the bids come in an thought someone is lucky. dissatisfied that i wasnt the new owner of ‘hippie ornament’ i went ebay searching for the same or similar. within ten minutes i had found one under ‘peace bear ornament”. buy it now price was $4.95 and the ornament had been up and running for days while yours sold for $24.50 and got 16 bids. And although i am now the happy owner of ‘peace bear ornament’ i am slightly disappointed that my ornament does not have the character and story that ‘hippie bear’ does even if it is a fable. it truly is an incredible little experiment.

By: MonkeyGurl

MonkeyGurl — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:57:45 +0000

I think you’ve succinctly summed up this whole holiday experience in one entertaining story. Beautiful.

By: Annie

Annie — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:48:31 +0000

Ha Ha! a tasty take on the tastless

bravo!