This is the second in my series of blogs on ideas. Take a look at this image. It’s a Stock certificate in company that has long gone out of business. But it’s now considered “art” and these certificates are now very collectable. They are also very valuable. More valuable probably than if the company was still in business! Are you with me so far? Read on….
So I design a certificate in the same style – something stylish and print it on a nice coloured paper. Maybe with a colour laser printer – but an inkjet printer would probably do. It would be the design that would be important. The certificates would also have to be numbered and signed.
Now I have collectable, signed, well designed limited edition certificates to sell. How much? They would cost you one hundred pounds each. Why one hundred pounds each? You would then be able to buy using your credit card and pay at your leisure if you wished – but more importantly you would be covered by the Consumer Credit Act under English Law and could get your money back if the transaction didn’t do well.
The certificate promises to pay the bearer one hundred pounds; rather like a bank note. Not on demand; but one year from the date of purchase. So you are buying a very collectable item with legal protection and a money back guarantee. You can frame it and display it proudly on the wall in your home. If that wasn’t enough it does get better!
Introduce someone and they too buy a certificate and you get 50% cash back! Yes, all you have to do is introduce a couple of people and you get you one hundred pounds back and keep your certificate. You could even use your cash back to buy another certificate and start a collection. Why? With these things adoring the walls of your home you have financial security. I know your home is valuable and that gives you security – but you can’t sell it can you? Where would you live?
It would create a bubble and it’s nothing but a pyramid scheme. Yes, partly true and this is the clever part. On the certificate it stipulates that you may only introduce someone with a birth date later than your own. Someone younger! This makes it less likely to form a bubble and the money would actually move up from one generation to an older generation. The certificates themselves would be the same as money really. Just hanging around, in frames waiting for a rainy day! House and property prices keep rises and people keep saying “the bubble will burst” and it doesn’t! I agree it did burst through greed in the 1980’s but we have learned lessons since then. It is a matter of supply and demand. The government will not let the bubble expand too fast and if it does – cut supply by demolishing old Victorian houses or flats built in the 1960’s.
This is a great idea. The money I collect in will of course be invested wisely and keep me in a style to which I have always wanted to become accustomed.
It is possible the certificates would become so collectable that they would become worth more than the original one hundred pounds value. But that need not be too much of a problem. People actually making more than £8,800 in a year from buying and selling certificates could also find themselves landed with a bill for capital gains tax. But the greedy should be taxed!
Anyway, anyone wanting the first certificate let me know. You will get that really coveted certificate – the one with the number 00001, and of course an “Issue One” certificate too! That could be worth thousands in the future. In the meantime, visit my tiny 15 Mb website. I may not be a great webmaster but it is interesting, unusual and eccentric. It’s English and it has a Ninja on the Home page! I’m getting obsessed with that word. I even have Vanilla Ninja on my site. They are a babe band from Latvia. I intend to do a competition soon with a PC jigsaw as a prize to download. I must get around to that. Vanilla Ninja used a jigsaw to promote their band and that got me in to jigsaws and art….
Now no stealing my idea – I shall do that one day……
Best wishes to my friends in the UK and those overseas too from England, home of invention.
Mike10613
