Retro collecting boom: battery-free watches and Golf GTIs at 8,000 euros

Battery-free watches at gold prices and Golf GTIs at 8,000 euros: collecting is spiralling out of control

A Casio watch from the 1980s, with no battery and no practical use compared with any current model, is selling like hot cakes. It is the paradox that sums up the state of the second-hand market, according to one participant in the debate: objects that nobody wanted two decades ago now fetch prices that defy any logic of use. The retro craze is no longer a minority hobby but has become, according to this account, a business where nostalgia is priced like a financial asset.

The pattern repeats, always according to the same forum user, with video game manuals for 90s consoles, inherited Japanese analogue cameras or vinyl records that had been sitting in a cupboard for years. The key lies not in the object itself, but in the resale expectation it generates around it. And that is where the first problem appears: when the buyer is no longer looking to use but to speculate, the second-hand market stops working the way it used to.

The Golf GTI nobody wanted and is now worth 8,000 euros

The car case is the most telling. In the late 1980s, a Golf GTI mk2 was the car many young people bought as a cheap first vehicle, with their sights set on more modern models that already offered power steering, ABS or air conditioning. Today, non-running units are listed at 4,000 euros and those that start go for between 7,000 and 8,000, according to what the forum user has seen. Nonsense if measured in usefulness, a bargain if measured in generational storytelling.

Some argue that second-hand trading started to go wrong about ten years ago, when it stopped being a space to offload what you no longer needed and filled up with semi-professionals who buy to resell. The diagnosis does not absolve the buyer: the demand for nostalgia, the addiction to novelty and the megaphone of certain content creators feed a circle where the price is set by expectation, not by the product.

Physical goods degrade and the bill arrives later

The other side of collecting is material, not psychological. A 90s walkman that has been stored for two decades does not work. Vinyl records absorb moisture. Old consoles stop booting. The object kept as a memento deteriorates all the same, and the money invested in it evaporates with every year without maintenance. Those who sold in time could finance a modern console or renovate a room; those who waited are left with a piece of junk and a mental picture.

To this is added the tax authority's arrival on the platforms. Since 2024, the European DAC7 directive obliges Wallapop, Vinted and similar platforms to report users who make 30 or more sales a year, or exceed 2,000 euros. It is not an automatic tax, but it is a signal: the private individual clearing out the attic and the one operating as a business are starting to be under the same scrutiny. Selling below what it cost is not taxed; selling above it is, even if it is a 1989 Golf.

Collecting or hoarding under another label?

The line between collecting and accumulating is thin, and the diagnosis keeps repeating itself: clutter, childhood traumas, seeking a dopamine hit from buying. Some describe clearing out a storeroom as a greater liberation than any acquisition. Others defend the opposite: a hobby that fills free time, entertains and, with luck, leaves a little something for the heirs.

The generational handover will put both theses to the test. When the collections of boomers and millennials change hands, many will be sold out of necessity, others will be thrown away and a few will find buyers abroad. Meanwhile, the market will keep charging for nostalgia up front. How much of that price is real value and how much is antiestéticar of letting go?