Sadly you're right. Comics and BB cards from earlier generations have found a younger audience, but it won't likely happen with wackys which are much more of a generational fad. All I know is collecting them makes me happy, if they ultimately lose value I'll just see it as a buying opportunity until I finally die or go broke.
Dave,
Love your point-of-view, and I think I share much of it. The act of collecting is the primary motivation - the other stuff is secondary (not entirely unimportant, but not the primary).
Having been a comic collector since childhood, and been a professional in the comic book publishing business for most of the 1990's, I'd built up quite a comic book collection. While I don't follow the collector market in that category too closely, I think there are fewer and fewer comic book collectors to absorb most of what was saved - and that number is not growing. I've got a giant collection, but most of it I'll be lucky to get pennies on the dollar for.
Later this year, my older brother and I will be liquidating 90% of the comics we saved as well as the thousands I received for free during my editorial years. Holding onto 10% seems like a good ratio and one which allows us to prune to the pieces that mean the very most to us.
We're doing it mainly to make space, and with the realization that we're not doing much with so many of them (meaning, nothing). As we've started the process to get them into a sell-able organization, it has been exciting and fun to look at them all again. And I'll admit that that process and that fun has given us both pause. But I'd rather sell them now for a little, with the hope that they'll find some utility, than having to dump them when no one will be interested in buying them 20 years from now.
It just seems that the the best stuff holds and grows a bit, but that definition becomes ever-narrower as the market for them grows smaller.
So, even in comics, I think we're going to see a sort of natural attrition, while at the same time seeing a kind of growth for the very best stuff. I'm sure it'll be the same for Wackys... and maybe it's already the case.
I'll have to report back later in the year and let you know how it goes, both in the selling and how it is emotionally for us to let go of so many things we saved for so long.