Collecting together with Curicon
If there’s a thing the typical geek does well it is collecting. Whether that’s collecting arcane bits of information, cardboard tubes and film canisters that ‘might be useful for something’, or toys and pop culture icons – it’s all collecting. An international marketplace aimed at that last category has recently been launched by a company based in Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Curicon, in their own words:
…has unveiled a social marketplace for collectors of pop culture to rival any that has gone before it. Designed to solve the inefficiency of auction sites, the no-fee social marketplace has been designed to match buyers with sellers using the site’s central library system, which contains over 229,000 collectibles.
The idea is that buyers create a wish-list of items they are seeking and then are alerted when an item becomes available. Sellers can currently list items by invitation only, however the marketplace is open to anybody who wants to buy. Again in their own words
Curicon users are hard-core collectors. They are the people who queue outside the theatre the night before the release of Spiderman to make sure they’re first in line. They are the people whose favourite day of the week is Wednesday because that means New Comic Book Day and they are the people to whom Kevin Smith and Stan Lee are demi-Gods. We’re collectors ourselves so we know that this type of marketplace has been missing from the collectibles market for quite some time and we’re truly excited to be the ones to build it.
The idea of the collector being able to create a list of what they are seeking is a good one and Curicon has neatly folded a social element into the offering as a way of bringing like-minded collectors together. In addition, individuals can use the site to catalogue their own connections – there are already around 230,000 items catalogued – so collectors can see what items they need to find to round out a set.
Like any marketplace the success of the venture is going to depend on getting a critical mass of people participating in it. It’s not entirely clear how that’s progressing with the website listing 1029 collectible items for sale in the marketplace (many of which are listed by the company founders). But they did have a sale on their first day, which is a great start. Anyway, it’s great to see another local start-up pursuing a great idea with such polish. If you are a collector of comics, toys and other pop culture Curicon is definitely one to add to your list of visited sites.
Now if only they had a category for old film canisters and cardboard tubes that ‘might be useful for something’…