Depreciating assets as works of art
July 22nd, 2007 | by
mbhunter |
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Some items depreciate really quickly after they’re bought. The “class life” of an item gives an estimate of how long things should last. It’s what the IRS uses to guide taxpayers in calculating depreciation, the amount of the purchase price that the owner can deduct per year for durable goods used for business purposes. The shorter the class life, the quicker the owner can write off the purchase.
Cars and trucks have class lives from three to six years, and people spend lots of money and/or time painting them. Computers have class lives of six years, and people spend months and quite a bit of money tricking out the tower with a purple frozen tiger theme or a wooden Divine Comedy theme. Hogs have a class life of three years, and people tattoo them!
It’s probably the case that money is of little importance in these endeavors, and it’s not likely to improve resale value on the common market. The computer cases are pretty impressive-looking — the CPU magazine (eBay) article with the ice tiger case showed epoxy ice stalactites and stalagmites inside the case! I look twice at a decent paint job on a vehicle. And those tattooed pigs, well … I’m sure there are a lot of people that think that’s really cool. Don’t know how the ink would flavor a BLT though.
Anyway, once you make mods to things that have little or no lasting value, it’s basically throwing money down a hole, unless:
- You can find an enthusiast who knows what kind of work occurred and will pay a fair price for it.
- You know it costs a lot, and don’t care because you’re not making it to re-sell. You’re doing it because you’ll enjoy it.
A few weeks ago I ran across a paintball marker at a yard sale. The guy was explaining all of the features: a special ceramic barrel, a motorized hopper, etc. All told he put close to $400 in the system. He would have let it go for $60. That’s a pretty steep discount, and almost none of the customizations really meant anything to me at the time.
The main point is that making works of art out of essentially disposable items doesn’t improve their value, unless you find someone who likes art. Or you like it yourself.
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One Response to “Depreciating assets as works of art”
By Gaming the Credit System on Jul 24, 2007 | Reply
Just because it’s depreciable for your taxes doesn’t mean that it’s actually depreciating in value. I have a nice computer case (the only mod that I’ve done is swapping out the front-panel LEDs for different colored ones) that I bought over 5 years ago (at a good price), and it still has the same value to me. I go to Fry’s and look at new $100 cases, and I just can’t justify them when my trusty old Antec 1080 is just as good or even better in some ways. This case has lasted through 3 motherboard/CPU combos, and I bet it will see at least two more before I retire it.
I bet that the woodworker guy could sell his case for a good chunk of change. That thing is beautiful!
I do understand your point, though. I’m right there with you in the case of cars. It’s pointless to spend a lot of time prettifying something that has to be taken outside in order to be used. Maybe if you are Jay Leno and you have a car museum, go ahead and paint the car up nice — it does actually have value as art at that point. But something that’s going to be crapped on by birds, chipped by rocks, scraped and dented by other cars in the parking lot…. it’s not worth the headache. Cars are not only going to depreciate, they are going to gradually self-destruct as they are used. That’s not the case with computer cases, which mostly sit indoors in the same place for months at a time, and experience practically no wear and tear from everyday use.