Dear Lee,

Holidays will be here soon and we have been thinking about gifts-not the department store kind, but the really unusual collector kind. We always say, “If you like it, buy it.”

Evidently, collectors like all sorts of strange things. Do they give them as holiday gifts? Will someone get the empty box for the Chein Popeye Bag Puncher toy that sold for $1,092? Or perhaps a collection of six wooden hangers printed with different hotel names that were sold for $19.? What about a “baseball cap” crocheted from beer can tops and pull tabs that a church bazaar was selling for $5? Or a 1920s lollipop mold, a silver nutmeg grater, or a buffalo vertebra with an arrowhead embedded in it?

Is gift-buying easier if you are very, very, rich? Sotheby’s sold a little gift-a miniature portrait of a lady, 1 3/4 by 2 1/2 inches, for $326,675. That comes to $74,668 per square inch. Batman’s sidekick Robin first appeared in a 1940 issue of Detective Comics. A copy of that comic book, owned by actor Nicolas Cage, auctioned in October for a record $120,750. The Neiman Marcus Christmas book is offering 6-inch personalized action figures in “appropriate toy store packaging,” including your name and accessories for your character. The figure is a mini-you (or can be made with a choice of better bodies). Price: $7,500 each.

Here’s one timely and inexpensive suggestion. A spider in the house at Christmas is considered very lucky, so why not make a spider ornament for the tree?

Whatever the gift, the thought is still the same. May you and all our readers have a happy, healthy year filled with peace, prosperity, and great finds.