(MONEY Magazine) – Compared with a shattering 508-point plunge in the Dow, a 63% change in the price of a parking space hardly seems a tremor -- except that we're not talking quarters for a parking meter. 1987 was the year that the price of an eight-foot-by-17-foot space at Boston's Brimmer Street Garage condominium hit ( $122,000, up from about $75,000 the year before and a 1,527% increase over the $7,500 offering price when the garage went condo in '79. Herewith some other seismic, and not-so-seismic, events that twitched the needle to new highs or lows in 1987. (For statistics on stocks, bonds and the like, see page 37.) -- Real estate. For house appreciation, the year's best location was next door to anyplace where prices were already out of sight. A leader nationwide was Albany, N.Y., buoyed partly by a ripple effect from skyscraping New York City. The Albany median price was $88,600, up 38% over 1986, as against the U.S. figure of $85,400, up only 5.8%. The most sluggish market: Toledo, Ohio (down 5.5% to $56,900), according to the National Association of Realtors. -- Art. His Irises colored the art world green by commanding a record $53.9 million last fall, but not every Van Gogh was a winner. At another auction, two 1886 canvases drew bids of only $650,000 -- under their minimum prices -- and had to be pulled. In general, the art market was up 28% in '87. -- Stamps. Philately's event of the year was the so-called CIA candlestick caper. Central Intelligence Agency staffers, spotting an upside-down candlestick on their office's new $1 stamps, promptly peddled the once-in-a- lifetime misprints. Amid the ensuing uproar, one of the stamps sold for $52,000. The CIA has stonewalled about what happened to the spooks and their profits. Meanwhile, U.S. stamps overall posted a 9.7% gain on Linn's Stamp News index. -- Rock crystals. Mining a New Age craze, mineral crystals such as quartz, amethyst, malachite and even pyrite (fool's gold) staked a roughly 25% increase over 1986. Prices ranged from $1 for a sliver to $500,000 for a two- ton hunk of white quartz. -- Gems. The $50 million Duchess of Windsor jewelry-sale windfall helped put 20% more sparkle in diamond prices over 1986. Two days after Bloody Monday, a 65-carat diamond sold for $6.4 million -- the highest auction price ever. -- Baseball cards. Hall of famer Mickey Mantle doubled and tripled in value to as high as $10,000 (for a mint-condition card from 1952.)

-- Pit bulls, or the mongrels advertised as such in newspaper classifieds, fetched only about $100 -- half their 1986 price. Outrage over the recent cases of pit bull viciousness led many breeders of pedigreed American bull terriers to pull their dogs off the market. -- Wine. Investment-grade wines uncorked about a 21% gain in 1987, estimates New York City spirits merchant William Sokolin. One standout was a 1974 Cabernet Sauvignon from Heitz Cellars Martha's Vineyard in the Napa Valley: originally $216 a case, it recently hit the $1,800-to-$2,400 range, up 25% from '86. Lest dreams of speculating in vintages go to your head, Minneapolis wine dealer Jack Farrell warns: ''Wine should be a personal investment liquidated only at the table.'' Cheers!