1/6 Market Bubble Popping

[potato]

I think the 1/6 market is saturated to a point where it has started the McFarlane effects. I see most recent Hot Toys non-Ironman figures ended up with 30-50% off retail and still nobody buys them, typically those side characters like Mandarin/Hulk/Chitiru Soldiers, and these are from the supposingly Hot Cake Hot Toys.

Prices has gone up & the variation of characters has gotten out of control, most people are either low on space or low on money or both that people are being very selective when it comes to purchasing a new figure that they go for something rare, something of a sure-sell like Ironman and doesn't want to risk buying something that can't resell or will depreciate.

Of course there will still be hardcore completelist & folks that buy what they want but usually if you wait you should be able to get good deals on subpar mass produced characters.

I'm guessing the path now is going towards niche makers like 1000Toys, AX2 and few others that release 1 figure a year or 2 in a very limited quantity.

Not sure about Sideshow though, seems people will buy them no matter which Star Wars character they release.

Even products from 3A/3Zero people are getting bored with them. 3A figures are pretty much worth very little unless it's a exclusive.

 

[EVILFACE]

Price is the main thing, but I would say it has slowed on characters that have tons of figures. Who needs Thor, Thor II, Avengers Thor, AOU Thor, Thor III, IWpt1 Thor, IWpt2 Thor? 50 Iron Man dolls?

Neo from Matrix? Would sell out.

 

[potato]

Price is the main thing, but I would say it has slowed on characters that have tons of figures. Who needs Thor, Thor II, Avengers Thor, AOU Thor, Thor III, IWpt1 Thor, IWpt2 Thor? 50 Iron Man dolls?

Neo from Matrix? Would sell out.

fact is HT can release 10 Thors, 20 Batmans, 100 Ironmen and they will still sell out 90% of the time, but for not so popular sub characters it's another story. People buy Thors/Batman/Ironmen because they know the market buys them, which re-enforce their sales.

 

[potato]

Price is the main thing, but I would say it has slowed on characters that have tons of figures. Who needs Thor, Thor II, Avengers Thor, AOU Thor, Thor III, IWpt1 Thor, IWpt2 Thor? 50 Iron Man dolls?

Neo from Matrix? Would sell out.

also Medicom did Neo from Matrix before, he ain't no where as popular as Captain America. remember it was way earlier than HT and not many people dig him even though he's suppose to be ahead of it's time.

i would say Matrix is for the niche market while Marvel is like Star Wars for general publics.

 

[jstep13]

Market started to pop a long time ago when there was re-release after re-release of the same characters along with re-issues of past highly collectible figures. Now many higher-end figures are being bootlegged. If you can't see this then you are in trouble. That's why I sold all my "highly valuable" figures a long time ago and now bash figures as a hobby, buy figures at a good discount or buy third-party releases whose prices are still relatively palpable. I buy from e-tailers when there are holiday specials, troll ebay or wait for the second hand purge from collectors in the marketplace. I hardly ever buy brand new anymore because when this hobby crashes, it's gonna get ugly.

 

[EVILFACE]

fact is HT can release 10 Thors, 20 Batmans, 100 Ironmen and they will still sell out 90% of the time, but for not so popular sub characters it's another story. People buy Thors/Batman/Ironmen because they know the market buys them, which re-enforce their sales.

also Medicom did Neo from Matrix before, he ain't no where as popular as Captain America. remember it was way earlier than HT and not many people dig him even though he's suppose to be ahead of it's time.

i would say Matrix is for the niche market while Marvel is like Star Wars for general publics.

Ok..... you go from saying marvels are rotting at 30-50% off to sucking their pecker in your reply to me.

Pick a side bro.

 

[potato]

Ok..... you go from saying marvels are rotting at 30-50% off to sucking their pecker in your reply to me.

Pick a side bro.

i clearly mentioned sub-characters and named a few, and yes to me Hulk/Bruce is considered a sub-character coz i just don't like green.

and to the guy who mention bubble started popping long time ago, nope, it's only until recently you see MISB HT figures getting discounted at 30-50% in retail shops. Even on ebay you can see 30% less HTs. Also bootleg of full figure is very rare, and split out parts still can maintain their value compared to MISB figures.

 

[jstep13]

Nope. Deep discounts have been pretty consistent for many of their figures for awhile now. In retrospect, I would say the start of it was around MMS 150-ish (2011) and has gradually gotten worse, esp around MMS 200-ish (2012) on up. It's when HT started to re-release some of their classics. Go find a Hot Toys or Sideshow checklist and honestly tell me how many of those figures have actually retained or increased value. Not many. Not like what we saw in the beginning.

Once these figures started going crazy $$, these companies tried to undercut the aftermarket and saturated the market with relatively open editions trying to pocket those profits instead of letting of the aftermarket sellers have it. I don't know if you collected these at all prior to 2013 when you signed up here but if you did, do you remember lines of people at HK stores waiting to buy HT figures? Do you remember having to constantly refresh in order to place an order on SSC website before it sells out? How often do you see that now? And don't get me started about how well SSC and Medicom figures hold their value.

And off the top of my head you can get damn near HT quality of these bootlegged figures (not counting official re-releases which 99% of the time makes the prior release obsolete - hence the "glad I sold mine when I did" posts you commonly see):Ledger Joker, Bank Robber Joker, Harvey Dent, Hellboy (at one time), Godfather, Blade (just recent), Wolverine, t2 Arnold, Tony Stark, Black Widow, t1000, Ghost Rider (and his bike!), Scarecrow, Nick Fury, Steve Rodgers (civilian)...

...to say it's "very rare" simply isn't true...

 

[KitFisto]

It happens to nearly every collectible market eventually. Baseball cards are a great example. Popular for decades and then in the early 90s they started releasing all these variant and limited edition cards in packs that were as much as 15 bucks a pack for 4 cards and of course you never got the few you were after. Soon the market died and the value of all cards plummeted.

 

[koon]

It popped ages ago before TFA, but Star Wars is its own bubble. I think it was just after the second Hawkeye.
Price is the biggest driving factor, not just 1/6, but other toys too. The collector base is still pretty small and most of us aren't solely 1/6, so we are getting more selective with this wider range and ever increasing price of products.

 

[Sidewinder]

There's a lot of 1/6 makers now as well. You've got the bigger name ones like HT, Sideshow, Enterbay, ThreeA and ThreeZero, but there's a lot of other ones getting in on the act like Star Ace, Asmus, ACI, BCS, QMX, Storm, DAM....not to mention the unlicensed GCL, VTS, Poptoys, Toys Era, Art Figures and others. That is a lot of companies producing 1/6 figures.

When I think back to my first HT figure I ordered in 2012, which was Reeve Superman at MMS168 (IIRC) and HT is over 350 now, that's nearly 200 figures announced in less than 4 years. That doesn't even include the Video Game ones, or all those figures we've seen, but aren't official yet. HT are pumping these out at a pretty cracking pace now.

The increasing prices are certainly a deterant. I'm paying about $300AUD on average per figure, so I am basically limiting myself to one figure a month now, which means I have to skip figures I am interested in. There's just been too many of late, particularly with Star Wars, but many other figures are going on sale down the line, so I am picking and choosing what to get now and what to get later.

I think the only figures I have that have sold out and gone up on the aftermarket are Starlord and AoU Cap, though I'm sure they will go down in value when a new version is released.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Seems like this idea of "the 1/6 bubble popping" crops up every couple years.

All it takes is the next level of advancement sto companies can reproduce everyone's favorite figures one-step better. Real hair might be the next "tech advance"... or genuinely accurate face sculpts with some new printing technology that gets it right.

 

[Spawn-man]

I don't believe that the 1/6 craze will pass like baseball cards or beanie babies. I think these are the figures that collectors have always wanted, and they are only getting better. Sure, people are getting more selective as prices go up and companies produce more characters, but as long as the right characters are done well, the market is here to stay.

 

[hockeyflow33]

Started too? We're a year past saturation point. Buy anything recent and try and get what you paid back, not happening.


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[Mr Walker]

I don't believe that the 1/6 craze will pass like baseball cards or beanie babies. I think these are the figures that collectors have always wanted, and they are only getting better.

Ah, the "but this time it's different" theory.

Heard that one a few times in my life.

 

[potato]

Started too? We're a year past saturation point. Buy anything recent and try and get what you paid back, not happening.


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not really, all my purchases so far has gone up in value. the thing is once an item gets sold out in the market and you only get 2 or 3 of them on ebay, the price will go up again.

but this year's problem is there's just too many of the same item on the market and it doesn't get sold out.

 

[KitFisto]

I don't believe that the 1/6 craze will pass like baseball cards or beanie babies. I think these are the figures that collectors have always wanted, and they are only getting better. Sure, people are getting more selective as prices go up and companies produce more characters, but as long as the right characters are done well, the market is here to stay.

The market won't "go away", but it will eventually correct itself. I'm sorry, I can't see prices continuing to go up to the point where people are regularly dropping $500+ on a 1:6 figure. If prices reach that point I think you'll see enough people back off to the point where prices will have to dip a bit to keep companies profitable.

 

[potato]

The market won't "go away", but it will eventually correct itself. I'm sorry, I can't see prices continuing to go up to the point where people are regularly dropping $500+ on a 1:6 figure. If prices reach that point I think you'll see enough people back off to the point where prices will have to dip a bit to keep companies profitable.

prices won't dip, because cost of production keeps going up, what you see is toned down version sold at same price, like 1/8, or the already popular 1/12, at slightly lower price.

this is the same for most stuffs, whether it's cars, action figures for example Diecast Robots, Diecast car model, they still release the original size items but at higher price, and release a shrunk down version and added more gimmicks & details to attract customers at the same price as the originals, then once a while they come up with a "Big size" release at a premium over the normal ones. Then they keep shrinking & shrinking & shrinking.

we can agree inflation cannot be avoided, however we also know salary increments never managed to catch up with inflations, so things become less affordable as years past. Whether it's Houses, Cars, Toys.

 

[hockeyflow33]

not really, all my purchases so far has gone up in value. the thing is once an item gets sold out in the market and you only get 2 or 3 of them on ebay, the price will go up again.

but this year's problem is there's just too many of the same item on the market and it doesn't get sold out.

Not sure what you're buying but I sold my 50 or so Hot Toys last year and any of the recent releases were money losers, even some of the EXs. Unless it came out a few years ago or was a limited release, (and not always then), they lost money, some lost a lot. Other than the last couple I held very firm with prices too.

Clearly I'm not going to change your mind because you've contested every point everyone else has made but these do run in cycles with every collectible, you just need to hope it comes back.

 

[potato]

Not sure what you're buying but I sold my 50 or so Hot Toys last year and any of the recent releases were money losers, even some of the EXs. Unless it came out a few years ago or was a limited release, (and not always then), they lost money, some lost a lot. Other than the last couple I held very firm with prices too.

Clearly I'm not going to change your mind because you've contested every point everyone else has made but these do run in cycles with every collectible, you just need to hope it comes back.

it really depends which item. things like Platoon, aren't coming back, period, so once the 2nd hand market is deprived of the item, their prices starts to go up. The recent figures you mentioned, most likely still have alot of them Brand New on ebay, that is why your 2nd hand ones lost money.

things like Ironman (minus exclusives), Batman, Marvel, Robocop you know they are gonna rerelease them. But still, once the existing stocks are getting lesser on the market, their prices will go up until the new rerelease being announced.

Chances are you probably bought alot of bandwagon stuffs like Avengers & Marvel. You know, pop stuffs, they call em pops because they pop once the bubble burst.