Collection End Game?

[Gipetto0812]

Yeah I'm hoping to to be able to do the same - in particular with all my old undisplayed Hasbro Star Wars and McFarlane figures in the attic. Trying to sell all that individually or even in bulk portions to individuals myself would be a prolonged nightmare that I wish to avoid. All that haggling and people asking if you'll sell one item out of a bulk-set you spent time documenting and listing. If a shop were to take it all off my hands that'd be the easiest - albeit I wouldn't expect to get very much money. Would you?

The shop I'm planning/hoping to sell to tends to give you about 70% of the value of what you're selling, so it's not bad. When you factor in all the leg work they're doing that you don't have to, plus the fees that eBay and other sites love to hit you with, I think it's worth it. I've sold to them before but not much for 1/6 as at the time they weren't big into Hot Toys and 1/6 scale at the time (they're mostly a vintage toy shop), but they have since grown over the years and now have a whole wall dedicated to 1/6 and higher end statues so I'm hoping that works in my favor. I'll be emailing them my list in about a week or two and then I'll know for sure if it's worth it.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

My collection end game is near as I’m running out of room thanks to going near all in on statue collecting as 1/6 scale stuff has gotten pretty crappy over the last few years. It’s all iron men and storm things from Crap Toys, and third party stuff looks like crap (except for LIM Toys, I love them). If I stuck with figures and never collected statues I’d be collecting for another decade but statues take up all the room now lol.
I know I can sell stuff but everything I have I want, and I can’t put them in storage because I have no room for that, plus most of the figures would probably deteriorate in my closet, and my shed has no climate control so I’m 99% sure all the boxes I have in there have probably melted over the hot and humid summer lol.

 

[Khev]

 

[Bo Shrek]

I picked up my Scout Trooper which will be my last HT until I see how the Production piece of AOTC C-3P0 looks. Then I will consider making the purchase. That’s all in my HT que. On the NECA front currently I only collect the Universal Monster line. Will pick up the “The Thing” creatures when available. But without giving the official announcement saying “I’m Done”!! I can see my purchase history declining.

 

[Rotfish]

Great thread! These meta conversations are always a treat.

I'm in my late 20s and have collected high-end since high school. Back then it was Hot Toys figures, now I've got some statues and busts as well.

My ultimate goal is to have 10-20 pieces total, half of which are my core and half of which can be cycled for whatever catches my fancy. I'd only sell a core piece if a better version of it comes along (this means same character and similar scale), which is pretty rare when we're talking about classics like the SWS Queen Alien bust.

My cycling section will probably dwindle with time and, when I finally call it quits, I'll likely be left with just my core pieces: a handful of definitive representations of my all-time favorite characters: Alien, Predator, Conan, and Terminator.

 

[Bgnyc007]

HT 89 Batmobile was my first in 2014 and when they teased the 66 I planned to stopped there, I would feel complete. Of course almost a decade later HT never made it so…104 figures/vehicles all together I’m ready to stop. Thankfully I have the Jazz 66 car coming I will be completely satisfied then, and wouldn’t mind stopping. But would I ever completely stop?…. probably not. When I run out of space I’d just sell off to make room for new stuff.

 

[Raven]

Always amazes me people talking about collecting Hot Toys in HS. Damn son, pizzas paying pretty good there? Lol. There weren't a ton of job options for high school students in my area growing up.

Best advice I can give about selling on eBay is don't sell on eBay. You can probably make more dropping the price a little and selling on Facebook or another market. EBay will eat you alive in fees. They're not called Feebay for nothing.

 

[Sweet Rabbit]

I’ve pretty much quit years ago, I only recently bought The Child life size just because I had points to burn and had a discount code

 

[Zurdo95D]

I think some collectors jumped off collecting after the HT Endgame line

 

[medicomsucks]

I've probably got 1,000 Minimates and Medicom Kubricks in storage, and this issue has been a real challenge for me. I don't have the energy to list them on eBay to maximize my return on investment (if you consider buying those things an investment. . .), so instead they just sit in boxes, probably forever. Frankly, the motivation to de-clutter is greater than my motivation to make a few bucks here or there at this point, so I may end up going the route you suggest and just selling them in bulk on eBay and taking a major loss.

I think I have all of the minimates up to series 33 or so, I have nearly the entire sets of star wars kubricks including chases up series 9 (whatever was the prequel series) So I've spent quite a bit on these trinkets but like you, I'm lazy when it comes to selling them.

I still have a bunch of the 95 power of the force figs as well, honestly someone could steal them and I probably wouldnt even notice.

 

[medicomsucks]

Always amazes me people talking about collecting Hot Toys in HS. Damn son, pizzas paying pretty good there? Lol. There weren't a ton of job options for high school students in my area growing up.

Best advice I can give about selling on eBay is don't sell on eBay. You can probably make more dropping the price a little and selling on Facebook or another market. EBay will eat you alive in fees. They're not called Feebay for nothing.

Yeah there would have been no way I could afford $300 toys in high school.

 

[karamazov80]

I think I have all of the minimates up to series 33 or so, I have nearly the entire sets of star wars kubricks including chases up series 9 (whatever was the prequel series) So I've spent quite a bit on these trinkets but like you, I'm lazy when it comes to selling them.

I still have a bunch of the 95 power of the force figs as well, honestly someone could steal them and I probably wouldnt even notice.

I know how difficult some of those Star Wars Kubs were to get (the 1/96 rarities, in particular). Crazy how far we will go for our collections.

 

[GhostBeard]

I have been soul searching the nearer I get to 50 years old and I have realized that once I hit 50 I will pretty much be done with collecting 1:6 figures. Most of the characters I love have been made. I have a hard time imagining myself sustaining the excitement from preorder to placement on my shelves. Beside the odd figure here and there, 50 is feeling like the right time for me to focus on doing things rather than collecting them.

Anyone else in a similar situation?

Great post and I agree. There may be one or two straggler figures that have not been released I may still be intrigued by (meaning a company release and not specialty figures made by customizers that are incredibly expensive), but I don't have the same vested interest I once did. At one point that InArt Gandalf would have been on my list, but at the prices it demands along with recently being taken for a ride by big thief studios, my heart is not in the game.

After some time you realize you buy these, display them, then it fades and you're looking for the next fix. Now I don't have the need for the next thing. I guess losing hundreds of dollars and some level of maturity and saturation does that for you.

 

[LiamNeesons112]

Sometimes I sit back, look at my collection and think, “this is all really meaningless in the large scope of things.” As the world continues to burn and life continues to become more and more of a gigantic joke, the thoughts of selling off my collection and living a more humble life creep into my brain.

As quickly as those thoughts enter, they leave. At the end of the day my collection makes me happy and that’s a rare commodity these days. I have also decided that I want be buried in one of those time capsules with my dolls like some ancient pharaoh.

Hopefully it’ll give our future alien overlords something to talk about when they exhume me and see me surrounded by a bunch of Godzilla statues and my various 1:6 scale dollies.

 

[BACON!]

I squeezed my new Ecto-1 in my basement over the weekend and discovered I have no more storage space, and this box is the size of a small sofa. My last purchase was the Frank Gorshin Riddler. It has to be the last. I do have several year old preorders that have not hit yet, but other than that, I am out of the game, boys. Endgame has ended. But I also have a ton of amazing figures, so no regerts

 

[potato]

My collection end game is near as I’m running out of room thanks to going near all in on statue collecting as 1/6 scale stuff has gotten pretty crappy over the last few years. It’s all iron men and storm things from Crap Toys, and third party stuff looks like crap (except for LIM Toys, I love them). If I stuck with figures and never collected statues I’d be collecting for another decade but statues take up all the room now lol.
I know I can sell stuff but everything I have I want, and I can’t put them in storage because I have no room for that, plus most of the figures would probably deteriorate in my closet, and my shed has no climate control so I’m 99% sure all the boxes I have in there have probably melted over the hot and humid summer lol.

You can rent a climate controlled storage unit. Boxes are hard to maintain and will just go bad. Humid and heat accelerates it. My Hottoys boxes have developed brown stains where they glue 2 pieces together. The cardboard insert backdrops also developed rough textures esp the black ones. It's only due to 2 years of covid they were left that way, but totally dust free.

 

[potato]

I squeezed my new Ecto-1 in my basement over the weekend and discovered I have no more storage space, and this box is the size of a small sofa. My last purchase was the Frank Gorshin Riddler. It has to be the last. I do have several year old preorders that have not hit yet, but other than that, I am out of the game, boys. Endgame has ended. But I also have a ton of amazing figures, so no regerts

You can put the box vertical and use it as some sort of base for some statue if you can get it to stand securely maybe wrap the box with giftpaper. Last thing you want is leaving it horizontal taking maximum space unless you can turn it into some table display.

 

[potato]

Sometimes I sit back, look at my collection and think, “this is all really meaningless in the large scope of things.” As the world continues to burn and life continues to become more and more of a gigantic joke, the thoughts of selling off my collection and living a more humble life creep into my brain.

As quickly as those thoughts enter, they leave. At the end of the day my collection makes me happy and that’s a rare commodity these days. I have also decided that I want be buried in one of those time capsules with my dolls like some ancient pharaoh.

Hopefully it’ll give our future alien overlords something to talk about when they exhume me and see me surrounded by a bunch of Godzilla statues and my various 1:6 scale dollies.

You have another 2 years to enjoy whatever leisures human society has to offer. After that you can start to enjoy life as it is in the 1800s.

 

[potato]

Great post and I agree. There may be one or two straggler figures that have not been released I may still be intrigued by (meaning a company release and not specialty figures made by customizers that are incredibly expensive), but I don't have the same vested interest I once did. At one point that InArt Gandalf would have been on my list, but at the prices it demands along with recently being taken for a ride by big thief studios, my heart is not in the game.

After some time you realize you buy these, display them, then it fades and you're looking for the next fix. Now I don't have the need for the next thing. I guess losing hundreds of dollars and some level of maturity and saturation does that for you.

You dont lose money much unless the items are damaged or you ditched the box. Right now everyone looking for some investment post covid so if you guys want to offload your stuffs nows the right time. You have 2 years to do that and use the money to stock uo supplies and maybe even firearms and ammos.

 

[potato]

I know how difficult some of those Star Wars Kubs were to get (the 1/96 rarities, in particular). Crazy how far we will go for our collections.

Kubricks still look cool to me today. They are like playmobil and lego. Minimates however felt like cheap toy. I think medicom proportion and customization wins playmobil and lego.

However i felt star wars kubricks always look too bulky.