COLLECTING THOUGHTS: Enough is enough – how can you make sure you’re getting a good price?

Like a lot of collectors, I found myself pouring over countless photos of TFcon this past weekend, as dozens of merry con-goers took to social media to celebrate the event in Los Angeles. It seems as though a good time was had by all and despite me being ever-so-slightly jealous (only slightly, mind), it was great to see people enjoying a much-needed smidge of normality again, especially in the current climate.

https://twitter.com/TFsource/status/1503070965105934338?s=20&t=-rpwLTtFh5SqslhNdLvY1A

Naturally, many of the photos were of the dealer hall, where it seemed a veritable treasure trove of Transformers-related goodies was waiting for those in attendance. I was however slightly surprised by one or two prices I observed on some second-hand items, with a particular example of packaged vintage toys making my eyes water. It’s by no means a blanket indictment of what you see at cons (nor indeed vintage toy dealers in general – far from it!) but it did stand out to me as one particularly notable instance of prices being over what they should be, at least based on my own experience.

Now, whenever a discussion on vintage or aftermarket toys like this comes up, rather inevitably someone will take to eBay and reference the equivalent listings there, often citing the first examples they discover by way of comparison and concluding that perhaps it’s just the price one needs to pay to own such items these days. After all, if something is going for $300 on eBay, isn’t it just what it’s worth?

Well, I think we’re all big and wise enough to know that isn’t always the case and very often prices of this kind are over-inflated a fair bit, yet it still doesn’t seem to stop some collectors resigning themselves to either having to pay such astronomical sums or just going without whichever items have caught their fancy because of them. I regularly find myself in conversations online where people quote eBay prices to me in this manner, often with a sense of a heavy sigh, or assume I must have paid similar amounts for specific toys in my own collection, as though it’s just simply what they go for.

I suppose part of it is also the tendency to assume all vintage toys (or even aftermarket examples in general) go for crazy money by their very nature. I regularly come across lists of “The Most Expensive Transformers Toys Ever”, all of which perpetuate the mindset of vintage collecting requiring big bucks. Putting aside the fact such articles tend to cherry-pick the most extreme sealed (or even AFA-graded) examples as evidence for their valuations (or how they often miss the *really* pricey stuff, much of which changes hands in private, well out of sight of eBay), they rather misleadingly paint a picture solely of the more extreme ends of the hobby.

That’s not to say expense isn’t part of collecting, mind (of course, it is!) or suggest various vintage examples don’t come with a whopping price tag (again, many do). Yet I maintain it’s worth looking beyond the first prices you see on sites such as eBay when trying to ascertain what something is actually worth, especially with some of the more dubious practices you might come across out there.

For starters, let’s acknowledge how some private sellers will simply try their luck. You may often find ‘buy it now’ listings priced severely higher than any other equivalent items purely because who knows, maybe they’ll get lucky and someone will pay it unsuspectingly. I see this all the time but without a doubt, one of the most egregious examples in recent memory is Haslab WFC Unicron, which at one point was being sold in BIN eBay listings for as much as $10,000 or even in at least one case, $20,000. That’s a whopping thirty-four times over its original sale value of $575!

Now, of course, the toy is no longer going to sell for what it did during the crowdfunding stage and to expect it to would be silly. Demand has shot up, it’s not as freely available for a fixed price as it was and ultimately, its value is set by what people are generally willing to pay for it, but none of that is to suggest it should run anywhere near five figures! In fact, it seems as though plenty of collectors have been able to pick up an aftermarket copy for well under $2k, and even around the $1,500 mark. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still the kind of coin very few will want to part ways with for a plastic toy and yes, it’s markedly higher than the original price, but it is a world away from the most expensive listings you come across on a cursory glance, all of which could leave you to believe the perceived value is dramatically more than it is.

Unicron is an extreme example and the amounts related to it perhaps give a heightened feel for how eye-gouging such individual price hikes can be but the principle relates to second-hand toys at all levels, whether it’s some of the bafflingly-expensive beaten up and broken G1 Transformers specimens you find for sale or more recent WFC releases listed for exorbitant amounts on eBay soon after they’re released.

This brings us more onto the widely-known practice of scalping, whereby some private sellers will go out of their way to buy up large quantities of stock of a new product purely with the intent of flipping it as soon as possible and turning a hefty profit on the way, thereby driving up the perceived aftermarket value of individual items and making an expensive hobby all the worse for collectors.

Unfortunately, similar tricks can be found in the vintage world too. It’s not at all uncommon for some private sellers to purchase rare or desirable classic toys on popular auction websites or similar sources, only for them to soon list the same items back up for sale at an inflated price. Whilst one expects dealers to turn a profit from what they do (it is kind of part of the game, after all), I’m talking about the extremes where collectors end up paying amounts well beyond what they should, all for things they could have purchased themselves using the same websites the seller bought them from if they’d just known where to look.

Even worse, surely, are the occasions when sellers will purposefully seek to mislead potential buyers by swapping out vintage accessories for reissue or even repro parts, or as an extreme will alter a particular figure to try and pass it off as something it’s not, harming the toy’s authenticity in the process and ultimately defrauding the customer.

Another such practice again related to eBay I particularly loathe is the emerging trend of people attempting to sell toys they don’t even own themselves by copying photos and translated text from listings on Japanese sites such as Yahoo Japan, all of which are entirely unaffiliated with them. If you were to purchase one of these items using their listing, they would simply buy it from the original seller and forward it on to you once it arrived, pocketing a whopping mark-up in the process all for absolutely nothing.

Here's something I'm seeing a lot & it's a bad trend – eBay listings for items that are actually for sale on a native Japanese site elsewhere.

This Dai Atlas is approx £695 on Yahoo Japan but is being hiked for a lot more by 3 separate eBay sellers, all re-using the pics etc. pic.twitter.com/PWjjq8CzOI

— Sixo (@SixoTF) May 2, 2021

What I find especially sickening about this is how brazen it is, with no attempt to even disguise the practice. I recall once purchasing an item from a Japanese site only to discover it was still being listed by an unaffiliated seller on eBay some weeks later. I messaged them to point out I knew they didn’t have the item in hand because I now did and they replied very casually to thank me for making them aware!

Seriously, eBay needs to start clamping down on this shit. The original item is on a Japanese site for £170, but instead, the unrelated seller on eBay will take £450 from you only to buy the item direct themselves & ship it on without your knowledge. This happens *all the time*. pic.twitter.com/KiU7kxIetl

— Sixo (@SixoTF) September 5, 2021

But look, forgetting about some of the shadier tactics out there, the simple fact is that a lot of stuff is just overpriced, therefore it pays to do at least a little homework on any aftermarket items to try and ascertain if you’re getting a good deal or not. Nobody wants to be overpaying after all, and especially not when saving a few bob can be a vital prospect in a hobby like this. But how to make sure you’re getting the right price?

Well, for one thing, there are online resources to help. One such example is Transformerland, which features an extensive price guide covering all kinds of Transformers toys from the last four decades. Each figure has a chart and a detailed sales history which showcases data on prices paid over a large range of time, often dating back as far as 2003 in individual cases. It’s by no means an exact science (especially as the sales included in the data are purely those made by Transformerland themselves) but it is an excellent indication of trends and gives a good insight into roughly how much certain toys are worth on the aftermarket.

However, if that’s not your thing and you’d rather do your own research, there is a good way to get an indication through eBay itself! Next time you find yourself heading to the auction site to suss out prices or you want to double-check if a particular item is going for a good deal or not, simply make sure you’ve selected the ‘show only sold items’ filter when completing a search. It’s an easy trick (and one regularly utilised by seasoned collectors) but it will immediately show you the actual prices people are paying, as opposed to the often misleading inflated BIN listings you might see otherwise. It’s a method I continue to use when trying to determine the worth of any given toy, as what better way is there to judge than how much people are already willing to pay? Isn’t that the very definition of something’s value to begin with?

Really though, the whole thing can be a bit of pot luck and certainly far from an exact science of any kind. Whilst it is possible to objectively say that a particular toy might be worth a certain amount based on research, there is an arbitrary element to it as well. After all, the real value comes from how much we individually appreciate or enjoy such items once we have them in hand, and in that respect, there will always be some purchases that transcend what you might find on a price guide of any kind.

I would always say to be careful and do your homework before committing to any vintage or second-hand purchases on the aftermarket to make sure you don’t overpay, especially in the case of high ticket items, but ultimately, it’s just as important to enjoy the things you add to your collection once you’ve committed to buying them.

It is supposed to be a fun hobby, after all, and it pays to remember that.

TTFN