Even Lugnut?!:eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sky Shadow
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Even Lugnut?!:eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sky Shadow
Smoking is an addiction... which I quit 19 months ago by going 'cold turkey'. Transformers is something I enjoy and does not negatively affect others around me, most importantly, my family in a financial sense. I do not relate to this article at all. I actually find it quite disgusting to liken toy collecting to a drug addiction (anyone who has known someone with a drug addiction would understand why).
Thank you!Quote:
Originally Posted by 5FDP
I can understand addictive behavior but to compare toy collecting to heroin addiction is bordering on the absurd. Maybe this guy needs to a little more research into substance abuse before putting something like that up. I've known a person who was on a high and tried to kill themselves by bashing their head into a brick wall. Luckily they knocked themselves out instead and went to hospital. Not in my wildest dreams would I compare the two.
Gok I do understand what you're trying to say but in all seriousness the article should probably have compared it to say a shoe collection addiction instead of substance abuse no matter what the underlying psychological similarities are. I'm not saying toy addiction can't be damaging and is not legitimate cause for concern but as it is, I can't take the article seriously and am a bit miffed the author made light of a such serious issue that its almost insulting.
that is what i was trying to sayQuote:
Originally Posted by 5FDP
At least with toy collecting you can sell off items and recoup your money, should you ever need to do that, or say if you start loosing interest in them. With drugs or gambling, you can't do that. So yeah, bad comparison.
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Originally Posted by 5FDP
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Originally Posted by Raptormesh
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Originally Posted by 1orion2many
Alot of people upset about this comparison and making light of drug addiction, yet the term 'plastic crack' gets thrown around this board on a daily basis and no one says a word against it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Megatron
High horses anyone?
Yeah I think the comparison of toy collecting likened to drug addictions, was just a shocking title for the blog, like to grab a readers attention. I don't think the author went on to explain the connection, If he did that would be just ignorance. But I can understand how some would be annoyed, or offended, escpecially if they have friends with addictions. Also its just really carries a negative connotation as well. I really do hate when people say I'm addicted and I have a problem because I have a collection of toys! sometimes I feel a little bit guilty, but I really enjoy this hobby.
I'm not sure why I was quoted. I'm not upset or anything, just making an observation from a financial aspect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trent
High horse maybe. Call me a Hypocrite if you want but I don't believe a tongue and cheek comment is the same as the serious comparison made in that article, Maybe I'm wrong but that's my opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trent
I never took the article as literally comparing toy collecting with a heroin addiction -- I thought it was meant to be a hyperbole, again much like the "plastic crack" phrase that gets thrown about. I don't think anyone who says "plastic crack" is literally comparing toy collecting with a crack addiction, but merely a hyperbolic metaphor.
I know what you mean because with collecting at least you have something to show for it. With gambling and drugs you just blow your money away and you're left with nothing. But toy collecting can sort of be like gambling in a way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Megatron
On the whole toys do not appreciate well - many toys are depreciating investments, and even most toys that end up appreciating do so incredibly slowly compared to more conventional forms of investment like buying stock market shares, blue chips or just whacking your money into a savings account and letting it mature with interest. People who buy toys and expect them to appreciate in value are in a way gambling. If I want a toy bad enough, I'll either buy it as soon as I find it in stores, or I'll pre-order it if it's not coming out here. This is because I don't want to risk the toy becoming harder to find and selling at inflated prices on the secondary market later on. Most of the time this works out for me, but sometimes it doesn't.
e.g.:
* I bought Beast Wars Metals X-9 Ravage MISB in 1999 for $20-something. The cheapest I could find on eBay atm is going for 170USD <FMW
* I bought reissue God Ginrai when it came out for $93. The toy shelfwarmed massively and even local Australian import stores were selling them for $20 each! <FML
* I pre-ordered eHobby Astrotrain and paid $35 for it MISB. Look at this! :eek: <FMW
* Paid $150 for Jetwing Optimus Prime when it came out in Big W. It shelfwarmed at Target for $99. <FML
...etc.
So my "buy it sooner at RRP" policy sometimes works and sometimes backfires on me, so it's a gamble. But I find that it usually works out well for me so I see it as gambling with odds tipped in my favour, which is why I continue to stick with this personal policy... but there's no solid guarantees. So as with gambling, you accept the fact that you might make the occasional loss and roll with the punches (just as long as you're "winnings" outnumber your "losings" :)). I don't buy toys with the intention to resell them, but I do sometimes go, "Ah nuts! I could've gotten that cheaper if I waited!" Thankfully it's not too often and most of the time I end up thinking, "Gee I'm glad I got that sooner rather than later!" :cool:
Umm, hmm.
There's some interesting posts. Some that have correct info, some that were glossed over , and some that just went awry.
We tend to think the worst when we think of a heroin addict. They certainly exist, in large numbers. I used to see it everyday.
Some of it is permanently etched into my mind. The work I did, the place I worked at, did a necessary thing for the community. That doesn't mean it was fun, or pretty. It wasn't.
I will just say, that there are heroin addicts who are probably a fair(er) comparison to toys, but I still find it largely frivolous, and disrespectful, to dead and living. There are some heroin addicts who lead normal lives: lawyers, bankers, even politicians. They are somehow able to continue their life pretty much undisrupted. They're the lucky few though.
Let's be very clear: differences to toy and heroin. Do you enjoy a new purchase, a new figure, filling in a gap, or getting a grail item? Of course. Heroin is different. It's more that these people have one great experience, and the rest is done trying to get that again, and they can't. Along the line they've become addicted. Some try it once and never again.
Everyone has an addiction. Everyone. It could be sex, money, love, anything. We all have one. And they're mostly okay, as they're within defined limits.
Do we trigger dopamine when we open/obtain a new figure? Well, I doubt we'll find any studies on that on, but if we do, it would be a different part of the brain firing. It's just too different to classify together with heroin, IMO.
There are things that happen if the drug isn't continually obtained and maintained in the body. Figures are irregular, even when buying heavily, some days you get a new wave and five older figs in the mail, other days, nothing. Is the effect of that similar to a heroin addict not receiving a hit? No, there's no way it is.
It's not a physical addiction like heroin.
I also have no problem with the term 'plastic crack'. I don't believe anyone really intends it as a serious term. If they did, I'd march them into the Valley myself.
I know things that I shouldn't have known in my early 20's. None of them have come from toys, though.
To say that toy collecting is like gambling is another fallacy, just as bad as the heroin comparison. It's missing the physical reactions that are triggered, the real facts, to make a shallow comparison 'work'. Ask a gambling addict and they'll wonder what toy collectors get out of it, and what a waste of money that is. It's perspective. It's maturity. It's comprehension.
I wouldn't relate toy collecting so much to gambling as to a calculated risk because as you said, with gambling if you blow your money you will never get it back.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
Of course, toy collecting as an investment applies more to MISB collectors. If collecting specifically for that purpose, collectors tend to buy the toys that have the highest chance of appreciating, such as Limited Editions and exclusives, or that are highly sought after (such as MPs). Otherwise, it can be a hit or miss in regards to the value of a toy after it's been opened, say 30 years from now. It's true that toys in general appreciate slowly, if at all, which is where it helps to collect and keep them mint and sealed, and not resell them too soon after they've been purchased. And even if they do start to depreciate, it may very well be only for a certain number of decades before they begin to appreciate as people start to realise that there's not many of them left in the world any more and they become increasingly hard to find. But this requires a lot of time and patience and of course there are other, quicker ways to make money, but no method is completely free of a certain amount of risk.
For years when people who can't relate to my obsession asked me about collecting Transformers I have fallen back on the line...
"Well, it was either Transformers or heroin. I figured with Transformers I don't need to sell my furniture to pay for it, and I don't have to do that whole messy needle thing"
... which has usually illicted a laugh or at least a rye smile. I did like the line in the article about "It's not the having, it's the getting" which I can totally relate to as I spend a fortune on Transformers, then a couple of weeks later I hardly touch them and am hunting my next TF fix. As for his other points, I don't think it's made me a dislikeable person (unless they touch my toys - then beware! See thread about 'Have you had people mess with your TF's and break them?!') and I truly love my toys, whereas this person does not even seem to like them.
I think his analogy works on a few levels, but definetly not all.
It is actually easy to make an educated guess in which toys will appreciate in value and which will not based on fan enthusiasm and demand. Naturally it is not a sure thing but if you are savvy enough and follow fan community trends you are likely to have a good ratio when it comes to positive appreciating toys.
For example, it is easy to judge that movie and several mainstream toys won't appreciate well. However toys like Classics, specially the Henkei/United releases tend to fare a lot better depending on the characters.
Some general release toys for the first movie have actually appreciated significantly over the last 5 years, particularly Voyager Blackout and Leader Brawl. Toys for ROTF and DOTM... not so much.Quote:
Originally Posted by kup
I really can't see many modern toys appreciating in value too much as there are just so many misb samples being stored and kept nicely in peoples collection as they will always be ones for sale. I think the biggest growth would be in any vintage stuff that is likely to not be reissued - action masters / pretenders or g2 stuff.
As long as the franchise stays popular here shouldn't be significant depreciation either.
All my opinion of course :-)
A hand full (or less) will appreciate but the larger mass of them won't. It is just the way it is for most recent mainstream lines unfortunately.Quote:
Originally Posted by 5FDP
Personally, I believe that modern lines do not have enduring following because people tend to forget about them almost as soon as they are over.Quote:
Originally Posted by theshape
Maybe I read into your comment too much that 'movie toys won't appreciate well' thinking you were referring to the entire line :confused: I was just pointing out that some already have :)Quote:
Originally Posted by kup
Today's toys will be the vintage toys of tomorrow. Well, maybe not tomorrow, but in 30 years time they will be :p There will always be someone looking to reacquire the toys that they had as a kid so the demand will be there. In the grand scheme of things, the movies were, for better or worse, huge and big money spinners for Hasbro. We already know that there were people like us 30 years ago collecting Transformers for the mere purpose of leaving them in the box, hence so many MISB samples being sold on eBay. Perhaps it wasn't as common as it is now (or as popular as we know it to be thanks to the internet and fan fourms), but there will always be a demand for vintage toys. But yeah, market saturation will also determine their worth because rare items will always appreciate more (sorry to anyone that stocked-up on movie Bumblebees for their retirement fund :D).Quote:
Originally Posted by theshape
Actually, I'm inclined to agree with theshape here. Post G1 toys won't appreciate nearly as well as G1 even after the same amount of time. I think the reason for this is that in the 1980s and early 90s, almost everyone collecting Transformers were children... and I didn't know _anyone_ who kept their toys sealed as a kid! The fact that the core appeal of a Transformer is in its transformation and marvelling at how it changes between modes, it meant that way less people were likely to keep these toys sealed unlike say vintage Star Wars figures.
When Beast Wars came along, those of us who grew up with G1 were in our late teens and twenties; high schoolers and uni students. So first of all, it meant that we had more money than we did as children in the 80s - many of us were working part time student jobs or even full time apprenticeships and trades, and by time RiD, Armadaverse and other lines came along, the children of the 80s had already well and truly joined the workforce. So increased levels of disposable income meant that we were able to buy the toys that we wanted, so we don't really have these "holes" in our post-G1 collections.
The other thing is, as the children of the 80s entered adulthood after G1/G2, there would have been an increasing number of people becoming sealed collectors. For me, in 1997 - as a university student - I bought my first spare set of Transformers to keep sealed. It was CD ROM Convobat Vs Megalligator. That toy was an absolute beeotch to find... hard enough to find one for myself, let alone for other collectors outside Japan that I was running around and buying Transformers for! :rolleyes: And after I'd bought all the CD ROM vs sets that people had asked me to buy... I remember finding another one, so I quickly bought it and till this day it remains sealed. I would never have done that as a kid.
I reckon post G1 TFs would have lower demand but increased supply on the secondary market compared to G1 TFs. But who knows... kids who grew up w/ Beast Wars would be in their early 20s now, so a lot of them would be TAFE/uni students or just starting in the workforce... basically, where we were when Beast Wars came out. So maybe this it the time for Hasbro to tap into this market as they're now starting to have more disposable income - more so than us because they're young enough not to be burdened with other financial responsibilities like mortgages and families. Seriously... I think Takara was really smart in unleashing so many G1 reissues in the 00s, because that's when we had that spending power to just buy them! If Hasbro wants to tap into the kids who grew up with BW, I think now is the time to strike while the iron's getting hot. :) Earlier this year I brought BW Inferno with me to Smash!, and a young 19 year old Canadian came up to me and got all excited (in the same way that people of our age would when seeing a G1 TF - made me feel old :p). I talked to him about how the Canadian BW franchise, like how it was called Beasties instead of Beast Wars, and he was like, "That's right!" and I see him being hit by a "Nostalgia Tsunami" :p He thought I'd bought the toy from the con and asked me where he could get one, but I told him that I'd brought it from home.
There is always some that do in any line, the thing is that how many actually do and how many don't. It is safe to say that most movie toys don't appreciate much along with other mainstream lines like A/E/C with some exceptions. It's not just me being biased to lines I don't like as I am also aware that Beast Wars 10th anniversary did not appreciate much yet I didn't mind and collected that line.Quote:
Originally Posted by 5FDP
Something being old or rare does not necessarily mean that it will appreciate. It needs to have demand as well. As awesome and highly sought after as the G1 line is, there are still some of the toys that haven't appreciated much or at all like the Firecons and Jumpstarters.Quote:
Today's toys will be the vintage toys of tomorrow. Well, maybe not tomorrow, but in 30 years time they will be :p There will always be someone looking to reacquire the toys that they had as a kid so the demand will be there. In the grand scheme of things, the movies were, for better or worse, huge and big money spinners for Hasbro. We already know that there were people like us 30 years ago collecting Transformers for the mere purpose of leaving them in the box, hence so many MISB samples being sold on eBay. Perhaps it wasn't as common as it is now (or as popular as we know it to be thanks to the internet and fan fourms), but there will always be a demand for vintage toys. But yeah, market saturation will also determine their worth because rare items will always appreciate more (sorry to anyone that stocked-up on movie Bumblebees for their retirement fund :D).
Time will tell what actually appreciates and what doesn't but personally speaking, I reckon that movie toys (but a few) will gradually fall to the 'forgotten' bin as time passes. I don't see much enthusiasm for them anymore.
There is a reason for that - both the Firecons and Jumpstarters were extremely simple toys that were marketed around a gimmick. It is hard to find either of these toys with their mechanisms intact which affects their value greatly. Not to mention that they were both made in ridiculous quantities and never featured in the cartoon so they shelf-warmed badly. To quote the Transformers Wiki "Jumpstarters were made in sufficient numbers to fill the toy boxes of the entire known universe." If both toys were short-packed and in limited quantities, it may have been a different story today.Quote:
Originally Posted by kup
G1 toys also break easy, especially the desirable Diaclone cars. So while many had them, many now want what they had then, not now, ie unbroken pieces.
And seeing as this is thread drift, could we maybe take it to its own thread?
This whole topic is just not good (the original article, not it being shared here) and well, I for one would like to see it die.
Comparing toys to heroin = no way anyone possibly wins. Nobody looks good answering that, whether right or wrong. It's just nasty.
Yeah I know why but my point is that despite their age, Jumpstarters are not really sought after and therefore do not appreciate much in value.Quote:
Originally Posted by 5FDP
The firecons and sparkabots are not that easy to find, specially in good condition but once you do, they don't cost much.
Ahhhh... I see, you're actually agreeing with me that due an over-supply of them (Jumpstarters), supply outweighed demand resulting in low appreciation values today which is what we could have with movie Bumblebee in years to come which I covered back in my initial post. Glad we got that sorted :p And here was I thinking I was sitting on a nice little nest-egg :DQuote:
Originally Posted by kup
Back on topic...
+1000Quote:
Originally Posted by Cat
Maybe compared to other G1 TF's they haven't appreciated much but I'm sure if you compare a MISP Firecon price today to what they cost off the shelf ($2.95 on sale I think:o) They would have appreciated quite a bit;):)Quote:
Originally Posted by kup
Perhaps but keep inflation in mind ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by 1orion2many
This much inflation :eek: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Transform...-/120964705959Quote:
Originally Posted by kup
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...pitdrink-1.gif Tell him he's dreaming!
To be fair though, you can't use that as an example. AFA'd toys are grossly over-priced for what they are.Quote:
Originally Posted by 1orion2many
I think this article's comparison of toy collecting w/ heroin addiction is only meant as a hyperbole, and not meant to be taken literally -- just like when people say "plastic crack," they don't literally mean to compare it with a crack addiction, it's just an exaggerated metaphor. So let's move away from this arguably awkward or inappropriate metaphor and focus on what the crux of the article is saying: when does toy collecting become a kind of detrimental addiction?
The problem I see with the author is that he's spending a lot of time and money into building a collection that he doesn't even enjoy. By his own admission, he spends over a thousand dollars a year on toys that he doesn't play with or even display, and has come to ask himself, "What the <expletive> am I doing?!" - which, in his situation, is a bloody good question! This is where I think the author's problem lies, and where I see collecting as becoming a detrimental addiction:
^right here. It's a themed shopping addiction. He's not actually addicted the toys themselves (since he doesn't even use them), he's just addicted to buying toys. As he confesses, for him it's about the getting not the having. But I'd say most of us here aren't like that - I think for most of us, it's about the having over the getting. Yes, acquiring new stuff feels great, but _having_ that toy to use feels even greater. :D This guy's not so much a toy collector, but a toy purchaser. His collection is merely the by product of his hobby of toy purchasing.Quote:
the displaying, while nice, is secondary to the collecting - or to paraphrase, it's not the having, it's the getting. Owning toys kind of blows, which is why I don't really care if my toys are out or not. But finding a figure you want in a toy store? Getting that package from UPS, ripping it open to get the figure inside, checking out the accessories, and getting a whiff of that new toy smell? That's pretty sublime. *snip* Despite the aggravation, the cost, and the (B.S.), getting a new toy is still a sweet, sweet hit of nerdiness and joy. It doesn't justify all the bad stuff - it doesn't even come close - but it doesn't matter. Because I'm going to keep doing it anyways. I've got to.