Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
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.

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.

<snip>
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.

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.