2020 Australian recession and collecting

[Skyfire]

Now that we are officially in recession, how is that going to affect your collecting? Many of you guys would have gone through the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and can probably remember how that went down. I was out of Transformers around that time so I don't know how the market went. Apparently TFs did pretty well then according to https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs...-the-recession. And apparently toys also are recession-resistant generally speaking and one of the last things to go in terms of discretionary spending. Even though this is the worst recession in history, I have a feeling collectors here would consider their left arm versus another (exclusive) toy .

Fortunately for me, I only focus on early G1 era (for nostalgia and room space reasons and I hate Michael Bay), so I don't need to buy 5000 TFs. Helps to keep costs down .

[SMHFConvoy]

We were already headed to one before COVID anyway, because good ole Clean Hands Morrison doesn't hold hose or know how to run a country. Anyway in regards to collecting I'll probably slow down or stop.

[Sinnertwin]

Not worried tbh. Plastic trinkets rank quite low on my priorities, if I need to stop, I won't be losing any sleep.

[Thurmus]

Thankfully they have ruined the Masterpiece line with the over priced cartoon accurate releases recently so they have recession proofed my collecting.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Eh. My budget's pretty tight anyway, and there's not a heap coming out that I want as a priority.

[Seraphim Prime]

I think toys are recession proof generally as parents will still want to provide for their kids and they sacrifice things for themselves to achieve it.

I'm fortunate to still be in a job, and one that is pretty well protected, but I have already been considering how much I spend and trying to bring it into a better balance.

We'll see what this means for collecting, whether it becomes a reduced focus or not. I'm already thinking that the end of Kingdom will be a good step off point from wanting to have almost all releases to being much more selective.

[GoktimusPrime]

The 2008 GFC was worse for overseas buying as I remember a lot of toys that I'd pre-ordered suddenly becoming more expensive when they were released as the AUD took a nosedive (e.g. Encore Metroplex, eHobby GADEP etc.). I haven't noticed anything like that for this year though, it's more just trying to get things to ship that's a bigger pain in the sparse. But even currency-wise it's still not as bad as 2000 when the AUD hit 45 US cents. That really sucked and made importing Car Robot and the new Japanese G1 reissues more costly.
(although I'm sure it was a godsend for local hospitality and tourism in the year of the Sydney Olympics)

[Skyfire]

Man, 45 cents would have made TFs seriously expensive given how much Aussie collectors rely on overseas hobby shops and retailers. If we're lucky our economy won't be too bad relative to the US and our dollar may continue to creep up this time round.

If WFC Kingdom turns out to be Beast Wars themed then that will be a natural cut off for me as I never got into Beast Wars. I'd still like to get the reissue G1 cassettes if/when they come to Australia but after seeing them in Singapore for SGD$40 RRP, I'll have to think twice if they're overpriced like the Kmart G1 minicars.

[High_Q]

I am unlikely to change my collecting habit, even if i were to lose my job, since i mostly collect G1 MP car bots and G1 reissues. Since I'm not a fan of getting repaints and exclusives, there aren't too many TFs for me to purchase. My only TF purchases this year so far has been two Reaction figures and an upcoming MP Arcee.

I'm more worried about Tomy discontinuing the G1 MP line due to fall in demand as a result of worldwide recession, or due to MP fans turning to Studio Series if that line starts including animation accurate G1 figures (SS 86?).

[Bidoofdude]

I am lucky as I am quite young compared to a lot of the fans here, and without nowhere near the responsibility of most others here. I have been in casual work for all of my career so far (I am a student), and typically TFs have come out of the pretty regular pay I was on without much issue or being in the hole at all. However the industry I have been working in most recently is hospitality, which runs on almost exclusively a casual or part-time basis and has been shut down completely. Likewise, casual workers go unprotected under JobKeeper, so I have had a pretty steady stream of $0 coming in since about April.

I have generally had to be much less trigger-happy with my purchases, where I would sometimes be liberal before. This has caused me some frustration, as Unicron is coming fast in February and I have to make up the funds to pay it off (I currently cannot). Safe to say my plans have been turned upside down, and I'll probably end up selling some stuff to get it done. I hope things change soon and work gets going so I can at least have a semi-strong looking account balance and still make purchases now and again. That can't happen obviously without some element of safety in a preventative intervention, so it can't be rushed. I am definitely envious of some of my friends who have managed to stay with a source of income given their line of work (food service, grocery stores, etc.).

I am still relatively privileged so I can hardly complain next to a lot of people going paycheck to paycheck, but that's my experience as a young student. I certainly hope things improve soon. It is so difficult with all this great new stuff coming out too.