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.

[sideswipes brother]

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

This

[Skyfire]

With MP-52 Starscream at preorder for $400, these are valid points. But I suspect Hasbro and Takara Tomy have crunched the numbers and perhaps view the MP line as a luxury that wealthy collectors will keep buying (like luxury cars). I do wonder about the Kingdom toys perhaps going up in price. That's their bread and butter.

It would be interesting to see behind the scenes how buying one line affects decisions to develop new toys (less famous characters) or new lines especially when consumer confidence is generally low.

My work is recession resistant, I have a limited TF focus and I missed out on the MP-11 series. So I'll probably buy MP-52 and the (more expensive) Thundercracker and Skywarp variants. I'll draw the line at the coneheads. Masterpieces are close to prohibitive now but I don't want them to fail. Still, Hasbro/TT is strangling the golden goose.