What's Collectible? How do you know which performance figures are collectible or will be collectible? Much of it is guess work or gut feeling. Part of it is an educated guess. A big part is knowing your shop and target audience. So...
What added advice and help can I give you? In short this easy guide is to help You make the decision based on my 15 years in the business.The simplest, easiest and biggest piece of advice I can give you is to remember:
Halo Toys
"Today's toys are tomorrow's collectibles" Let me interpret that statement a little more. What are the kids into Now? What drives their imagination? What games, cartoons, and comic books do they want? Which toys, games etc. Will be the estimate one on this years Christmas lists?
These are the thing that are likely to be the collectibles of the future, the things that will be selling good money in other 10-20 years.
Why? Simply, because the collectors shop is basically driven by nostalgia. Look at today's most necessary and collectible items. They're commonly what were favorite when we were kids (or at least when I was a kid!).
Good examples of this are they huge shop for Friday the 13th, nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Chucky collectibles. All of these are huge cult movies from the 80's.
Then there are the Star Wars toys and Pokemon collectibles. G.I. Joes, performance Man, He-Man, Masters of the Universe and Thunderbirds.
It's the memories attached to these toys and programs that makes them collectible now, as well as the desire to have what we couldn't have as kids.
So, what do I think will be tomorrow's hot collectibles?
Looking at today's markets I would think that the anime/manga series Naruto and Bleach will come to be more favorite and collectible over the coming years as well as other favorite anime series such as Ghost in the Shell.
Also favorite video games such as Gears of War, Warcraft, Halo and Guitar Hero have a necessary estimate of merchandise available, many of which are highly collectible and are likely to remain favorite for many years yet.
Oh... And I nearly forgot about Ben 10. Ben 10 is other Tv animation series that seems to have come to be favorite recently and captured kids' imaginations.
And don't forget about normal, everyday items. Many of these are likely to come to be highly sought after and collectible as well.
A prime example of this phenomenon is the old Robinson jam jar labels. These featured a golliwog and were on Every jar produced back in the 70's.Thousands upon thousands were produced every year.
Now they sell for about 0 simply because they were banned. But who saved or collected them? Virtually no-one, because they were so common, an everyday item. Again it's the nostalgia and memories connected with them that drives' the shop and demand.
Do you remember any of the toys you had? Do you still have any of them? Where are they now? By our very nature, as kids we want to play with our toys, we aren't interested in keeping them safe and undamaged or even collecting them.
They were there to be played with. They were banged and bashed about, thrown around and mostly destroyed, broken and thrown out over the ensuing years. It's only now that we look back to them with the fondness of memories and a longing for our lost childhood.
So again it's often these things that come to be collectible and valuable. Ok, so what about little editions, low production runs or chase and variant performance figures, cards, stamps, toys or whatever that are produced today?
Again these are commonly targeted at today's collectors so are often based on past or vintage subjects, e.g. Star Wars, Thunderbirds, Elvis Presley, Battlestar Galactica etc.
Some will target new toys, games, current trends or favorite items such as Gears of War, Halo or even movies such as Hellboy.
These items will often be highly collectible initially due to their current popularity and high quiz, but will general see a dip in value after a few years and as new trends take their place, but...
If they became a favorite part of our culture and, or childhood experiences they will commonly gain in value again in the long term.
A very good example of this is the Pokemon cards. In the mid 90's they were Huge, so big in fact that I would say that every child in the world ever knew or had heard about them. Even kids in the poorest parts of Brazil were trading the cards.
But eventually, something else came along. The kids grew up and its popularity dwindled.
But now after ten years it is normally back in the top 30 searches each month. Prices of the cards are selling at a brisk rate on the auction sites and the quiz, for the old stuff is increasing. So, if you have an old Pokemon variety tucked away, maybe its time to dust it down!
This is because the kids who collected and bought it then are now "grown up" and look back at the fun days of collecting them and maybe getting some of them back again.
I know I in effect do. At the time I was Big on Pokemon. I had them All! I even had an Illustrator Pikachu and a private Mewto, two of The rarest cards.
But alas, being a trader I sold them all of, but now...
I often wish I had saved a few.
Another piece of advice is to look for niche markets. A niche shop is a master market. If you can find a small "niche" that has a loyal following then again these are likely to come to be highly collectible easy because although there is a lot less quiz, the supply or estimate of stock available will also be a lot scarcer and therefore more likely to come to be collectible or valuable.
In the long term, if you "invest" in the right things, the return in 10-20 years can be huge. in effect better than the mean return on your bank savings.
So, in order to determine what will hold it's value or growth in value you should consider:
What's favorite now.Check the top comics, cartoons, Tv programmes, films etc and look for the common themes.What are favorite household items?What games or toys do your kids and friends want and trash?What are the favorite niche markets?What has come to be part of our everyday lives, a part of our culture, our language (an excellent example here would be Google, even the term "to Google" something has come to be common) ?Consider the answers to these questions, these are the things that are likely to hold their prices and growth in value over the years.
What activity Figures Are Collectible?
See Also : Naot Shoes Top sale
