Marvel Universe...Buy or Sell???
 

As of September 2011, is the Marvel Universe and all tie-in lines a buyer's or seller's market?

The re-release of many rarer figures has certainly brought down the value of some figures...HOWEVER with the seemingly gaining popularity of the line (someone mentioned that their first figure was FALCON!!) as we approach Avengers 2012, is it a buyers market (scooping up older figures at retail) or a sellers (unloading rarer figures to folks new in the game?)

Weigh in as I weigh if it is in fact, time to part ways with my collection.

It's definitely a buyer's market. These figures aren't worth much anymore.

chris...thats not the answer I was looking for. lmao!

If you're trying to make money you're in the wrong business my friend.

I know, I wish it wasn't the case, especially since I paid a premium for some of these figures but the reality is that these just don't hold their value. You would however make a pretty penny doing a large lot sale (Not on eBay) to someone BRAND new who just wants all the figures at once without having to hunt them down. A lot of people will pay a lot more for that kind of convenience.

Buyers definantly

I've been collecting them since the Target BOGO, paid four bucks on average for my collection of 35 or so. That should tell you something.

It's a buyers market my friend, now sell me your entire collection for $2 a figure.

Seriously though, it is a buyers market. Id say hold onto them as most are found pretty cheap nowadays and as they circulate out of retail and no more revision waves come out maybe they will become more desirable and rise in price.
Either way you have a bad @ss collection, dont sell unless you need the money bro.

you know..its not that i WANT to part with them, its just that Im quite literally running out of room! FTL!

Seriously.

There's a few figures here and there that'll be a money maker if you have them to sell (IM2 Mandarin comes to mind), but for the most part everything can be bought for a pretty cheap price.

yeah, I mean I could unload the obvious (Mandarin, X-Force Archangel, etc) but damn I'd be stuck with a whole lotta nothing after that. I think if I just had room to display, I would be quite pleased, but in a 620sq. foot 1 bed apartment in Downtown ATL, these bins and Bankers Boxes are an eyesore.

Sounds like you need a bigger apartment.

I definately understand the need for space as my one bedroom apartment isn't big enough to hold all my stuff either. I rotate my Transformers with my MU figs every couple of months so that way everyone gets displayed equally.:D


Of course my kids think I'm nuts every time they come over and the shelves have been changed, but hey they're young, they need to get used to change,lol.

Sell, and sell to me :)

Sounds like you need some shelves. LOL. Lots and lots of shelves. Actually I fit my ENTIRE MU collection on two wall units and I have lots of doubles.

It's a buyers market now, but I think that's going to change going into next year. The new practice with case packouts is to include multiples of the new figures instead of only one and then a bunch of old figures.

Plus, the line is going into its fourth year! A lot of people are going to be coming to the party pretty late, especially after "The Avengers" draws a lot of attention to Marvel. If you look at the Marvel Legends line, many of them still go for a lot of money, because you literally can't find them at any retail place.

It comes and goes. Right now we're in the buyer's market, last year was a seller's market, and next year might be a seller's market again.

It often varies figure to figure. Supply and Demand. That's usually on a figure to figure basis. New figures usually always sell for loads until they make it into the revision waves repeatedly. With the large amount of figures right now too, it's going to vary heavily with who is on shelves at any given time. So the high demand figures will be sought after and have a premium price if they are rarer on shelves.

Right now for example, that's still Thanos, Cable, and the newest waves(2011 wave 3 and 4), but come next year that could be something entirely different.

As for movie lines, they vary. Usually the tail end of the new figures get the biggest price push as they take the longest to hit shelves. So Mandarin and War Machine from IM2 in particular would be a good bet. At least until they start making their way into MU packaging, like some wolverine figures seem to be. (The infamous Astonishing Wolverine Buck specificly which was a high cost figure in the seller's market.)

Open them up!

ohhhh I like this answer!!

The hype of finding most of the newer figures has significantly died down, although I haven't seen the Taskmaster/Deadpool set in quite a while. This new wave with X-23 will be highly sought after for about a month once they start hitting most parts of the country, then that will fade out too. Thus is the world of MU as we know it. If you have about 60 Blade figures though, you could probably sell them for enough to buy a new car.

To answer your question, it's definatley a buyers market not so much a sellers. The figures are collectable and desirable, if priced right they will all sell, but if your looking to double or tripple your money it's going to be very hard. Unless you have the rarest of the rare and what comes to mind would be colored Vision, Blade, mail away Nick Fury and Xforce Archangel, and anything released from CC and Mandarin each commanding an easy $50-200+. Other then that it comes down to the wave it self what the assortment ratio, if Wolverine is 1/case he is considered more valuable and sought after, but over time with releases ,repaints and boxsets it takes away from the original single carded figure.

I'd say keep the collection don't sell, it takes years before you know what the true market value is. An item maybe worth $1 but give it 10-20 years and they stop making them and it gets harder to find it then becomes worth $100 or $1000 and to the right person on the right day, sky's the limit. You have a big collection and all moc, if you truely want to make a profit you'd have to sell it as a 1 shot deal with a reserve sticker and something to make the seller drop $5000 such as free shipping.

As far as your limited space issue, I hear/feel your pain, I too live in a small 1 bedroom apt, with my gf and tons of shit, and constantly running out of room, I try to sell/get rid of an item if I add an item, especially with clothes. In order to better your situation I have 3 ideas. 1 stop buying toys for a few months and save up enough for a bigger place. 2 rent a storage locker, most places charge you like $1 for your first month, they're clean, heated and you wouldn't need a massive sized room so average rental cost / month should only be newheres from $10-50 max, or if you have friend/family to store it with. 3rd option and the most logical to most of us is, open them! buy yourself a nice display case or couple bookshelfs and open then, the packaging is 90% of the clutter, but by doing so you do drop the overall value.

Just a follow up, toys themselves when released aren't anymore valuable then the sticker price you pay, but like anything overtime when they're no longer made and the majority of them being toys are broken, used, worn, having 1 moc can turn out to be a gold mine, tell that to the kids in the 60's who managed to keep their 6 million dollar man intact with all the pieces or the mego figures of old. Some of the old stuff is 1000's of dollars for just 1 figure, give it time and you will see your investment grow. But it's not going to happen over night and your MU stock may go up or down, but the longer you wait the sweeter the rewards maybe. I was reading an article about a guy who bought a rare video game on ebay for $14,000 turns out it was even more rare then the seller even knew and the guy who bought it tuned around and relisted it with more accurate historical information and got $210,000! If you truely want to see the future for MU watch ML.

haha. what video game is worth the price of a small house?

Anyways, if time has answered anything, from g1 transformers to voltron, it takes YEARS to get that so called sweet value for your figure. Of course, you better damn well hope theres nostalgia for it or your screwed. Im some cases it doesnt matter if a toy is rare, it just doesnt have the value down the line. The truth is, MU doesnt have the widespread appeal that 80s or 90s or whatever toy lines did, where thousands of people were lining up to grab these things. Chances are when this line gets cancelled in like 3 years(please no) we will definitly see some change in value. Us collectors now will most likely be the ones pining for these things 20 years from now.

I passed on blade a couple of times. Just don't care for that fig. But you're right about the hype. If you want to sell for max profit you have to strike while the irons hot know whats popular and sell to the need to have it now crowd.

I don't agree that in 30-40 years these things will be worth what the toys of the 60's and 70's are worth today. back then there was no such thing as collectors. No one kept anything in the box toys were meant to be played with so they were. That's why there worth so much in good condition. Starting with the 90's people started holding on to everything MOC. Take the SW POTF line. Big hype and prices out of the gate and now you can't give them away. There making too many MU figs and we are keeping them MOC so they will never be as rare as out parents toys.

G1 Transformers were getting out of control price wise 10 years ago. Now that they have reissued almost all of them the price has fallen big time. I didn't care to much for that. Re-issues kill the vintage market.