Why & WTF!
 

ok so i have been doing some nightly ebay figure browsing and seeing alot of crazy prices. some made me rack my brain to try to figure it out, and others made me want to ask for the seller's home address so i can go and slap them personally.

case in point- XMO: wolverine & colossus 2 pack. i saw one for $145..WTF!!
heres one i've been trying to figure out since i been collecting. Marvel Legends Crossbones $69.99..WTF!! i know he has a piece for ares but these were LOOSE.

sorry, just me ranting and i wanted to share it with everyone else
whats you guys take on these prices? or which figure have you come across with an outragous price tag?

I was doing the same and stumbled across these
These separate wouldn't even be this amount even at crazy scalper prices
Marvel Universe Captain America SDCC Variant Vision Daredevil 8 figure comic lot | eBay

thats exactly what im talking about. phasing vision and dark daredevil are not even that rare

It's all about collectors driving the price up and people willing to pay those prices in the first place.
At the same time, if there is a high demand than those same collectors will keep bidding and inflate the prices across eBay entirely. eBay used to be the place to get some awesome deals, now you have to really look around or else you'll find an auction being bid on by 20 different people willing to pay anything to get that one piece missing from their collection.

that make sense, but you would have to be a die hard collector to pay some of those prices. im not knocking anyone that has or will pay for certian ones, im just mainly blasting the prices that are put dwn. the ones i look @ are all buy it now auctions. i can only imagaine what the actual bidding war would be on them

I like to filter my searches price + shipping, lowest first.

Just because they're asking, that doesn't mean they're getting.

^^ true words have never been more spoken

Hell yeah,it really is a joke,i see it all the time,and dont even get started on US-UK shipping prices, the sad thing is in their desparation to get "that" figure people pay these ridiculous prices,if collectors used their brains,and didnt pay the prices,sooner rather than later these ridiculous prices would drop to reasonable levels,its just another example of how the collector-based community hurts itself rather than works together........

most scalpers arent collectors, theyre schemy basement dwelling merchants. If only in ten years i can find colored vision for ten dollars, but thats a pipedream.

thats what makes it harder on us i guess, cause they'll go buy everyone on the pegs then we miss out. find them on ebay and kick our selfs in the face because we missed and need it for a "complete" collection. its a neverending cycle and the more input i get here, the more im starting to understand it.

it still f*&^ed up tho

My most wanted figure right now is Batman Reborn Batgirl from DC Direct. Any guess how much she is ...oh only 100+ on ebay! Thats freaking nuts but its like if I want it I have no choice but to pay. It upsets me so bad :( another thing is scalpers dont even realize sometimes that a figure is desired for its BAF piece. Take gentleman ghost for example from DCUC scalpers will put him up for 50$ loose not realizing what makes him desired is his Giganta piece.

and its not only ebay. a site called gofigure has some crazy prices on alot of there items. so does some of the more popular sites, i cant really remember the names off hand

i noticed that too! thats because they dumb, money hungry, premature persperation having ass clowns.

unfortunatly, these assclowns are the ones driving the collectors market.

I saw an auction for a rts perceptor cardback only going for $7 something,no figure,just cardback,and another auction for perceptors instructions for $3 something.

my marshalls were loaded with perceptors a month ago, but they got rid of all their generations stock.

agreed i search lowest price then i research using newly listed, and looking at buy it now. sometimes newstuff comes up dirt cheap and dissappears lightnig fast...ive gotten lucky quite a few times just by being in the right place and the right moment.

Sometimes, it's a "that'll teach you" attitude. Basically, a win at all costs attitude exhibited by aggressive bidders who are on auction steroids. They appear to care equally about crushing their opponents for daring to bid against them as they are about securing their item. Sometimes even more so than securing the item. A lot of times, it gets you thinking, "Why are you doing this? There's going to be ten more auctions appearing after this one ends. If we all just let each other win one, we can all get one at a decent price." These are the same kinds of people who have driven the housing market up to the point where regular people who have lived in a city their entire lives can no longer afford a house because a 1 bedroom shack that used to cost $50,000 is now $500,000. "What?? $300,000?? I'll give ya $470,000 for it!!! BAM! That'll teach ya!" "But sir, this isn't even an auction..." "I said $470,000, don't make me insist on $500,000" "Ok...". This destructive behaviour is further nurtured on aggressive bid sites that have capitalized on these aggressive/addictive behaviour patterns like Quibids.

well said man \M/

When it comes to Ebay, if I don't feel comfortable paying the asking price for an auction (either BIN or current bid), then I don't buy. No matter how much I want or need the item.

That's been going on with Transformers for years now. Some people, myself included, like to keep the cardbacks and instructions as part of the "toy". I also cut out the backs of the boxed TFs (if there's a bio or tech specs on it). But it's only for the TFs I buy off the shelf. I'll gladly accept those items for vintage toys if it's part of the auction/trade for the actual toy, but I'm not about to bid on an auction for just a piece of cardboard.

The box for a G1 Fort Max goes for about $100 in good condition. $150 if it has the [undamaged] Styrofoam insert too. Nothing else, mind you. This is just for the packaging.

Yeah. This has made me typically ignore ebay altogether.
Years ago, I learned people would rather big on an item someone else has bid on and take it from them, than to bid on the exact same that has no one competing for it.
Years and years ago (Before DVD), when the TF movie got rereleased on VHS in canada, but not stateside, there were pages and pages of listings of it with no bidders. Every time I tried to get one, someone would *always* come along and take it from me at the last minute, as opposed to just getting another one that no one's bid on. That, and other simular situations left such a bad taste in my mouth, I've never gotten over it.

Is that the Stephanie Brown Batgirl.
If so, that'd explain why I never could find her, even though I desparately wanted her.
DC Direct figures usually aren't that difficult to find. My comic shop *always* gets them in, but they never got the Steph Batgirl. On the downside, they also price based on popularity... so a figure that's going for that much on ebay would be that much in store. -=sigh=-

I seen the exact same auctions you were refering to. I laughed for a good 2mins over the price the seller was asking for wolverine and colossus, don't get me wrong the set is very hard to find and desireable, but for that price I can get sdcc archangel and a full wave or more worth of figures. As for crossbones, yeh he's probably the most sought after figure from that wave, add the Ares baf piece and you end up paying nearly $100 for 1 figure. It's odd because it's not like he's even a running change or it's the variant. Like I can understand 70-100 for ML series 1 stealth iron man, or 1-200 for dragon man, and 1-200 for deadpool seems to be the rate. Wish is wasn't I really want a ML deadpool figure.

Perceptors were showing up at marshalls for $6.99