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Originally Posted by behindthemask

I have the Mark III Battle Damaged Iron Man figure and love it! I will give you some advice and pointers. One is if you really like a figure buy it, because if you wait too long your going to have to deal with inflated pricing from Amazon, BBTS, and Ebay! Shipping on these figures can be an extra $40-100 depending on the figure you get as the boxes are large and then need to be shipped in a larger box to protect it. If you a MOC collector, these figures rock as they have double shadowbox windows that allow you to see the figure inside and the boxes are a work of art in themselves. Hot toys all in all is big $$ collectors sell the headsculpts from $40-200 and break down the figure and sell it off piece by piece, hell most boxes just the box are worth $50. I think they're great investment pieces. as look on ebay the pricing for the preadator figures or blade, it's like $600+! I think having one or two as a focal point of your collection is the way to go. I would love to have them all or a lot of a line but at $150-300 a figure it gets hard to accomplish that feat. I would suggest going online figure out which ones you want and shop around, often times you can find sellers from Hongkong who have auctions with free shipping and there's where the big savings is. I bookmarked a Hottoys Thor series Odin for like $180 shipped, good price, but if I get him then I will want to get Thor and Loki. Myself if I had the $$ would have every IronMan figure released including both war mahinces, black widow, nick fury, thor,cap, spidey, the new hulk and hawkeye, 300, blade, and a bunch more. I think to be a completist or multiple buyer you need to have a nice display case/room and lots of $$ to blow. As each piece is an investment.

A lot of good advice in this post from behindthemask; just wanted to echo it.

The HT Iron Man stuff cemented my transition away from collecting Transformers. I started with the HT Mark I and from there have picked up every IM/WM they've produced. Can't emphasize enough the importance of buying it right away if you like it; especially any special editions associated with conventions or Japanese magazines.

Even though they're all pricey, the intervals between releases make it a bit easier to save your pennies in preparation. HT is a whole 'nother type of collecting--not better, just different.