[Iceman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serious Lee

@ Iceman - I don't disagree with you that there are some figures out there that have increased in value due to rarity or condition, or both. As I've said before, I'll pay more for a figure that I value for any reason, and I won't feel bad about it for a second. My thought on the scalping certain figures is, for instance - all the recent rereleases that have been showing up in discount stores selling for prices that they were going for in their height of popularity ie Thunderball or Madame Mask etc.

Are those high priced? I mean, just about everything goes up on ebay for like 3x the price when it first comes out to see if suckers will bite but is the problem. If people do bite then sellers just look at "completed listings" and see that one has sold for a crazy price so they price it like that too. Unless the listings just sit for a long time with no one buying then prices don't lower. But stuff like that is all still what I would classify as "at retail" even if it's at a discount store. It's crappy when you know they just bought a discount figure and are charging what premium prices but that's what they do. Even all those Legends for $8 right now won't last long and people are still finding them picked through when they get there. At lot of collectors won't ever know that they were at Ross or TJ Maxx or wherever, they'll just see that there are more on ebay all of a sudden. I mean, when the subscription figures for AA and Dr. Doom were on HTS people were still buying them on ebay for whatever the price was there. Even Nick Fury sat on HTS for months before people realized not to buy him from ebay.

Quote:

...I find it a bit offensive that a person would value a War Machine that has obvious wear and tear on the package at $40 US.

Why offensive? I agree that the price is higher than I would expect to pay for that particular figure but I thought your point was the $6.99 sticker pissed you off? At this point that shouldn't matter. The fact that you could probably get one for $15 elsewhere is more important. Heck, I got rid of one for $2 a while back. We see stuff everyday on ebay were someone is asking $100 while the second highest listing is $60. Those people are just stupid as they can't possibly expect to ever sell their stuff. I don't get angry about it because seeing it makes me laugh. I kind of wish ebay didn't have buy-it-now and only auctions so people wouldn't just put up their fantasy price on everything. The completed listings would show a bunch of auctions that started too high that no one bid on so then sellers would start lowering prices.


At the same time selling on ebay is probably the worst thing about the hobby. Buyers have all the control and you basically just have to pray people will be honest and not try to scam you. Plus ebay takes about 15% (even on shipping) so it would impossible to offer things at retail cost even if sellers wanted to. When you have your own site all you would have to pay is a small payment processing fee. And buying something online that you can't see the condition of then hoping for mint would drive me crazy. I'm really glad I'm not a MOC collector. When I sell I never call anything "mint" or mention any words like that because people will nitpick you to death and demand money or they will leave you bad feedback. I hardly ever sell anything on there that isn't loose. I wish I was back in SoCal so I could at least sell stuff on craigslist for free and there would be a decent enough market for it.