[hywaystar]

So I need a bunch of stuff for my collection, finally have about 3 grand saved to start buying, problem is it seems the prices are very inflated.

Thoughts on waiting a year or two to buy. I do not understand this market at all!

[Gatchaman]

Yeah, Joe prices have recently gotten out of hand. I think the bubble will pop, but it might not be for a year or two. Even when it does pop, it probably won’t go down to the prices we use to see.

Or I could be totally wrong and the prices keep going up and never come back down. LOL

[hywaystar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatchaman

Yeah, Joe prices have recently gotten out of hand. I think the bubble will pop, but it might not be for a year or two. Even when it does pop, it probably won’t go down to the prices we use to see.

Or I could be totally wrong and the prices keep going up and never come back down. LOL

LOL I know right


I mean I have a buddy who collects, who is also a big player in the stock market, who sold his loose Joes! He said he is going to buy them back in a few years when they are 20-30% less in price than they are now.

He only had about 50 and all the straight arm but no way I could sell and re buy, heck half of my collection are mine from when I bought new in 82-84!

I swear I have seen some loose Joes that were $20 all the time that are not $50-$60

[Itchweed]

I started about 5 years ago to get the vintage figures I didnt have as a kid. I was able to piece together a good but by buying the figure and tracking down weapons and accessories later. Now though, everything vintage is skyrocketing and I don't see it coming down. My way of thinking is if you see one in real good shape and can afford it, buy that sucker cause you will never see it again...

[Breakerfan]

I can't believe how high priced vintage joes have become in the last year. Part of me thinks it is due to the pandemic. About the only place to shop it seems is Ebay, which has always been more expensive. Once comic cons and toy shows come back I think you will start to be able to make more deals again and the Ebay prices will probably come back down some as well.

Though as previously mentioned, I don't think prices will go back down to what they were five years ago or so.

I've pretty much all but halted buying joes at the moment deciding to wait to fill the last holes in my collection in hopes prices will become reasonable again.

If they keep going up, I may just sell off everything and call it a day.

[zentropa]

I think it is worth waiting a while, but I don't expect that prices will fully return to what they were a year ago. Pretty much every hobby I have has gone through similar price spikes due to the pandemic and stimulus checks (as well as disruptions in supply chains).

A year ago is when I dug my vintage figures out of storage and sold them off and began collecting modern and it seems that most vintage has pretty much doubled in price since then. Modern has also gone up quite a bit, but more so on carded figures than loose ones (especially FSS). What I did notice was that last October-December prices began to return somewhat on a lot of items, but then the January stimulus drove them back up again.

I believe that the next stimulus check is going to push prices up even higher in the short run and a lot of figures/vehicles are probably going to get extremely rare for the next few months. How quickly things return to something more reasonable/normal will depend a lot on how quickly life returns to something more normal with the COVID vaccine and certain jobs/industries returning that have shut down for the past year.

One thing about prices as they are is that things cut both ways. Selling/trading extras you have will benefit from the inflated prices as well. Finding reasonably priced lots that have figures you need and selling/trading the ones you don't is also going to yield more and be easier to unload. That is what I had to resort to when I wasn't happy with how high prices have gotten.

With that in mind, when all is said and done, I believe prices will be up by 20-50% on a lot of items that will likely never return to what they were, but I doubt that they will remain this high forever.

I could be wrong, though.

[Sataninjaku]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hywaystar

LOL I know right


I mean I have a buddy who collects, who is also a big player in the stock market, who sold his loose Joes! He said he is going to buy them back in a few years when they are 20-30% less in price than they are now.

He only had about 50 and all the straight arm but no way I could sell and re buy, heck half of my collection are mine from when I bought new in 82-84!

I swear I have seen some loose Joes that were $20 all the time that are not $50-$60

I just went through the collection dump at the end of 2019 because of a rough patch and have been going through the process of putting it back together since.
I've actually already acquired way more figures than I had before, having picked up somewhere around 400 or so at this point (including some I've gotten rid of already), and yes, for the most part, prices are up. There are still good deals to be had though, you just have to be patient and not pull the trigger on most BIN listings. The only figures so far that I haven't been able to find in good shape/complete at comparable prices to what they were a few years back are the '86 BAT and 87 Outback figures. The BAT especially burnt my ass- it went from an average of $20-25 to $60 at the low end in just a couple of years.

While your buddy is correct in saying the price will drop, I'd say we're more looking at that happening when the average Joe fan is somewhere between 55-60 years old.

Lastly, I agree. If you're one of those lucky few that still has childhood Joes, keep them. You can't put a price on that.

[BeachheadMatt]

Great question/topic.

As the owner of a large O-ring collection, it is getting harder and harder to watch the prices rise and not sell off my O-ring Collection. I mean, so many figures are now fetching $100+ for one figure. Hell, just a few years ago, you could buy super rare Brazilian and UK figures for $25-$50, now some of the most common figures are selling for that amount.

When I used to buy up large lots, my magic number was $2. Meaning, I would try to win auctions without paying more than $2 per figure. It may sound crazy, but I was doing this quite frequently. Hell I once scored Night Force Lt Falcon and an original Cobra trooper for around $2 each.


As for why this is, I actually DON'T think it is due to the pandemic. I think part of it is because Hasbro went 6 straight years (roughly) without making any meaningful Joe product. I also think part of it is the explosion in popularity of 80's & 90's nostalgia. Lastly, and possibly the biggest part, I think it's because millennials (who grew up with GI Joe) have gotten older and now have better jobs and more disposable income.

Now, predicting the future is another story. Personally, I don't think the prices are going to fall anytime soon, and may still rise quite a bit more. I think there are a few things that could send prices falling. One, Hasbro could get serious about new GI Joe product (I'm sure most reading this are thinking, yeah F'n right, won't happen). The new Joe product would have to be good enough to make people abandon their O-ring joes. This doesn't seem likely at the moment.

The other thing that could make a difference, is that Baby Boomers and Gen xer's slowly start dying off. Their collections end up in estate sales, or sold off by their GenZ/IGen children, and eventually make their way to ebay. This is grim, and I'm sorry to bring it up, but this is the main way that I see prices falling.

Another possibility, is that there is some sort of "leap" in 3d printer technology in the future that allows people to make their own Black Major style replicates.

[LionHeart]

Wait for the bubble to pop and prices to go back down to manageable levels. Best bet is to wait for the recession to hit and then you can scoop up collections for pennies on the dollar since people blew all their money and didn't save a dime and will be desperate.

[Josh Z]

On the one hand, these are 30+ year old toys. Most of them were heavily played with by children who didn't take particularly good care of them, and simply threw them out when they got damaged or the kid outgrew them. So it stands to reason that, the more time that passes, the harder they will be to obtain. That's only logical.

On the other hand, Hasbro literally produced many of these figures and vehicles in the millions. The worldwide toy market was super-saturated with G.I. Joe product for more than a decade. There really ought to still be ample supply of most of these items.

Even as a long-time collector, I still have gaps that I'm trying to fill. While I've long liked to boast of having a "complete" collection of vintage ARAH figures, the truth is that I'm missing some notable variations. I only have one version of Starduster and two versions of the V1 Steel Brigade. I either broke or traded off all of my 1982 straight-arm figures for the swivel-arm versions years ago and never put any effort into re-acquiring them until now.

I just spent $80 on a straight-arm Snake Eyes, which feels a little galling. There was never any shortage of this figure out in the world. He shouldn't be this expensive, but that was actually the best price I've seen for one with no broken parts in months.