The Action Figure and Toy Collecting and Discussion Thread!

[OdoWanKenobi]

I remember when Marvel Legends were $8 a piece. Now, they're pushing $20 depending on where you go. Crazy times.

I was trying to collect everything Jetfire, Superman and Eeyore related.

[edit] Plus everything Rita Hayworth ever touched.

[cooleddie74]

For a short time recently many Walmarts across the country were marking down most or even all of their SW Vintage Collection figures to just $4.00 each, and for some lucky collectors that included all five figures in the brand-new Deleted Scenes wave. The $4 sale wasn't universal by a longshot but I'd say that most Wally Worlds in the U.S. sold the figures for that price. There were even examples of the Walmart-exclusive 2012 Dewback lizard going for only $3.00 at at least one store! A guy posted a photo on one of the collecting sites showing the six or seven Dewbacks he purchased for barely twenty bucks(the original retail price for those was $29.96 each).

If your timing is great you can still find amazing deals on toys and collectibles that will remind of you of the good old days, but those opportunities are getting rarer as time passes and stores try to pad their profit margins however and wherever they can.

I once saw a Jetfire/Skyfire on Amazon for $2000. ...One day...it was G1.

[Praetor_Shinzon]

OdoWanKenobi wrote:

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I remember when Marvel Legends were $8 a piece. Now, they're pushing $20 depending on where you go. Crazy times.

i miss those $8 days. it was so much easier to buy figures you didn't want just so you could get the build a figure piece.

[cooleddie74]

Wow. The five new figures in the Dr. Evazan wave are going for well over $100 on eBay. One---Nom Anor from the Expanded Universe novels---is going for over forty-five all by himself. These figures will be hitting retail outlets and toy shops before too long...well, hopefully anyways. The staggering impatience of some toy collectors that leads them to pay five or six times retail for an as-yet-unreleased item never ceases to amaze me.

[Tom Hendricks]

Here are my personal two favorite action figures I own. They are both from the time of the release of Tim Burton's Batman. While I have several other figures from this line, these two without a doubt are my favorite.

First up is Bob, poor old Bob. The most loyal of henchmen, the right hand man who meets an untimely death.


The second one is nothing really special, but my favorite of all my collection. Its the Quick Change Bruce Wayne.

[cooleddie74]

^
That's cool. I never knew they made an action figure of Bob the Goon from the Jack Nicholson movie. Neat! I didn't collect nor even pay much attention to the BATMAN toys in 1989 so some of these gems just slipped right past my radar.

This town needs an enema!

[Praetor_Shinzon]

i always wanted Quick Change Bruce Wayne when i was a kid. i had tons of Batman toys from the movie. i still have my Batwing in storage somewhere.

[cooleddie74]

It's amusing at times to see how far action figure tooling and sculpting has come since the 1980s. In 1989 those BATMAN figures were considered quality and about as accurate as you were going to get with the technology of that decade. Now an awful lot of them would be laughed out of almost any retail store you can think of for being so cheesy. Except the Bruce Wayne. For a 1989 toy that head's not too bad.

[Shazam!]

Picked up a few more Star Wars toys; Gungan Warrior, Tusken Raider and a VC Naboo guy.

[cooleddie74]

^
The Walmart 3-D "Discover the Force" figures? The Walmart exclusive Gungan and Tusken are quite excellent figures. I have multiples of each. I also have several of the Vintage Naboo Guards...they're great army builders even at an $8.96-$9.99 pricepoint.

[Unicron]

Tom Hendricks wrote:

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First up is Bob, poor old Bob. The most loyal of henchmen, the right hand man who meets an untimely death.

I like how the artwork is happy because he has hair, while the figure is sad because he doesn't.

[cooleddie74]

Yeah, I noticed that too...unless the hair on the figure is so lightly colored it's hard to see and it hangs behind the head, but it doesn't look like that's the case. Well, like I said above, 1980s action figures were amazing and rollicking playthings that gave myself and countless others endless joy and amusement, but accurate portrayals of movie and TV characters they weren't. I think the toys that came the closest to resembling their screen counterparts were the HE-MAN and THUNDERCATS figures.

[OdoWanKenobi]

Took a gamble on a Easter Grab Bag from Figure of the Day. Here's what I got:

NECA TMNT Leonardo bobblehead
GI Joe Renegades Toxic Viper
GI Joe Renegades Firefly
Avengers movie Iron Man Mark VI
Avengers movie Ultimate Captain America
Marvel Select Colossus

Not too shabby. I don't collect the Joes, but both come with some really cool accessories that I can make use of with other figures. I haven't gotten any Marvel Select in the past, but with how awesome Colossus is, I'm tempted to go pick up more. Seriously, this is one fantastic figure.