Don’t know how you guys do it….

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pophoody

Freaked Out
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I love 1/6 scales and am a little obsessed, but I’m not into Marvel or DC (my vices are Doctor Who, Back To The Future, 1978 Superman, and one off stuff.) I find it hard to keep up and find the money for those! It’s amazing what some of you build up.

Does it swallow up most of your money (unless you’re filthy rich)? If not how do you do it? I admire you all!
 
I've never lived outside my means, but my collecting ratcheted up as I got better jobs and more expendable income. If you can't afford, don't buy. Last thing you need is a silly hobby like this creating financial stress. Best strategy for a newer collector without a whole lot of money is to be patient and play the long game. Pick and choose only stuff you not only dig, but can seriously imagine keeping for awhile. Before you know it you will amass a decent collection, and will probably have some things you can sell for profit to help fund the newer, shinier object.

I'm actually having a problem now of having way too much stuff I have to get rid of, but lacking the time to take pics and post for eBay. . .1st world problems.
 
I get 80% of my figures from Sideshow due to their payment plans. It helps budgeting them into my monthly expenses. I also eat a lot of Sapporo Ichiban ramen lol
 
I'm actually having a problem now of having way too much stuff I have to get rid of, but lacking the time to take pics and post for eBay. . .1st world problems.
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Good luck. It'll be a PITA process filled with risks from getting screwed over by scamming scumbag buyers.
 
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Good luck. It'll be a PITA process filled with risks from getting screwed over by scamming scumbag buyers.

I’ve gotten lucky with the few times I’ve sold on eBay. I’ve heard horror stories though
I've sold quite a lot on eBay over the last ... 11 or 12 years ... I can only think of three bad experiences:

  1. A guy didn't educate himself on what he was buying (older, vintage item) and thought he was being ripped off. eBay sided with him so I just refunded him. Cost me some money but I got the item back and c'est la vie.
  2. Another guy claimed he never got the item. Very, very early in my selling career and not an expensive piece, I naively didn't get tracking. He may or may not have been telling the truth, small loss.
  3. 3rd guy was a psycho and tried to extort me -- but he was stupid about it and eBay customer service immediately sided with me and shut him down.
Other than that there have been a couple of non-paying buyers here or there that screwed up my auctions, but most of my experiences were fine. Fees are stupid high though.
 
I've sold quite a lot on eBay over the last ... 11 or 12 years ... I can only think of three bad experiences:

  1. A guy didn't educate himself on what he was buying (older, vintage item) and thought he was being ripped off. eBay sided with him so I just refunded him. Cost me some money but I got the item back and c'est la vie.
  2. Another guy claimed he never got the item. Very, very early in my selling career and not an expensive piece, I naively didn't get tracking. He may or may not have been telling the truth, small loss.
  3. 3rd guy was a psycho and tried to extort me -- but he was stupid about it and eBay customer service immediately sided with me and shut him down.
Other than that there have been a couple of non-paying buyers here or there that screwed up my auctions, but most of my experiences were fine. Fees are stupid high though.
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I'm not inclined to sell on eBay anymore for a variety of reasons.

High fees.
Lack of common sense by eBay when engaged with scamming buyers.
PayPal fees.
PayPal reporting $ if past the stated threshold for taxes.

If possible, I'd rather sell and accept only USPS a money order with very specific criteria.
 
I've never lived outside my means, but my collecting ratcheted up as I got better jobs and more expendable income. If you can't afford, don't buy. Last thing you need is a silly hobby like this creating financial stress. Best strategy for a newer collector without a whole lot of money is to be patient and play the long game. Pick and choose only stuff you not only dig, but can seriously imagine keeping for awhile. Before you know it you will amass a decent collection, and will probably have some things you can sell for profit to help fund the newer, shinier object.

I'm actually having a problem now of having way too much stuff I have to get rid of, but lacking the time to take pics and post for eBay. . .1st world problems.

That is solid advice overall.

It’s very easy to get into the mindset of gotta have it all now. It’s quite the slippery slope and new collectors end up with an unfocused collection with times they would’ve have bought if they’d spent more time thinking about if.

So I always advise folks to try to come up with a plan and a general focus early on. Take it slow unless it’s going to sell out and you absolutely cannot live without it. Don’t try to chase too many older items that have appreciated in value because there will always be something new.

I’m mostly done selling on eBay now. I’ll probably use it to sell off small items. It was a good run, though; not that many issues for me.

If you don’t have the time to sell, Timewalker does consignment. Maybe you can talk to them about it.
 
If not how do you do it?


In the old days, you could supplement your collection with trades, Ebay lots and buying loose parts. And much of this was simpler as shipping rates in general were more forgiving and price points were much different. ( Back when boxed sets were 50 dollars each or so, the ability for a dealer to break down a set and make parts available was likely much easier for them to try to generate a profit. When you have a set now that costs 279 retail, that's an entirely different ballgame for them)

Now I think most folks are better off trying to find a safe reliable dealer and one that offers some threshold for free shipping ( Looks like 350 dollars is the benchmark for many dealers now to trigger free shipping) and, if you can find it, one that won't charge sales tax. Then you can hope they offer a small discount on preorders. Some places use the "Pile Of Loot" format where they will hold items and ship all in one larger order. Some dealers will do that with heavy regular customers they want to keep happy.

Trading still looks somewhat useful, but the days of volumes of smaller trades over time probably isn't practical anymore. Not with shipping cost increases. I think that's a consideration too with surviving loose parts dealers. You have to ask yourself is that one pistol or little piece is going to be worth the shipping hit to get it to you.

It was a long time ago, but I used to ask hobbyists (not dealers) if they would sell me figures without the box ( reduced shipping hit) and I would sometimes offer paying in USPS Money Order ( no PayPal fees) Just that alone really cut a large difference over time.

Ebay is kind of tricky in that one thing that Ebay HQ never seemed to figure out is the majority of their bidders were small time sellers who were already on site managing their own auctions/lists. I know I was more purchase oriented on Ebay when I was selling things there more consistently. So as Ebay got more punitive and just unnecessarily complex, they didn't just lose small unit type sellers, but also lost those sellers as bidders and buyers as well.

You can have fun with not new/not the latest items in this hobby. If it was myself, starting today, and I had a genre in mind, I'd post in the Wanted area or wanted areas in the few hobby communities still around, and ask if anyone wanted to dump all their older stuff on me. For example, there's probably a ton of old Dragon Models 1/6th from the modern military genre still laying around out there, and some guy would gladly pack up all he had to you for like 5 cents on the dollar all in one big bundled shipping lot. With all the new Hot Toys Star Wars, there's probably a lot of older Sideshow Star Wars that some people might want to dump out too.

However it appears what you listed you collect is pretty niche in general. I don't think there is a way around the pricing on some of that. BTTF is a current line.

If you have some moderate talent with the skill needed, then getting a small 3D printer could be a hobby goldmine for you. Make your own stuff and make stuff you can trade or do light sales to fund the other things you want.

People usually have some kind of fixed hobby budget month to month. The game is finding ways to stretch it as a far as possible without punishing yourself for time you need/want elsewhere.

Something else to consider is that communication through forums like this are like the new "buggy whip" It's not how most people are interacting in communities these days. Social Media has changed the game quite a bit now. I'd almost guess there is a rough age demographic that's somewhat predictable for people who still use these forums. For the newer collectibles coming out, we are slowly being phased out as the "target market" The GI Joe Classified 1/12th RAH line is kind of a beacon of the kind of push/pull going on with certain groups of older collectors. There's still money to be made but the edition sizes being realized are indicative of a shrinking total base. When the people who were kids in the 80s get out of their prime earning years, the distance is too far for viable production. Kids today will love Marvel Avengers and Hunger Games one day in the future in the same way we all loved original Robocop and Terminator and Predator. Seeing the Terminator in the 80s and it's impact is not the same as some kid seeing the bizarre sequels with 70 year old Linda Hamilton limping along with a grenade launcher in the past few years. The other difference is people here who were kids in the 80s didn't have the same level of competition for attention.

Nostalgia as a function of practical marketing is a ticking clock.
 
Gets easier when you realize no company will ever produce your favorite characters to your exact preferences and standards, so you have to take your entire collecting budget and instead of using it to buy ten pieces, you buy five and spend the remainder on customizations.

Just be more of a snob, it's great for the wallet. :lol Don't know what it's doing to my cortisol levels long-term, but I hope the relief of saving money will offset that.
 
I sell stuff to offset things, but not even just old stuff. For example I bought a total of 5 Hot Toys Clone Trooper Deluxes through various stores, I only intended to keep 2. I parted out the figures on eBay, not as much as Timewalker though, I sold the entire body minus the helmets instead of pulling the armor off. I don't want to be left with a shin part I'll never use.

Anyway my balancing the profits of selling those parts, the two Deluxe Clone figures I kept wound up costing me less than $200 total. It's definitely a bit of work and doesn't work for every figure but when it does it helps a ton. Figures packed with accessories can make money, other ones that I did great on were like John Wick and the Infinity War Dr. Strange. You wouldn't make as much money doing Qui-Gon Jinn or something like that.
 
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