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Diamond Card Talk Member |
So here is a link to only one of the articles regarding Funko's plan to destroy over $30M of their Funko Pop inventory, which they can no longer store. https://www.ign.com/articles/f...oducts-to-a-landfill Maybe the amount might surprise someone, but it really shouldn't. We have done all this before with quite a few collectible fads, probably closest to the Beanie Babies craze. Funko Pops were cheaply made and they were made in the hundreds of millions. Well before the pandemic they could be found all over the place and they are still in every hobby store, if you have one near you. But it was the retail market that really distributed them, with collectors looking for the "rarer" pieces on big box store shelves. I'm sure some people will say that certain Pops will hold their value even now. Maybe so, but having the maker say that $30M plus in inventory is worth less than garbage will not help the current market or promote the value of new releases. This is a cycle that constantly repeats itself, yet collectors of all stripes always seem to fall for holding on to the mass produced new fad until it is worthless. | ||
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| Gold Card Talk Member |
Thanks for the link. Yeah, Funkos are everywhere so there's no cachet to having any now. I assume there are rare ones owned by the connected and the lucky but the collector who has a wall of different ones thinking they would increase in value just lost his lunch. A couple of months ago, I saw a flea market seller with nothing but Funko with no one in line to buy. Like you said, by the time the average guy sees something is a big seller and loads up, the craze is over.
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| Gold Card Talk Member |
There was a comic book store about two towns over which had been around since the 1990s. About 3 years ago I went back and it must have been 70 percent funkos and 30 percent comics. In 2022 it closed | |||
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Contest Czar |
There is a store next to comic book store in Slidell, LA that is nothing but Funko Pops. It has been about 6 months since I have been by, I wonder if they have closed up or will make another year. | |||
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Platinum Card Talk Member |
Actually, there is an upside here... Funko is not fire selling these. Instead they are scrapping them, thus not flooding the already full market with super cheap inventory. I still see pops selling at toy shows, but I honestly don't know at what price. Would be much worse for those that already own retail stock of Funkos if they'd dumped them for pennies on the dollar. Ed ____________________ Trading Page Now Online: http://www.scifi.cards/trading.html Collecting Sketches of the Character Crystal   | |||
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Platinum Card Talk Member |
Which is exactly why I never started. I wouldn't say they are worth less than garbage but certainly worth less than storage.  As stated already, every time I looked at a Pop my brain translated it to a Beanie Baby. The big difference is that most of these have some sort of pop culture reference to them. Always a chance of some nostalgic resurgence 25 years from now. Of course 25 years X storage and maintenance = ??? ____________________ Just because it's rare doesn't mean it's valuable. | |||
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| Platinum Card Talk Member |
Difficult not to feel the air of desperation in most comic shops today. Too much direct cost spread across too many platforms. Half your customers shopping online inside the store. ____________________ Just because it's rare doesn't mean it's valuable. | |||
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| Gold Card Talk Member |
I have relatives in New Jersey who are big into comic books and from what they tell me, there aren't that many comic stores left. Certainly nothing like there were in the 90s and even the 2000s. Even when I frequent them, I don't see any young customers. No kids. I tried giving my nephews some comics and they are not into them at all. They have never even seen any Marvel movies and even those don't interest them. They and their classmates are into video games. Nothing else | |||
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| Diamond Card Talk Member |
Yes, that is why people making the comments "why don't they just give them away to charity as toys instead of land fill?", don't understand that Funkos were also marketed to collectors. If 30M - 36M worth of Funkos was just released to $1 bins, the market for maybe upwards of 90% of the figures (I'm guessing on the percentage), will suddenly become $1. They want to keep selling these things not just to kids, so buried plastic is better than flooded plastic. But my goodness, look at the waste. These crappy plastic figures will be left to pollute the ground and never really go away. We're carrying around recycled shopping bags in our cars to protect the environment, while all sorts of industries are allowed to dump toxins and PVC products anywhere they want. After the pandemic, there is more plastic being disposed of than ever, but it's OK because my soda bottle still gets a nickel return. Talk about hypocrisy. | |||
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| Gold Card Talk Member |
I have a nephew who really likes comics and it's partly because my brother has a big collection going back to the 80's and maybe some older stuff. My nephew collects that older stuff and he's into 60's-70's sci fi too but he is a rarity in his age group. He has a few friends who are into too but it's not like the 80's when a lot of kids bought X-Men, Spider-Man and tried out a couple of the newer series as well. When I go to a comic book store, I see the same old back issues on the wall and some are $100-200. Who's going to buy one of those these days? An old guy like me bought it new or got a good deal later when it was still under $40. No kid is going to buy a Vampirella from the early 70's for $100 - not even my nephew. A comic shop is left hoping some casual collector tourist with money drops in and likes the cover. There are still a few comic shops from the 80's left but some along with the mall they were in are gone. There used to be four rock shops within 10 miles too. The last one closed at least 10 years ago.
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