This fandom is excruciatingly single-minded at times. Whatever is hot, is hot and everything else quickly drops off the radar. Looking back at the prices for G1 figures in the late 1990s, you might suspect that they were made from gold...15 year later, they've stabilized at significantly lower "values." The plus side to this is that if you happen to be into whatever the fandom isn't into at the moment, you can score some great deals. For example, now is probably a great time to complete your Beast Machines collection! Also, (with a few exceptions), the Unicron Trilogy stuff seems to be nearly worthless at the moment. Lol... On a scale of 1-10, how hot (popular, in demand, etc) would you rate each category of TF hobby right now? Feel free to pick your own categories...but I was thinking: G1 vintage G1 Vintage Japanese exclusive G1 vintage comics G1 reissue G2 Machine Wars Beast Wars Beast Machines R.I.D./TF2000 Dreamwave comics Unicron Trilogy Alternators/Binaltech Animated Classics IDW Comics Universe/CHUG Movie/Bayformers Rescue Bots Kre-o TF Prime RID (current) Combiner Wars Masterpiece (Takara and/or Hasbro) etc. ...or categorize however you see fit. Any input is welcome.
Nobody? Ok I'll play. I don't go to online auctions but I yard sale and find a lot. G1 is not hot now so I'm buying them all lol!!! At the stores combiner wars is hot now. All I can find is Silverbolt...
Speaking from experience, RiD never seemed too big until lately. It wasn't long ago that you could find a MISB RiD Optimus for not much more than I paid for him in 2001 at Toys R Us brand new, but it seems to have taken off recently. Which I'm okay with - I collected all of CR/RiD long ago with a tiny handful of rare exceptions, so I'm kinda glad to see its time come around. Funny to think that CR/RiD was 15-ish years ago now, maybe it's finally coming around as "hey that was my first TF series as a kid" (even though I see a ton of posts like that about the Unicron Trilogy). Hell, I myself was young enough that I could consider Car Robots a "childhood favorite", as I was all of 12-13 when it started airing in America as RiD. Anyway, enough rambling. I think RiD is finally starting to climb in price, but it's been slow and steady enough to not consider it "hot" exactly, just "popular again".
As a dealer here's my guage, 1 (cold)-10 (red hot) G1 vintage 10+ (Undisupted champ, G1 still remains red hot in spite of numerous attempts to usurp its holy throne, CHUG and now MP) G1 Vintage Japanese exclusive ???? G1 reissue 8 G2 7.5 Machine Wars 4-5 Beast Wars 5-6 (select large TM pieces sell very well) Beast Machines 1-2 (the worst of all)-Couldn't give the crap away R.I.D./TF2000 5 (certain large pieces sell well) Unicron Trilogy 2-3 (select items do well, but cyb. in particular does very poorly) Alternators/Binaltech 3-4 (did better many years ago) Animated 5 (Solid sellers) Classics 6.5 (cooled off) Universe/CHUG 5-6 (was much more popular years ago before MP reboot) Movie/Bayformers 7-8 (ROTF the best of the 4) Rescue Bots 2-3 Kre-o ???? TF Prime 4 Generations 8 RID (current) 5 Combiner Wars 9.5 Masterpiece (Takara and/or Hasbro) 10
^ Movie/Bayformers 7-8. Really? I have a hard time believeing this is the average. Or is it the handful of hot sellers dragging the average up? How would you break the rankings into the fours movies?
I'm no dealer so just going on stuff I look to buy. One issue I have with G1 stuff is that MPs be it 3rd party or HasTak are redoing characters for about the same price or cheaper than what a good G1 version costs. Some of my recent purchases include, FT Swoop, Takara Wheeljack and Xtransbots Megs. All of these can be had for the same or cheaper then what a good G1 version sell for. I don't have a G1 Shockwave either, guess who I do have? Quakewave. I eventually hope to finish my G1 collection but if I have a choice of getting a new MP version or the og, I go with the MP.
ROTF does seem to be regarded by many now as some of the best engineered and deco'd wide release TF toys Hasbro has ever done. As Hasbro's new stuff just gets worse and worse it's not surprising people's appreciation is increasing. That being said, how do the 4 movies compare? As I look at my shelves, I don't have anything from the first movie up. I have most of the HA and Leaders from 2 and 3 up and a mix of heavily customized and OS KO's from AOE up now.
third party is hot right now, along with combiners wars and masterpiece And I agree with someone else, g1 is not hot right now, which is good for me too cuz im currently buying g1 season 1 characters, and getting some mighty awesome deals.
It's been a great year to complete my Alternators. Even the rare ones are available well under $50, and common ones can be picked up for as little as $15. CHUG also seems to be in a sell off phase as people decide to go all MP style.
The more I settle into what's current, the more appealing other aesthetics and engineering become. It fuels itself, the forgotten will always seem novel again when it's remembered.
