So, I'm not a fan of collecting figures, and tossing the boxes. For me, I've got an entire shelf with Boxes stacked up, in mint or as they came condition. Meticulously removing my figures from it, and then placing them aside for display. However, I do like boxes for figures. I've had the TT reissue series of G1 boxes, with a door to the window box inside. Which was nice to collect, and looked like books on my shelf. But with so many 3rd party products and boxes, they tend to vary by company and by scale.

What I would love to see as a tend were smaller boxes. More intuitive. Like a box that has a sliding drawer for accessories, which are stored in vaccuum packed plastic trays, and the main bot in robot mode in a tray above it, or next to it.

Boxes that are tighter, they fit more closely around the bot, and give room for shelf space, for those of us who keep them. I also want to have them with a front panel door that can open for display of a window box of the figure inside. I mean, I like the window box look but only if there's a cover. As we've seen in the past from Hasbro and TT, those boxes always tend to get beat up, and are mainly meant for trashing once opened. Its a waste of material. I don't like the twisty ties, I understand what their for, but honestly there are ways of storing the bots securely without the need for them.

I recently went to Wal-Mart and found those NECA horror movie figures, and thought wow..wish TF figures would be done that way. Book style. The tighter the box is around the figure, the slimmer it is and better for storage. Uniformity also helps, so with like Fanstoys or whomever, if you have a line of figures, why not similar packaging? Wouldn't it look great on a book shelf somewhere? I could display the boxes on book shelves and have my bots above the boxes.. The slimmer the packaging the better for me. Easier to store, I don't like boxes with tons of unused space around the figure, which serves no purpose but to takr up more materials and more shelf space.

I hate waste. With all the TT MP boxes, they just got wider, bigger and more hassle to keep stored. Plus in mostly black, scuffs would be prominent to the point that you couldn't really have a mint box due to transport, depending on who packaged it up.

IDK, what are your thoughts, those of you who love to keep the boxes, for resale, but also for completist reasons? Should 3rd parties work on better less costly packaging, and make them more intuitive and accessible for the collector? I mean, honestly if we're buying 3rd party, chances are your a collector, so why not also direct your packaging with collectors in mind?

Any of you 3rd party guys have examples of a box style that you think the industry should tend towards? What style of packaging have you owned that you feel is the best direction and what packaging ideas to you think would help with storage and transit, that would benefit those like us who tend to sell in the secondary market after purchase? Storage spaces or shelves, and durability. Accessibility, compartments, and no hassle storage. When I moved from my condo to my townhome, I had to pack my collection up. It was the 3rd time I had to do so, and it was a pain with the boxes not being easier to store. I have large plastic bins, and stacked them inside for safe transit, but still I remember feeling frustrated that some of these boxes were too big, and too flimsy in some cases, or just difficult to use because I had to be extra careful to get my figures back in a way that worked and fit like new. At present, the industry isn't quite equipped for the resale trend, and with some 3rd party bots not being continued, what you got and maybe want to trade or sale, can be difficult due to the packaging.

Too bad a thin plastic box as opposed to cardboard can't be used instead. It would be morw durable and would stand the test of time, more so then cardboard. In any event, I'm hoping either an enterprising company will produce uniform style boxes and release their figures in them for the future, with a more collector focus, not just for storage purposes, but also for easy resale, or for those of us who have to move from one home to another, or just want to meet others and bring one or two along.

Still, please share your ideas, examples, thoughts, digibashes, as I would love to see what Make toys boxes inside are like, Fanstoys, etc..who does it right? Who should do it better?
Is Styrofoam inside the way? Is vacuum formed cutout styro grey soft foam the way? Are vacuum formed plastic trays better? Is cardboard tho cheap, still something they should go with? Would a thin plastic material box be better? Or would flaps weaken and come apart at the fold seam over time? Is there a lasting solution to Bot Storage, resale, and shipping?

 

Wow. This is a new meta collecting. You've transcended the figure.

 

I used to save the boxes, but I got to a point where boxes were taking up way too much space. If a figure just came with instructions and one or two extra accessories I started keeping those in Ziploc bags, tossing the boxes, and putting the bags in a tote. I only keep the boxes now if I think there's a chance I might want to sell the figure later, or if it came with a lot of extra accessories and it's easier to keep everything in the box than to bag it.

 

Interesting isn't it? How these 3rd party figures and collecting them can be. I think that their not always going to be around, and in some cases we may want to sell them or trade them. There needs to be a more lasting, and collector friendly trend for such things.

I can see that as an option, which I'm getting close to having to do, running out of storage space. Plus the anxiety I get over the boxes and conditions of storing them. In my view, I once had to sell my entire collection. It was a hassle, but I needed the money so, I pacakaged all of it back up and sold the lot. I was stressed because the buyer only wanted the near mint boxes. And even those I'd opened, I had to painstakingly put back like new. I just wish there was a more durable and easier way to put them in boxes, for any number of various reasons. Maybe a 3rd party company will release something that the fandom and industry would recognize as a way forward that still allows us to retain the resale value..
Like instead of original packaging, as long as its in this company box, its value remains. Who knows, but this has to be something a lot of us have wondered about. I can't be alone.

I would love to see other fans ideas on it.
This is for the long term. We need something for long term collections, trades, and resales. We've built this 3rd party industry, now lets improve and innovate it beyond what's already been done.

So for storage..we should.. Ahem....
Think..outside..the..box..
LOL sorry, couldn't resist.

 

But how are you going to get smaller boxes when the TF's are stored in bot mode?
Many third party TF's have big boxes because they are stored in bot mode.

This is not always the case. There are third party TF's that are stored in alt mode in a large box. But on average storage in alt mode would allow for the smallest possible box.

 

I was about to start a thread on boxes, as I've been thinking about chucking mine for a couple of weeks, then BSF's Sit Down Saturday covered the subject today.

I've been stacking the boxes up in the garage for a while, and the stack is now 4 foot by 4 and over 7 feet tall, and as nearly all the boxes are different sizes, it's a precarious construct. In fact the reason I started considering recycling them is that I was thinking about selling a figure, so went to get the box, and as I was retrieving it, I destroyed the structural integrity of the stack and about a quarter of it came down on top of me.

I just can't help thinking that it'll make them easier to sell, IF I want/need to. Obviously I never buy a figure planning to replace it later, but sometimes a figure can be released that's raises the bar enough. Not to mention that a lot of the boxes are works of art in and of themselves. I'd feel bad getting rid of them. What's that about?

What do other people here do with all their boxes?

And if I were to seriously downsize my box pile, are there any that people advise I definitely keep?

 

I cut the art out I like and save that. Many look nice as decor on a wall in a pinch.

 

I'd love to do that but it would make reselling them for a decent price nearly impossible. And I do plan to resell them eventually, plus I periodically upgrade when better renditions of characters come out. So far, despite the space required to store everything, I've never regretted keeping the box for a figure. I store all the boxes in giant ziplock bags to keep them dust free, too. So I have a closet with half the storage space filled with said giant ziplocks of boxes. One day it will all be gone, and it will feel good. Until then, it feels good to have them available for resales.

 

I agree with everyone above. I am a box freak since childhood, and I believe that these nice boxes with beautiful artwork are part of the figure/toy. I've also got a tetris-like box stack slowly growing in my garage. That being said, I sometimes wish they would make the boxes crappier and plainer so I wouldn't like them so much. Also in the event I need/want to sell I want the box to go with it. The new BSF sit down Saturday touched home on a lot of issues with collecting for me. I really need to figure something out with my collection of 25+ years of guitar magazines. All those tabs are available online, not that I'm going to learn all 1000000000 songs. Why am I keeping that shit around?

 

This is the crux for anyone that collects commercial products that come in a package. Unfortunately the only answer is keep the packaging.

I don't keep the packaging on every figure though. I did a purge of some of the earlier Takara MPs. Large figures I keep the boxes. Just about every third party I keep, as already stated, mainly for resale. Even if one is buying a figure 2nd hand, people typically like receiving the original package. It's like buying new, and if you're paying over retail it can help justify it in your mind. It can convey things about the seller: they think like me, they take care of their collection so I'm getting something good. The buyer knows it is less likely to arrive damaged because of poor packing.

It's not a fun solution. We have a storage unit, so we use that. We bought bins and put our boxes in those.

 

Definitely not the only answer.

I sell all the time without packaging. I rarely accept a loss. I keep the items mint. Collectors who are sellers are generally too impatient.

You can also sell the boxes separately for another example.

 

I mean, yeah, that works if you know that you're going to sell. But honestly, aside from Fans Toys (and Generation Toys Jazz), I don't feel any of my collection has really gone up in value. Most of it went down, as CHUG collectors shifted to MP or (as you noted) better versions come out. I guess if you're more serious into selling the boxes make a difference, but honestly I haven't had too much trouble moving unboxed stuff on the BST board here.

 

Thiiiissssss.

100% this. I do the exact same thing.

 

Takes me serious mental effort to un-misb any figure including third party.

I have to keep the box and packaging in a MINT condition.

No compromises, all boxes are in sealed plastic storage boxes and catalogued.

 

I'm not going to pay close to retail or over for used toys. You guys are saving the boxes for nothing.

 

I keep ALL my boxes. Some I have never even opened. I like to swap out my figures so when I remove them from display I put them back in the box. I do display some boxes on top of the display because I like the artwork. Even the 3rd party boxes look pretty cool imo

 

No I see your point, Vehicle mode does have an advantage, although for display purposes and those of us who may or may not transform a figure, it does have a certain appeal for the figures to be packed in bot mode. Especially those like the Bayverse Movie MPMs and so on.
Here's some examples of boxes I have seen..

Now the train bot boxes are easy to store given their relative smallness and their scale. no top board above the box, means you can stack them easier.


Unlike here, where you have that cardboard backer that makes it difficult to stack.


Why couldn't they just leave that off, stack them on shelves, instead of the banner above the box.. It would take up too much space, won't stack well, and if you cut that off, you then reduce the value of the package.

Why is it necessary for their to be the big image to the right of the figure, that's what the box is for, they could even shorten that prime box up top if they didn't need that image.


Now these below all have real estate to the left of the bot that could have been packaged better, look at the bayverse Jazz.. those weapons could have been stored beneath the feet of the bot, and reduced the width of the box easily. what's below the feet?? Nothing... space that is wasted.






Packaging the figures in altmode can work, but they could make better use. Take this image..
Why not stack all the carbots above each other and eliminate the extra width??


TT's boxes weren't any better on space usage, but they could be stacked pretty neatly, in some cases, they were just flimsy tho when vacant of the action figure.


Here is an example of that thin plastic style box I was talking about in the 1st post..

 

That's all completely fair, absolutely. My response was geared specifically to the OP.

End of the day there's not really a right or wrong answer to collecting.

 

Exactly what I do. Even if I may sell it I'm just as liable to chuck the box. I've sold more figures loose than boxed.

Agreed, the seller having the original box has zero effect on how much I'm willing to pay. I just see it as another thing I've got to deal with. I wouldn't pay 1$ extra for boxed over unboxed figures. I understand some people will, but I think most overestimate the value of packaging on the secondary market.

 

I don't have an argument against any of that. We're pretty much on the same page.
The only difference is that I don't really care how the TF is stored, though I think alt mode storage looks more tidy.
But I aknowledge that bot mode storage is better because a lot of people want to look at the TF in botmode and many others don't like to transform a figure.