This was written along time ago, before they started to grade TF figures: 2nd article is about an interview with the head of AFA - Charles Ware For people who's not familiar with AFA, those are some great reads. http://www.mwctoys.com/FEATURE_022101.html http://www.mwctoys.com/FEATURE_031401.html http://www.mwctoys.com/FEATURE_031901.html
I don't think it's true anymore that there's any great discrepancy between the prices of graded and ungraded toys. Collectors can recognize an ungraded 85 fairly easily and tend to bid on it with the knowledge of what the equivalent graded version goes for. Maybe the argument does have some application to newer toys and toys that grade 90 or higher, though. That was a really good article. It was great to finally read about how the toys are graded. I had been wondering for a while what sort of system they used. In one part of the article he says "While I don't agree with him on all points, there was one major point that we could both clearly come to terms on - that the buyers of these figures are largely responsible for the ridiculous prices being paid." IMHO, collectors in general are not overpaying--it's just supply and demand. You see when there's a flood of the same figure that prices go down a lot, and when a figure becomes impossible to find, the price becomes extremely high. But I do think people often overpay for AFA 90 figures. For one thing, the difference between an 85 and a 90 can be extremely slight. Also, there are more out there than people are aware of, but there is one guy I know of who is artificially inflating prices by hording AFA 90s and intimidating other collectors. It's absolutely insane. Same old back and forth arguments that we see 7 years later Edit--"Artificially", not "arbitrarilly"--whoops.
OT....I have seen 85's that were obviously nicer than a couple 90's I think I know who Might Gaine is talking about. Talk about a pure grade collector, and market manipulator...
What about that guy who was buying every Buster/Hydra figure on Ebay for the better part of two years or so? It was one of those molds. What drives a man to do something like that? What was he doing with all those Powermaster jets?
I know who he is, he is very hard to deal with. I have shared some transactions with him in the past. He is definitly a grade collector. There is no love involved, just money!
