Hi all,

I have a couple sets of Transformers that I believe I am going to sell either here or on eBay but I have some lingering questions that I'd like the board's thoughts on. Shortly after the birth of my son in 2008 I began to pick up new Transformers releases as future gifts for him. Now in the year 2017 it seems all he cares about are the Cyberverse and Titans Return lines so I have a few items that I'll probably never give him. Some of those are all the Alternators I purchased. Now some of these are new and some of these are loose. Of the loose ones some are, for me, a little scratched and scuffed and some have what I would think are paint and molding issues straight from the factory. I've noticed issues even in the boxed and sealed ones I have so I don't know about the overall quality control on the line to begin with so perhaps I'm being way too picky here, heh.

Now my first thought was just to sell 'em quick and move on with life but what I could also do is make an order over at Toyhax/Reprolabels and buy and apply the stickers to some of the Alternators. I was thinking not only would this be a way to make them more attractive looking but might also help move them quicker/gain more attention. Now I wouldn't be purposely hiding any of the scuffed/blemishes on those few figures since the placement of these labels won't even hide those to begin with so that's not why I am debating about doing this (and not all the loose ones have blemishes anyways). I actually don't mind putting labels on toys (find it sort of relaxing) and if this is a better way to move these guys then so be it. The problem, obviously, is I don't really want to spend anymore money than I have to on a line I'm not going to keep. I figure it'll be about $56 more for the labels. There's 14 Alternators to sell but only five of those have labels over at Toyhax.

So what do you think? Should I just put them up over on eBay with a starting price of $x.xx and let the market decide or do you think I should go with the extra cost of putting shiny new stickers on a few of them in hope that it attracts more attention/interest/money?

 

I don't have to sell them and in fact I very rarely part with anything. But, yes, space is at a premium at my house (four children, small home) and I made a "deal" with myself a long time ago that I would only buy and keep toys I thought my children would like to play with (also helps to keep my "collecting" mentality under control, heh). But you are right. Every time I'm almost ready to sell these things I think back to what if!

 

I love Alts/BTs. The reprolabels for em' look out of place. Worst is jazz's G1 set. It looks odd on a RX8. I like em' stock and don't want to hide the beautiful car under stickers.

I have a couple of misb Alts/BTs for my son myself. So far, the one he likes are classics. It could change later on as he grows up.

 

Stickering them up will only limit your potential buyer pool. Most would rather buy them original, and then are free to sticker them if they choose.

 

I wouldn't even consider buying a toy being altered beyond what it was intended to sticker wise. Repro labels were not intended for the toy by the designers. Might as well cover it in Care Bear stickers.

I wouldn't invest any more $$ in reprolabels. If you do, leave them on the sheet and include them so the buyer can choose to apply them.

 

Alternators have lost most of their market value, so you're better off not investing in the stickers if you plan on selling them. Most buyers dont know about the stickers (and their cost/value) so they don't really add much unless that particular buyer wants them.

 

Given the cost of the stickers, you won't recoup enough to break even. Some things just lose value- Alternators turns out to have been one of those things.

 

Yeah... sadly, when you see what Alternators are selling for these days, you'd likely not even get as much cash for them to cover the cost of the sticker set. Rumble, Ravage, couple of the Kiss Players (yuck) exclusive figures still fetch modest sums of money but in general, they're worth about the cost of the shipping to wherever you'd send them. I just sold a mint/complete Sunstreaker on eBay for $14.00 shipped.  

In general, I think these figures are undervalued. Yeah, the engineering is frustrating on a number of them. The articulation is frequently marginal...but at the time, they were absolutely incredible. They were super hot at one time and items like this tend to come back around. They're also really beautiful, complex pieces at a quality level that we'll never see again at the retail price points.

IMO, you're best off just keeping them. I'm selling off a few doubles (at significant losses) but I plan on keeping the majority of them.

 

I absolutely would not spend one dime to increase their saleability on eBay. As others have stated, you would be lucky to make the sticker money back.

 

Thanks for all the thoughts.

I bought a majority of these Alternators either loose through BBTS Vintage back in the day ($18-$24 a pop) or from the BST topic here (loose lot sale for $20 each shipped if I remember correctly). Looking at current prices on eBay it seems I would lose between $5-$10 per figure and that's not counting shipping, heh. Looks like I'm keeping them whether I wanted to or not as well as forgetting about getting the labels for 'em.

Thanks again for all the advice!

 

reprolabels are great, and look great on some figures, although i agree with Seali on the Jazz set, blech. Classics are in dire need of stickers, there's dollar store figures with more painted detail. But to spend money to put them on figures you're selling? no. They won't increase to the full amount of the labels, some might go up, but not that much

 

Hi, when you guys talks about alternators, does that include Binaltech too?

 

I usually make a distinction between the two. I think the differences are important.