Well, after finally achieving a complete set of sealed animated toys, bar the unreleased few and the non-cartoon featured repaints, I have started wondering whether animated will be a future classic and what the value of the toys will be.

Ultimately, the value of my collection is what it really personally means to me, but with increased costs of living and the economy the way it is, I can’t help but look to ways to fund my hobby or even create a little investment for the future. I mean, it can’t be any less uncertain than share holdings or pensions.

One of the greatest assets of Animated, is that it has been such a straight forward and fun line to collect with only Deluxe, Voyager and Leader classes. There have been no Ultras, Scouts, Minicons and masses of unnecessary repaints like there were with Armada / Energon / Movie 1 etc. Nor have there been combiners where limbs have been released in separate waves.

I think the general consensus was that on the whole, Animated has been a great series with great toys. I personally feel, as an entire package, it has been the best series since G1. Not only this, but I believe animated has been the best hope for collectors to get a complete line and keep it sealed, with the hindsight of potential increases in value and desirability. Equally, it doesn’t take up that much space as there haven’t been that many figures released to-date.

Is Animated going to be desirable enough to make the toys increase in value over the next 3-5 years, or even say 10 years? Will many of the collectors who ignored the Animated series at first start to change their opinion towards the line? Or, will new collectors mark Animated as their first stepping stone?

My musings on values are:

Very few mass produced transformers toys of recent series (say since Beastwars / RID onwards) have increased significantly in value even in their MISB state. Not including Takara TFC Reissues & Some of the Hasbro Reissues, Supermarket / TRU specials with limited production runs or BotCon / TFCC exclusives etc.

I can only think of a handful of mass produced Transformers that are worth on a good day, maybe 30% above full retail.

Primus is the first one that springs to mind. Then maybe er……..oh. Unicron was getting that way until the Universe Reissue.

Obviously some of the more special toys such as the Takara Reissues like Predaking, TFC Soundblaster / Soundwave / Hound / Minibot Teams etc have gone, up but then they cost a lot to buy in the first place and were relatively limited in their production runs.

In terms of collection value, toys that are still worth their full retail value through a direct trade (i.e. no eBay fees) are at least a break even investment. Ones that go on eBay seem to require at least a 5-10% mark up over the purchase price to break even or make it worth while.

If you have purchased a toy in the sale, this obviously helps with re-sale profits such as the Animated Sunstorm / Shockwave Target packs. Over here Animated Leader Megatron is on sale at £13.99 (circa $20) which makes me wonder if it is worth buying a good stack. Especially when he has potentially been one of the best Megatron incarnations throughout the entire Transformers cartoon history and he could easily become very desirable.

Final Thoughts

Overall though, when looking back over the last 13 years of Transformers to Beastwars, very few main-line mass produced toys have increased in value significantly.

I am pretty sure 13 years after main-line G1 ended when Beastwars was out, the value of the MISB G1 toys were proportionally higher than Beastwars is now. I assume this is obviously down to desirability, the fact it was G1 and of course rarity.

I am simply left wondering if Animated will be the first properly desirable toy series since G1, primarily because most of the characters had a great back story or a grounded Transformers Lore with character parallels linking all the way back to 1984.  

 

They're going to cost roughly what they cost at retail,not much more. Here's why:
During G1,kids bought TFs to play with,have fun,and ultimately break. Hence,good condition G1 TFs aren't terribly common,and command a premium.
However,by the time TF:A rolled around,you had thousands of adults buying the toys,either to keep in the box or display on a shelf,incurring very little wear.
It's the same reason your Image Comics special editions by Rob Liefeld aren't worth any money.

 

In addition to what kidnicky said, the Animated toys are leaps and bounds more durable than G1 toys largely were. There are a lot few 'pieces' to lose as well, so more will be complete. And finally, as good as Animated was, it will just be a mid-era TF franchise as opposed to the original.

 

peeps like wreck-gar and grey shockwave will be worth a bit, but for the most part they will be worth roughly retail price

 

Hey guys, thanks for the responses, interesting points which I hadn't really considered, although Beastwars and RID weren’t widely released, over here at least yet their values are not much over retail.

Guess a lot of it will be situational. Not that I would want to part with my collection.

 

I'd throw out Alternators as another modern line that generally tends to sell for at or above retail (even some loose figures).

But, yeah, G1 didn't have nearly the same amount of MISB collectors that more recent lines do. So, with G1, MISB supply is far lower than MISB demand. But with recent lines, you have a lot more people collecting MISB, whether it's for possible investment purposes or whether it's just because they like MISB. Even if demand for MISB TFA stuff shoots up dramatically in the future, there's going to be a lot more supply available to meet it and values won't rise as quickly, if at all.

Given that, I'd imagine Animated will end up just like every other recent TF line: A few slightly valuable figures (store exclusives, harder to find items), but the rest at or below retail.

 

Agreed. There will always be a few unexpected surprises (Cybertron Leobreaker, etc...) that will (for no apparent reason) draw impressive numbers over retail... but most anything mass released at retail will take years - perhaps decades - to accrue any significant value.

I'd suggest tracking down the last few non-show toys you indicated you had skipped. At least that way if you were to sell, you can say that you have a truly complete TFA collection, which could land you a few extra bucks.

 

Yeah,there's going to be a lot less Animated guys missing hands than there are handless G1's.  
Not to mention that stupid little funnel thing on G1 Ratchet. God knows I love G1 toys,but what could they have been thinking?

 

true about the adults buying stuff, as an adult I collected BW when they first came out, i kept the boxes, displayed carefully etc, that would have been very rare with g1 toys. that immediately makes far more sealed and good condition toys available for collectors down the line. It would be interesting to know how BW collecting does go from here on as the BW kids start hitting their 20's, i was in my early 20s when toy nostalgia kicked in although only with the internet around 1999 did i start actually buying stuff.

 

unless the later animated waves dont get full distribution (eg wreckgar/waspinator in the UK) i guess that they will hold their value but thats about it, they are great toys, arguably animated toys are great, sure, some dont like them but they are simply not the horror fest that was beast machines or fuzors for eg. I expect them to be seen as classic, ingenious toys with time.

a few like the purple target shockwave will likely be sought after (good toy, g1 repaint/patchy distribution and now sold out) although i do hope that last bach shown at botcon get a good wide release otherwise there will be some very crazy stuff going on as people try to get an arcee for eg!

 

Since someone is going to have to say it at some point over other:

I'm not really into collecting toys so I can't really comment on the hard-core collecting crowd but for me at least, the value will depend on the character and my attachment to them.

 

Like everyone else said, Animated Toys probably won't go up in value any more than any of the other recent TF lines, because they aren't rare, and there isn't a lot to make them much more rare over time. Animated toys have a very distinct look which might not ever appear again, and might attract certain collectors, but that's not much to bet on. If anything, there will probably be a few specific toys which are more rare or desired than others, due to short distribution and/or popularity of the character. I'd guess on Wreck-Gar or Skywarp for example, as they seem to be tougher overall to find than most other Animated toys on the shelves, and aren't likely to be restocked now. Maybe some of the as-yet-unreleased ones will be rare too, especially if they don't get a wide distribution. (and even Animated non-fans were waiting on Arcee)

 

It will be worth something in 2027 when the Transformer Movie IV comes out in summer.

No I'm just kidding.