Empty Hot Toy boxes - Do people actually want them?

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I trash the shippers. i keep the hot toys boxes because they look good usually and I keep the accessories in there. I do collapse huge boxes though like hulk and iron monger.

Generic boxes, like what sideshow make, I toss and keep the accessories in bags.

This. Unless you buy to own for only two years and sell... like many do here.

This hobby won't last forever. Prices on most of this stuff will plummet when interest wanes. Look at the 3 3/4 inch market. The boxes will be virtually worthless unless they are pristine and unopened.

Ultimately, if you have to the room, save as many as you can until you have to purge.
 
This. Unless you buy to own for only two years and sell... like many do here.

This hobby won't last forever. Prices on most of this stuff will plummet when interest wanes. Look at the 3 3/4 inch market. The boxes will be virtually worthless unless they are pristine and unopened.

Ultimately, if you have to the room, save as many as you can until you have to purge.

I'm actually really curious to see when that happens. (Will I even be following it then?)

Generation X is middle-aged now so I assume between shifting priorities and vintage properties no longer being made, that segment will start exiting. But not sure about younger fans and the long-term power of the MCU.

I don't think Star Wars has a lot of legs left in terms of new properties although I could be very wrong about that.
 
I'm actually really curious to see when that happens. (Will I even be following it then?)

Generation X is middle-aged now so I assume between shifting priorities and vintage properties no longer being made, that segment will start exiting. But not sure about younger fans and the long-term power of the MCU.

I don't think Star Wars has a lot of legs left in terms of new properties although I could be very wrong about that.

The future is stuff that isn't even on our radar... video games like Halo, streaming shows we don't watch, and who knows what else is to come. But first, that generation has to make money, which is harder for them...

But if you think about it, the 1/6th collecting market has already shrunk from what it once was in terms of licenses it exploits and variants of options. We used to get everything - Star Wars, Raiders, Bond, Batman, Pirates, Alien, Terminator, Predator, Lord of Rings, Die Hard... well, never Die Hard, but you see my point.

Now... all we get is MCU (mostly Iron Man) and Star Wars... and a smattering of a few oldies and a few new things here and there. Competition is few. Completion is few. Risky figures are almost never. And prices have skyrocketed.

That means people are being pushed out in two ways: 1) if they don't like MCU or SW, there's nothing for them to collect, and/or 2) its just gotten too expensive. So the hobby survives by making what's hot "right now" and pricing it high enough to survive in a slimming pool of interest. You need to appeal with the broadest, most popular items to survive in a slimming population.



I still say keep your eyes on the 1/12th scale market over the next decade. I think the future will go small again.
 
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The future is stuff that isn't even on our radar... video games like Halo, streaming shows we don't watch, and who knows what else is to come. But first, that generation has to make money, which is harder for them...

True, I know next to nothing about gaming and there's probably a ton of stuff I have no business knowing about, being a Responsible Adult as opposed to a Young Person Of Leisure.

But if you think about it, the 1/6th collecting market has already shrunk from what it once was in terms of licenses it exploits and variants of options. We used to get everything - Star Wars, Raiders, Bond, Batman, Pirates, Alien, Terminator, Predator, Lord of Rings, Die Hard... well, never Die Hard, but you see my point.

Also true. The only things I'd be interested in at this point are properties that were made long ago and aren't likely to be made again, and I'm unwilling to buy older figures of lesser quality or spend thousands on customs, so that caps it.


That means people are being pushed out in two ways: 1) if they don't like MCU or SW, there's nothing for them to collect, and/or 2) its just gotten too expensive. So the hobby survives by making what's hot "right now" and pricing it high enough to survive in a slimming pool of interest. You need to appeal with the broadest, most popular items to survive in a slimming population.



I still say keep your eyes on the 1/12th scale market over the next decade. I think the future will go small again.

More and more, I'm inclined to agree. 1/12 has a huge collector base and the price point is more accessible. I actually left that scale completely but the right mix of quality and properties would pique my interest.
 
But if you think about it, the 1/6th collecting market has already shrunk from what it once was in terms of licenses it exploits and variants of options. We used to get everything - Star Wars, Raiders, Bond, Batman, Pirates, Alien, Terminator, Predator, Lord of Rings, Die Hard... well, never Die Hard, but you see my point.

I agree with this assessment of the market. It is changing because consumer interests are changing, but I also believe Spider-Man, Batman, Iron Man will be around forever.

Star Wars was a super lucrative brand, but is now dead thanks to Darth Kennedy the Incompetent. It's now the same as all other sci-fi properties that are currently tanking at the box office like Predator , Blade Runner, Alien, or Terminator. After kids born in the 90s run out of disposable income, Star Wars will die off and become just another ancient IP that doesn't have any merchandise such as Flash Gordon, Planet of the Apes, The Lone Ranger, etc.
 
I still say keep your eyes on the 1/12th scale market over the next decade. I think the future will go small again.

Until Iron Man takes that over aswell. :gah:

Well, it might not be so bad so long as other companies can prevent Hot Toys from having the exclusive rights to everything.
 
The future is stuff that isn't even on our radar... video games like Halo, streaming shows we don't watch, and who knows what else is to come. But first, that generation has to make money, which is harder for them...

But if you think about it, the 1/6th collecting market has already shrunk from what it once was in terms of licenses it exploits and variants of options. We used to get everything - Star Wars, Raiders, Bond, Batman, Pirates, Alien, Terminator, Predator, Lord of Rings, Die Hard... well, never Die Hard, but you see my point.

Now... all we get is MCU (mostly Iron Man) and Star Wars... and a smattering of a few oldies and a few new things here and there. Competition is few. Completion is few. Risky figures are almost never. And prices have skyrocketed.

That means people are being pushed out in two ways: 1) if they don't like MCU or SW, there's nothing for them to collect, and/or 2) its just gotten too expensive. So the hobby survives by making what's hot "right now" and pricing it high enough to survive in a slimming pool of interest. You need to appeal with the broadest, most popular items to survive in a slimming population.



I still say keep your eyes on the 1/12th scale market over the next decade. I think the future will go small again
.

People are paying $200+ for a 1/12 Mezco-style custom run of Phoenix Joker that doesn't even look like him. I don't know if you pay attention to it much but the 1/12 market has really exploded with Mezco style figures. Tons and tons of custom clothes and weapons being made now for sale mostly only on FB and Instagram for basically as much as 1/6 stuff costs.
 
I haven't bought any 1/12 figures with real clothing - I only have the Mafex Alien and 2 of their Robocops. Very impressed with those but I opted out of buying that Great Twins T-800 because the clothes looked ridiculous and they lazily just shrunk the Hot Toys DX10 head rather than sculpting their own. I haven't looked outside of my usual licenses though to know the full scoop on 1/12.

Are real clothes going to be the norm?
 
If Hot Toys snagged the LOTR license I'm sure they would make tons of money, like with Star Wars. Check out prices of the old WETA pieces from when the trilogy came out on ebay.
 
I agree with this assessment of the market. It is changing because consumer interests are changing, but I also believe Spider-Man, Batman, Iron Man will be around forever.[...]

Not so sure about Iron Man long-term, to be honest. I feel like that was all RDJ and now he's gone from the role, it's the end of an era. I could be wrong but that really was lightning in a bottle.

[...]Star Wars was a super lucrative brand, but is now dead thanks to Darth Kennedy the Incompetent. It's now the same as all other sci-fi properties that are currently tanking at the box office like [...]

I wouldn't go so far as to say 'dead' or 'tanking'. Compromised and showing its limitations, yes. It could be a 'dead' brand someday with no merch, hard as that is to imagine right now...but at the moment I think it's still quite strong, just shown to be less than invincible.

I went decades not really thinking about Star Wars. I'm sure that'll happen again.

People are paying $200+ for a 1/12 Mezco-style custom run of Phoenix Joker that doesn't even look like him. I don't know if you pay attention to it much but the 1/12 market has really exploded with Mezco style figures. Tons and tons of custom clothes and weapons being made now for sale mostly only on FB and Instagram for basically as much as 1/6 stuff costs.

I've bought and almost immediately sold off 4 different Mezco figures. I think their superhero lines are seriously overrated from aesthetics to physical costume execution and head-sculpts; generally speaking I just can't get behind them in spite of a few good ones. Their Star Trek TOS figures were quite well done, almost everything else seems to have weird proportions and often awkward costuming.

I think other companies have done real fabric in this scale better, they just don't have the popular licenses.

[...] Are real clothes going to be the norm?

I haven't looked in on this scale in ages. I thought Mezco may start a trend but if it has, I've missed it.
 
People are paying $200+ for a 1/12 Mezco-style custom run of Phoenix Joker that doesn't even look like him. I don't know if you pay attention to it much but the 1/12 market has really exploded with Mezco style figures. Tons and tons of custom clothes and weapons being made now for sale mostly only on FB and Instagram for basically as much as 1/6 stuff costs.

I believe it. And I was aware that Mezco really helped push the 1/10th vs 1/12th war in the favor of 1/12th. The market is there now and growing. People will always pay insane amounts for certain characters... and Joker seems to be one of them. Used to be Vader, but that has finally passed.
 
I'm a 1:10 loyalist after all the years of McFarlane and then NECA. But if the classics are treated well at 1/12 then I guess I'm buying those too. However, as soon as it goes the same way 1/6 has, I'll be done. I expect that will be inevitable and probably won't take long to happen.
 
Just curious if anyone has a checklist of all the Hot Toys that have been released up to date by MMS. Trying to sort thru my shipper boxes and put them in MMS order. Everything I've found online is broken up into categories, marvel - star wars - dc etc....

Thanks
 
Just curious if anyone has a checklist of all the Hot Toys that have been released up to date by MMS. Trying to sort thru my shipper boxes and put them in MMS order. Everything I've found online is broken up into categories, marvel - star wars - dc etc....

Thanks

Now this is an OCD :lol
 
Isn't the MMS number on the side of the shipper... :dunno

Some of the brown shippers don’t have the mms numbers on them. I’m trying to create an excel spreadsheet of my collection so that when I sell a figure and someone ask if I have the brown shipper I don't have to sort thru hundreds of boxes. Just looking for something that I can copy and paste into an excel spreadsheet. There's a thread here that someone started back in 2008 but never finished.
 
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