Some help for figure collectors, please. 0

[shadroch]

I'm not really familiar with the carded action figure market so any advice would be great.

I'm looking at an original owner collection of about 80 carded figures, mostly from the early 80s, but a few late 70s Star Wars figures.

The collection is  Star Wars figures, Secret Wars and Super Powers, as well as a few Masters of the Universe, GI Joe and a sprinkle of weird lines- Power Lords, Macross, ect. 

He had the good sense not to open them, so they are still on the card, but he trimmed all the cards. In order to save space, he trimmed the none blister parts of the cards. As an example, he has an original 16 back Darth Vader and CP30, with the figure intact inside the blister, but a full third of the card is gone. Some cards have just a bit of trimming, while others are missing half the card. 

How would you describe them? I know the trimming hits the value hard but how would you price one as opposed to a raw  card? More importantly, how would you grade them? He argues that the figures are mint on a damaged card. Does the intact blister trump the obvious trimming? I looked on ebay but didn't see much to guide me. He is asking several thousand for the collection, which strangely doesn't include a single of the rarities in any set. He claims the collection wasn't cherry picked but it is strange how he has only common figures. If they were on mint cards, I'd have bought them at his price.

Anyways, any thoughts are welcome. 

[srezvan]

That's interesting. Never seen that before. For resale purposes, I'd consider them as loose in calculating an offer, if you go for it.

[Mercury Man]

I find toy collectors to be more anal than comic collectors, if that is possible.   Figures are mint, but the trimmed card will affect the value.   I agree with srezvan....even though he is an Arsenal supporter. 

[F For Fake]

16 hours ago, srezvan said:

That's interesting. Never seen that before. For resale purposes, I'd consider them as loose in calculating an offer, if you go for it.

Agreed, I'd price them all as if they were loose/complete/mint figures. I mean, it's a curiosity, but no card is no card.

[Artboy99]

I wouldn't buy them.

The seller is wanting high value and you will find these to be hard to sell.

Example:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Star-Wars-AT-AT-Commander-1983-Damaged-Card-New-Figure-1017W-69620/273614732103?epid=1701703629&hash=item3fb4b57b47:g:tOQAAOSwh1hZ-NkH:rk:1:pf:0

Essentially they are damaged cards, that is what to search for.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Artboy99

[classicaaron]

im a big figure collector and these would go down as the same price as loose figures. easy to sell but not for the high price packaged figures, even damaged but complete card figures would demand

[01TheDude]

20 hours ago, shadroch said:

He had the good sense not to open them, so they are still on the card, but he trimmed all the cards. In order to save space, he trimmed the none blister parts of the cards.

This statement to me is just odd. How much space is anyone ever going to trimming that amount of material? The whole story sounds fishy. I would pass on this stuff or only offer a price as if they were loose. I am not a collector of this type of stuff though -- but the story seems strange.

[followtheleader]

As others have said, I also would consider them like a loose mint figure.  

I've seen this many times on MOTU MOC and they definitely go for a ton less. 

Patrick 

[999ghosts]

As a Action figure collector, and loving my figures on card, I would never buy any of these unless I wanted to have it as a loose figure. So, like most people already mentioned above. I would price them as mint loose figures.

Any pictures?

[FrankCastle1]

I think I'd be the one to disagree.  Although they aren't mint on card, they are mint in bubble.  And as the years go by, more and more collectors are paying insane amounts of money for actual MINT figures.  So as an example, a loose Star Wars Jawa might sell for $25-40 with his weapon.  But a Jawa sealed inside his bubble where there was no chance the kid rubbed the paint off his hands and his blister has no scrapes from going in and out of his hand might sell for $75-100.  Of course that same figure carded on a 12 back first issue U.S card that isn't cut and in mint condition is in the $600-900 dollar range.  But I'd say easily, figures that are still 'sealed' in their bubbles, regardless of how much card has been cut (as long as the figure has never been removed), are at least double the price of a 'loose/complete/NM' figure.  However asking 'thousands' for only 80 figures is probably not worth your time, so I would probably avoid them as well.  

 

Jay

[Spidey 62]

59 minutes ago, FrankCastle1 said:

I think I'd be the one to disagree.  Although they aren't mint on card, they are mint in bubble.  And as the years go by, more and more collectors are paying insane amounts of money for actual MINT figures.  So as an example, a loose Star Wars Jawa might sell for $25-40 with his weapon.  But a Jawa sealed inside his bubble where there was no chance the kid rubbed the paint off his hands and his blister has no scrapes from going in and out of his hand might sell for $75-100.  Of course that same figure carded on a 12 back first issue U.S card that isn't cut and in mint condition is in the $600-900 dollar range.  But I'd say easily, figures that are still 'sealed' in their bubbles, regardless of how much card has been cut (as long as the figure has never been removed), are at least double the price of a 'loose/complete/NM' figure.  However asking 'thousands' for only 80 figures is probably not worth your time, so I would probably avoid them as well.  

 

Jay

Semantically speaking, they ARE MOC (mint on card), they just aren't MOMC (mint on mint card).  And by your analogy, they are worth about 90% less than a MOMC fig.  

Unless they can be got at more than half off the loose price, I would pass. 

Edited December 20, 2018 by Spidey 62