The future of figure collecting?DiaryPrevNextPrevNext

I'll gladly pay just a few bucks for a secondhand trading figure - it's the shipping that's a killer. I tend to buy primarily on Ebay and Buyee, where sellers will generously sell what I want for under $30 or so...the problem comes the minimum $40 shipping. I just don't have that sort of extra cash to put into a figure no bigger than my finger. For the meantime, it's bulk or nothing XD

Started collecting in 2018. $150 and $250 (total cost incl. shipping, fees, taxes, etc.) are still my benchmark dollar amounts

I do not sweat stuff far below $150 too much, but warning bells start to sound at $150, and I have and will never pay more than $250 for anything in my collection
(the vast majority are < ~$100)

If the only figure for a given IP is eg. an overpriced $300 F:Nex / UC / eStream, then will just do without

Oh yeah, it’s been a very long time since I’ve preordered a scale. I’ve been collecting for about 7 years now, and I’ve never really been one to have a lot of preorders anyways. The biggest difference for me is that a lot of who I buy from is domestic sellers, I almost never get things from Manda/Amiami as long as I can help it. Since I’m mostly a preowned buyer, shipping prices from Japan pretty much cancel out anything you’d save off the product itself/currency exchange nowadays if you’re importing it. There‘s a preowned figure I got off of Amiami and I paid 2.5k for it and shipping only cost me 600 yen (I miss you SAL). That same figure is currently on Amiami for 10k yen and you can forget about having a cheap shipping option that won’t take 6 months. I guess it’s good because I should cut back on spending anyways, but it does suck that cheap finds on Manda are no longer the best deal when you know you have to tack on an extra 50 USD to that price for reasonable/protected shipping.

I started collecting figure last year but it's not like i collect that much figures. At the start i ordered saber motoraced and Rengoku 1/8 but i noticed that anime figure don't procure that much satisfaction than my game figure even if they are better qualities.

Despite what I said I still like anime figure but im really rigorous about it and only want a few charater.

Fortunately for me i guess, game figure is not really common and it's principaly figma (affordable) or higly priced resine figure that i will never buy i guess. So in the end the price is not really a problem for me.

Same here. I see a lot of figures i have no interest in and for the figures i do like they are too expensive and i feel like they are not worth it. This year i do have a few figures i really want to buy but after i get those i think i will definetly slow down. Probably will get a nendo here and there or a scale of a charater i really love but that would be it. I really can't see myself collecting that many figures as before.

We all saw the prices rise, slowly but surely, starting around 2010-2012, and their ludicrous surge around 2019-2020 thanks to Covid 19, along with side effects. Because of that, a lot, or at least a significant portion of collectors, decided either to slow down or to stop buying figures.

I know I've been going at a nice and slow pace since 2020, this being the year I added my last scale figure (so it excludes prizes and PUP), ITEM #549493, as well as an old one, ITEM #166, bought from a MFC user.

As of today, I have reached the thresholds I had in mind, so all the figures that came or would come into my collection were/would be bonus. Funnily enough, they've all been prizes.

That's most likely my inner Uncle Scrooge talking, but when I think of the prices of scales, released or yet to come, I kinda shudder. My most expensive scale was around 220 € fees not included, which is quite a sum, and the fact is that, like a lot of people methinks, I too seriously miss the golden era when scales were around 100 to 150 €, sometimes even cheaper thanks to good deals...

All in all, I don't know what future holds for us figure collectors, but I know that i'll keep an eye on it, and keepy going at my pace.

Figures are getting more expensive by the hour and I’m sure there are many reasons why. The basic theories like inflation, weak currency or higher costs because of higher quality (aka bigger figures) are discussed relatively widely.

What I’m not seeing discussed quite as often is the state of this industry in regards of the sheer amount of stuff that hits the shelfs every single day. I’m quite sure if you dig deep into this sites data, extrapolation the number of releases by year, you will end up with something of an exponential graph.

In industrial production there is a thing called unit price that is derived from fixed costs and variable costs. And it is that fixed cost portion that is basically the same for every figure. You have to pay a person designing it, sculpting it, painting it, make a custom box, do marketing and so on. Those producer prices will stay the same regardless if a company sells 1.000 copies or 100.000 copies. That is a given.

Back in the old days, when you got like one (maybe exaggerated) noteworthy scale figure release for each character/show, most consumers bought it because, well there was no other choice. Basically, everybody bought the same figure and those fixed costs portion could be divided through the total number of sold copies, bringing the cost of the product down.
There is a reason why auto makers stopped with crazy color palates or options and even consumer electronics don’t do multicolored releases that often. Apple could offer iPhones in 20 colors but they don’t.

What is the state of figure collection today? Every character/show no matter how obscure or niche gets a bazillion releases and there is no way most collectors can afford even a hundredth of the things that are released every month. The plus side is that you can pick and choose but the downside of course is that prices skyrocket if this crazy new base…that I’m sure somewhere has a figure attached to it…aims at a customer base of like ten people.

I’m not hoping or waiting for it but it would not surprise me the least if this whole thing implodes someday like the videogame industry in the eighties.


As for me personally I mainly switched to “catch and release”. I still like how figures look and feel and I need new fodder for videos and photos but once I’m done with that, I try my best to get rid of them asap in order to clear up funds for new stuff.

I’ve been collecting for almost 10 years and back in the days the prices were so insanely cheap compared to now I didn’t have a job back then but still managed to get a huge collection. I stopped collecting for maybe 4 yrs and came back to, I changed my rules for what I buy now, only getting things i absolutely love and I don’t buy more than 1 figure of the same character. I think it’s normal to take a break esp with the prices, don’t sell your collection or anything just yet, then see how you feel about collecting again in a few months or yrs.

I'm becoming the type of collector that only buys scales since it's mainly what I have p.od right now and it's what I've been looking foward the most, so I think I might completely switch to them and leave all the prizes and such behind (unless i like some really badly) and because I'm really picky when it comes to scales that will probably slow down my collection growth a lot.

There are a bunch of scales who just not worth the price (this two are the same price Item #1710680 vs Item #1296954 make it make sense) so it's not like is gonna be really hard to choose wich scale I will go for.

Of course.. I do miss where scales where like 150€ and now this is the price of some nendos lmao

I miss 2k yen nendos and figmas.