Are Funko Pops the New Beeanie Babies?

Over the last few years we have seen one of the biggest and most aggressive pop culture collectible lines ever find its way into the shelves of just about every store out there. The Funko Pop Figures really are everywhere right now.

For those of you who are living under a rock, and you really would have to be hiding away to not be exposed to them, Funko Pop Figures are vinyl figurines with over-sized ‘cute’ heads that cover more pop culture franchises than can be kept track of. I’ve made the joke about how if they are not doing a franchise, just wait a few weeks and so far they keep proving me right. I would challenge you to go and find a list of their products, which keeps expanding, and look. There is a real good chance they have already put out figures for all your favorite franchises and if not, just wait.

 

I originally was not collecting any Pop Figures. As R2-D2 is one of the main characters I collect, I picked up one of the R2s they put out. The I went after a few other characters and now there ae a few dozen Pop Figures in my collection from the various franchise I’m a fan of.

 

All the big name collectible stores and standard chain stores have jumped in and gotten their own exclusive Pop Figures or special packs of Pop Figure related collectibles. The market for these figures has just kept growing with some stores have full on walls of them.

 

And not surprisingly at all the secondary market prices for some of these figures have risen to impressive levels.

 

Of course anyone who knows how collectibles work have to look at such numbers with rational skepticism. I have seen the Pop Figures get compared to Beanie Babies, which was one of the most famous collapsing of a collectible line that has insanely inflated secondary market prices when the hype of them was everywhere. Lots of people invested thousands of dollars in Beanie Babies to end up with a bunch of worthless little stuffed animals.

 

Of course I will give my regular advice on collecting here. DO NOT collect anything purely as an investment. Collect something you enjoy collecting and want to own. If you then get to the point where they are so worthless you can’t give them away, if you are enjoying having them the value doesn’t matter.

 

The collecting market can be crazy to navigate at times. One general rules seems to be that the secondary market prices are NOT going to be stable for anything only a few years old. The supply and demand for newer collectibles is not set and gets inflated by assumed ideas of unverified rarity or artificial demand. This is what killed the Beanie Babies values. Everyone thought these new pieces coming out where going to be rare and sought after, and then once it all settled down, everyone who wanted one had them as well as thousands of people who did not really want them, who also spent ten to twenty or more times the value for them being convinced it would be a good investment. So many people do NOT understand why the toys of the 70s and 80s became so valuable, so they jump on the idea that all collectibles that get hyped will be valuable in the future.

 

As a rule it seems like it takes about two decades for collectibles to settle into their real level of demand and popularity.

 

My advice about collecting Pop Figures for value is to just not. It is highly risky to make actual investments on such collectibles in hopes of long term profits as there really is no way to know the long term demand.

 

With that being said, I would think chances are that the Pop Figure will stay a highly collectible line and has a good chance of maintaining their value.

 

As I said, they are producing figures for so many different franchise, some of which do not have that much it the way of collectibles out there. This means that audience for Pop Figures is huge, far larger than Beanie Babies was and really bigger than just about all other collectible lines out there. I cannot think of a another series that has gotten the rights to so many different diverse product licensing. Pez might be the only real competitor in that regards, and Pez have been able to stay highly collectible and valuable. Pop Figures are able to appeal to several different levels of fans and that does play a huge role in creating long term value and collectability. Beanie Babies tried to do that, but fell short, just not being able to get that bigger level of appeal.

 

While fair comparisons can be made between Pop Figures and Beanie Babies, especially when someone is thinking about the idea of long term investments, and there is a valuable lesson of caution to be found in doing such, there really is a noticeable difference between the two. Of course in the end it still should all come down to a personal desire to collect above the concern over the value or the idea it is an investment. The first priority of collection should always be the enjoyment of collecting above all else.

 

I’ve been enjoying collecting Pop Figures and plan to keep picking up the ones I like with no real concern about their value.

 

Now I need to get my own creations popular enough to warrant Pop Figures getting made of them. How cool would it be to have Georgie and Armand’s Place Pop Figures out there?

 

And if you have not yet picked up any of my writings, this might be a good time to check them out.

For the month of March I will be donating all my earnings from book sales to the Red Cross efforts in the Ukraine.

Go to http://tinyurl.com/IBCauthor to support me and the people of the Ukraine at the same time.

Help make the dream of Georgie and Armand Pop Figures become a reality and tell all your friends.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Now That Was One Geeky Conversation

My son and I were out doing some Pokemon hunting today.  We got talking about how the Remoraid (A sardine like fish style Pokemon) makes no sense at all to evolve into a Octillery (Basically an octopus like Pokemon). It is the kind of thing that makes it very clear the creators of Pokemon were on drugs while watching Animal Planet when they came up with most of these creatures and their evolutions. We went through most of the Pokemon and made judgement calls as to how much sense the evolutions made. I think less than half of them really looked right. The creators clearly didn't care at all about logic or study nature when they came up with most of them. They have a basic teddy bear somehow turning into a monster grizzly bear with nothing more than them being bears connecting them, as they physically are clearly not the same species. There is a fat flying rabbit/squirrel then somehow becomes a ferret. Seriously, WTF were they on? And of course if you get enough gold fish (Known ...
Read more

Disharmony of the Spheres

My story 'Time of the Bursting' has been published in the anthology 'Disharmony of the Spheres: http://nomadicdeliriumpress.com/blog/product/disharmony-of-the-spheres/ It is an anthology of stories that focus on mental illness. This is the most meaningful anthology I have been in. Half the profits from this book will go to the Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Organization, a group that battles teen suicide. The following is from the product description. "Mental illness is very common in our society, but it’s also very misunderstood. Many view those with mental illnesses as being weak, but there is a great deal of strength in those that must battle their own minds on a regular basis. Disharmony of the Spheres focuses on characters with mental illnesses that are still able to be successful. They may not completely overcome their illnesses, but they are able to beat them back and succeed."
Read more

And His Time Is About To Come To An End

Twenty-Seven hours until the beginning of the end of the 11th Doctor. Since BBC America started airing Doctor Who we have been getting the new episodes the same night as they air on BBC One back in the UK, instead of waiting months for them.  That means that we get the Christmas Specials on Christmas Day, making it so Christmas Day ends with a nice little gift. This year's the episode is 'The Time of The Doctor' and will be the end for the 11th Doctor. Supposedly we will also get answers to just about all the big questions still out there from the last few years. We'll see how that goes. We will also be introduced to the 12th Doctor, although most likely this will not give us much of an idea of the character.  We'll have to wait till fall next year for the new season to start up to see just what the new Doctor is like. It is going to be a long wait.
Read more