i blame jocappy he single handedly killed ikas with his spam posting of trying to sell that fucking clear one with bb's in it
who knows? Medicom has release literally 1000 bearbricks. theres what like 300 or so SB figs based on 3 sculpts ? anyways, I challenge anyone out there to release more different sculpts than I have. I have released like 30 different sculpts over all the toys in the last year and about 30 new sculpts just got started in china and japan, so..there you have it. buy 1 Ika and relax.
just wondering... do you get a cut of the ikas WW sells or is your payment just being able to buy the ikas at directly from them?.
I pretty much buy them all. they did I think 3 runs out of the 10, on those I got a %. also, bear in mind, IKA was an experiment. I wanted to do a toy in that clear J vinyl,made in Japan that looked really different than my other releases. I personally feel I did that, and even if I sold Zero Ikas ever I would still be happy. these new toys both 'western' and 'eastern' are a rapidly growing, rapidy changing market. If your not readyt og o with the flow and deal with the ups and downs, dont do it. I mean..if ebay shut down tommorrow...none of your toys would be 'worth' anything. if you want to invest..buy t-bills or something. dont speculate in plastic toys. hell, in 25 years they will all be sagging puddles oozing solvent. just have fun.
I wasn't hating on the Ika's I was just explaining why I thought so many people were dumping them. I plan on keeping the clear colors. I don't think your business model is wrong but it does seem to be affecting the after market. It is a simple fact that many savvy consumers will no longer pay retail for an item if they believe they will be able to get it cheaper later. I am not buying the new ika’s because I think I will be able to get them below retail in a few months if I wait.
another thing to consider...lets talk about those Hawaii Kanegons. why is it worth 20,000.00 ? all it is is a paint variant of a toy that who knows how many where pumped out. did they make 100 kanedgons? 10,000? no one knows. when they made them no one cared about them. they where crap for children. most of them got thrown away, burned up buried in sandboxes. 35 years later theres like 6 old dudes with cash want to buy back their childhood. but..the same year they made that Kanegon they made a billion other toys that where and now remain worthless. no one knows.
Frank, thanks for sharing such good insights into the business side of this. I'm glad to hear the Ika is working out so well for you. You are dwarfing everyone around with putting out unique toys at the pace you are. This has turned into one of my favorite posts ever.
Just an observation. It seems that sooner or later, all collecting communities have to deal with the philosophies embodied by these two quotes: I've always been in the the latter camp. If I buy a toy, it's because I want it. If I keep a toy, it's because I like it. If I sell a toy, it's because I don't like it. Real and percieved monetary value of pieces has never had anything to do with it, and honestly I can't understand how the kind of "investment" mentality repeatedly creeps into something as basic and fun as toys. If someone could please explain, I would appreciate it, because there are much more profitable and proven methods of making money (stock market, currency trading, commodities, real estate, etc.) than privately collecting and selling toys. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: THE MARKET!!!
then wait. I still get my wholsale price, so it doesnt really matter to me.I am probably going to get out of retail entirely and just run the subber list anyways,as its getting to be a real time consuming chore processing the retail orders and so on. and, to be honest, a handful of people have really taken the lustre of it with, basically, greed. I will regret making it 'impersonal' but I need all my time to do backlogged originals and new toys now. im tired of packing a hundred boxes every 2 weeks to tell the truth. Im setting up a new comapny to handle that now, i'll make less on that end but the increase in productivity on the other end should make up for it. perhaps I'll become like Kaws and just dissapear into the woodwork and totally shine all my customers. If I was really smart I'd just do nothing but labbits and mongers.
-personally when I have 'extra money' I max out my IRAS and so on. I spend a lot on 'toys'..but not with any idea as to selling them. sometimes I find something I want more than the toys so I try to turn the toys into that. When I sold off my SB I didnt ebay it I offered it basically at the same prices I paid for it.
well..my 'new' plan for the J vinyl is what you see right now on KR. I am going to limit production to preorders and the subber list. with a cut off date. if I can't get enough preorders for a 'full run' I simply wont make it. seems risk free for eevry one. maybe that will make people relax. Then the release will reflect 'true interest'.
cool..so with an 'avergae' price of say 80.00 all you need for a current complete set is 16,000.00 seems reasonable.
I don't consider my toys and investment but I do use aftermarket values to judge the demand of an item. Collectors are basically just very savvy consumers. The better the collector the better they can anticipate future disability of an item. Price is the easiest way to keep track of this and part of the fun of collecting. To be honest I think most of us keep the valuable toys and take our losses on the other stuff. I would guess I have a net loss in all the things I have bought and sold if you factor in time it is a total loss. For me it is not about making money but value is still an important factor to keep track of. If nothing else it helps you make better buying decisions in the future.
I guess we have very different collecting philosophies, then. For me it's as simple as, "that looks cool, I want it," and then I get it. The idea of me selling it rarely enters my mind, especially at the buying stage. And the idea of tracking market value and other peoples' sales and all that really doesn't sound as much fun as actually playing with the toys. To each his own.
I myself only collect stuff i think is cool. sometimes i win sometimes I lose in the end -no matter. I have what turned out to be an ancient like 2000 bc year old pre-chinese ritual bronze vessel that I got ata flea market for 50 bucks ..been offered a thousand time that for it. someday,if I REALLLY need money Ill sell it. I also spent a good 25,000 dollars on a few paintings by a artist i really like 10 years ago...said artist had no success and stopped painting...I couldnt give them away now. I still have all those items displayed and enjoy them each day. because I bought them because I liked them.
a interesting read today... thanks for sharing your thoughts everyone...i try real hard to just buy things i want then i have no worries... once in a blue moon i will sell something to someone to help them out but the thought of profit never enters my mind and i'm smart of enough to know that's not a sound basis to collect things...it's just fun to me
There is so much cool stuff you can't buy everything even if you have the money, what the hell would you do with all of it? I guess for me price acts like any other filter people use to decide what to buy. Usually for me to buy something I have to like the design know what I am going to do with it when it arrives, and hope that it will retain its value. If I think a figure will not hold its value I wait to buy it later after the price has gone down. I do enjoy niche markets they fascinate me. Following them and trying to understand them is part of why I enjoy collecting but it is not why I collect. I rarely buy a toy because I think I can make money off of it, there is not enough leverage in toys to make it worth it. Even if a $50 toy triples in price it is a lot of work to make $100.
"Cool" is a relative term. A lot of what I spend my money on you may think is garbage, and vice-versa. Price is sometimes a limiting factor, true, but if I really want something I'll save up and get it eventually. Man, that really sounds like work, but you seem to be having fun with it, so keep on truckin'. ;p
I don't know if this is representative of the threads here, but it kicks the ass of any thread on KR.
I hope that's not the case - I kinda like the idea of still having my toys standing around then. That being said, I have thousands of dollars of toys and if I ever need the money, I'd like to be able to get at least a good chunk of that back.
My portfolio went from being roughly 28% up to barely beating my cd accounts since I discovered toys. Coincidence?
