Toy Fair 2009: Wal-Mart Exclusives

Scalpers is the buzzword certainly over the last year. A SW collector told me that SW 'scalpers' and Hot Wheels 'scalpers' are starting to pick up our Joes. There is no doubt a degree of these types of people doing this. I think we're also seeing other Joe collectors picking up extras knowing full well that, initially, supply is short at the beginning of a wave.

As long as I have been collecting (since mid-late 80's) I have heard of scalpers.

Back then they were the guys that ran the booths for mall trade shows and worked in flea markets.

Now they have ebay.

HW scalpers have always crossed over and bought other collectibles to re-sell (at least from my experiences).

During the 90's it was worse because the "old greasy HW scalper guys" picked up EVERYTHING from Toybiz marvel figs to McFarlane's Spawn figs.

It seemed for a bit that the scalpers dropped a few lines to re-sell.

Now that seems to be making a comeback.

Scalpers is the buzzword certainly over the last year. A SW collector told me that SW 'scalpers' and Hot Wheels 'scalpers' are starting to pick up our Joes. There is no doubt a degree of these types of people doing this. I think we're also seeing other Joe collectors picking up extras knowing full well that, initially, supply is short at the beginning of a wave. As all things, patience will rule the day. If you wait, in a couple of months we'll be flooded with this current wave as we are now with W3 and W4.

And many are forgetting cross appeal. When I was working at Walmart, I saw MANY come through the checklanes late at night with Transformers Classics. Starting conversations, I found many hadn't touched a Transformer in decades, but picked up Classics because "they were like the originals".

I have no doubt the same thing is happening with GI Joe. When you consider an average retail run of an action figure is in the neighborhood of 100,000 units (on minimum)per figure and you are only seeing 1200 eBay auctions with various figures, that should be a good indication that collectors/kids/parents are buying these as much as Joe fans themselves.

Scalpers is the buzzword certainly over the last year. A SW collector told me that SW 'scalpers' and Hot Wheels 'scalpers' are starting to pick up our Joes. There is no doubt a degree of these types of people doing this. I think we're also seeing other Joe collectors picking up extras knowing full well that, initially, supply is short at the beginning of a wave. As all things, patience will rule the day. If you wait, in a couple of months we'll be flooded with this current wave as we are now with W3 and W4.

It's like with anything else on eBay. You've just got to know how to weed these things out.

I mean this is just insane.

The 25th anni. line is not even a year old yet and already there are over (last time I checked) 1,200+ auctions are flooded on E-Bay w/ GI Joe 25th anni. stuff.

I mean if the market is flooded like that and if a sucker wants to pay for marked up figures why doesn't he be smart and search other auctions that may have some 25th ann. cheaper.

For example: If seller # 1 has a figure for this price and seller # 2 for this price and seller # 3 for this price, you get the idea. Why bid on something higher and it is the samething that your looking for. Thats just a tip for people who shop for 25th anni. on E-bay.

So when will all of this GI Joe 25th anni. madness end? Maybe when the GI Joe movie comes out and then Hasbro will probably focus more on the movie based action figures thus in return killing the 25th anni. line.

I don't know, how many of those listings are really 25th GI Joe product and not DTC stuff? A general trend on eBay is to market toys for whatever is popular, so a DTC Footloose may end up marketed as a 25th figure just to get more hits and maybe a buyer or two.

BUT, people are free to do whatever they want with their money. If they want to spend over retail on a toy, that is their perrogative, I got online, and between the half dozen case revisions shipping this summer from Hasbro, practically EVERY 25th figure will be available (maybe not in one area, but they will be out there for retail).

And I don't think the modern style of GI Joe figure will ever die. Yes, I expect the movie to push retro figure aside for a year or so, but I think Spider-Man, Transformers and Star Wars are showing that a line can have multiple figures geared to different markets.

If you just type in something like "GI Joe 25th Anniversary" usually 95% of them seem to actually be 25th anni related. It's when you start selecting the "2002-now" category that you start getting lots of other lines thrown in. It's true that some are out of place, but I've been finding that it's very few...

I mean this is just insane.

The 25th anni. line is not even a year old yet and already there are over (last time I checked) 1,200+ auctions are flooded on E-Bay w/ GI Joe 25th anni. stuff.

I mean if the market is flooded like that and if a sucker wants to pay for marked up figures why doesn't he be smart and search other auctions that may have some 25th ann. cheaper.

For example: If seller # 1 has a figure for this price and seller # 2 for this price and seller # 3 for this price, you get the idea. Why bid on something higher and it is the samething that your looking for. Thats just a tip for people who shop for 25th anni. on E-bay.

So when will all of this GI Joe 25th anni. madness end? Maybe when the GI Joe movie comes out and then Hasbro will probably focus more on the movie based action figures thus in return killing the 25th anni. line.

I don't know, how many of those listings are really 25th GI Joe product and not DTC stuff? A general trend on eBay is to market toys for whatever is popular, so a DTC Footloose may end up marketed as a 25th figure just to get more hits and maybe a buyer or two.

BUT, people are free to do whatever they want with their money. If they want to spend over retail on a toy, that is their perrogative, I got online, and between the half dozen case revisions shipping this summer from Hasbro, practically EVERY 25th figure will be available (maybe not in one area, but they will be out there for retail).

And I don't think the modern style of GI Joe figure will ever die. Yes, I expect the movie to push retro figure aside for a year or so, but I think Spider-Man, Transformers and Star Wars are showing that a line can have multiple figures geared to different markets.

well it sucks for the g.i.joe collecters that scalpers are putting up rape prices, but im a marvel legends collector so im kinda happy cause it gets some scalpers off my back on ebay and now i can maybe get some ML's for a bit cheaper price.

scalpers thats way its flooded. they buy up all the 25 anny figs. but i know what you mean