The End Of The "Golden Age"

[Sunstorm]

I got the opportunity to interview Scott Neitlich on my podcast last Monday and I've been thinking about something he said.
I've used the term "Golden Age" several times over the last four or five years in reference to the toys that has been available to collectors, but in discussing the current market and where it is going, he mentioned that we are no longer in that golden age of collecting.
It's not really hard as a collector to see that prices continue to rise to insane levels for retail items, while the features and overall quality continue to decline. He mentioned that he felt that we were going to have less product and choices available to collectors.
Personally, I think it's maybe time for a break. I don't see a day where I will ever give it up, but maybe not having 500 different versions of Batman on a shelf at any given time is a good thing.
What are your thoughts? Is the Golden Age over, or do you think there will be a rebound? What do you plan on doing personally, concerning what you collect moving forward?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

My wallet is certainly not in any sort of golden age but there has never been more stuff I wish I could be buying.

 

[MrBlud]

The golden age of collecting was probably 1981-1993.

It started with He-Man and ended with TMNT. You had several expansive figure lines with associated multimedia and licensing (comics, TV, cereal, etc) with a wide range of stores that catered exclusively to you (TRU, Kiddie City, Children’s palace) that could be perused at your leisure. This period also just missed Ebay and the assorted scalping that that shot into overdrive.

Now we pretty much have nostalgia properties that adults order online because stores don’t bother with most of them and the highly successful “toys” that *aren’t that* are blindbox money sinks.

 

[Caldwin]

It feels like a great time to be an adult collector. NECA and Super 7 are still going really strong. Even folks like Play Mates, Hasbro and Mattel are doing pretty well in the adult collectible industry.

Childhood collecting on the other hand seems to be pretty crap. It seems like you're either getting chintzy crap or saving up your allowance for several weeks to get something aimed more at adults.

 

[Dake]

The golden age of collecting was probably 1981-1993.

It started with He-Man and ended with TMNT. You had several expansive figure lines with associated multimedia and licensing (comics, TV, cereal, etc) with a wide range of stores that catered exclusively to you (TRU, Kiddie City, Children’s palace) that could be perused at your leisure. This period also just missed Ebay and the assorted scalping that that shot into overdrive.

Now we pretty much have nostalgia properties that adults order online because stores don’t bother with most of them and the highly successful “toys” that *aren’t that* are blindbox money sinks.

This was kind of my thought too; the golden age of toys was the eighties to early nineties when you could get stuff like six foot long aircraft carriers.

Now, there's a lot of product to choose from only if you know where to look.

But as I type, maybe we're talking about two different things: Collecting wasn't really a thing back in the eighties.

 

[Steevy Maximus]

Childhood collecting on the other hand seems to be pretty crap. It seems like you're either getting chintzy crap or saving up your allowance for several weeks to get something aimed more at adults.

Yeah, as an adult with an income and easy Internet access, collecting is the easiest it has EVER been for me.
But if I were a kid?
We are all here because these brands spoke to us. Maybe it was the exaggerated designs of MOTU and TMNT. Maybe it was the stories of GI Joe or Batman. Maybe the two-in-one puzzle element of Transformers. Or, more likely, it was the combination of all those elements. While kids today aren’t as limited in media (I would even argue they have TOO MUCH access to media), the reality was that we got into collecting to recapture SOMETHING those brands or toys offered us when we were young. And even though kids can consume media 24/7 of their favorite brand, I feel there is still a place for a physical toy regardless of age. I mean, there IS a reason the industry came up with the term “kidult” to describe older individuals buying toys and games for themselves (and maybe not, explicitly, as “collectors”)
And while kids may not be as attached to toys, it also feels like a lot of toy companies, Hasbro in particular, have “given up” on trying to engage kids at all.

A kid fan today doesn’t have access to the online resources collectors do. And that may even be a moot point considering that in two of the biggest properties (Marvel and Star Wars), many of the media projects don’t have ANY sort of appropriate tie in available at all.
For Spider-Man: No Way Home, Hasbro made a 5.5-6” “kids line”. Fine, I actually think such a lines are a perfect transition to the more collector centric 6” Legends line. But (likely ENTIRELY to Disney’s absurd refusal to involve any licensees for fear of “leaks”), the line was a paltry two waves, maybe a little over half dozen figures in total (at mass retail). Of which, there was only a single villain. From the last movie. For a movie whose ENTIRE PREMISE was an invasion of villains from other universes! I can understand keeping the other Spider-Men secret…but for a kid who watched and loved that movie….where were the toys to support that? And is said kid going to care in a year to year and a half when Hasbro finally manages to get some stuff out to ”fan channels” that said kid might not know about?
Or Transformers Cyberverse, offering a cavalcade of characters on the show, but the toy line completely dominated by the same “big four (or so)” characters. What sense does it make for a character like Cheetor to appear constantly in season 2…but he doesn’t get a toy (that isn’t a retail exclusive) until the series is done?

To me, the “Golden Age” ended a decade ago. When toy companies decided that “kids” and “collectors” were no longer able to be served by a single product expression. Collectors reaped the benefits of being able to “piggyback” on kids sales that kept costs down, but allowed toy companies to expand the brands to cater to that older market as a secondary concern. Now we have kids lines struggling to engage kids (leading to cost cutting and extreme compromises) and collectors lines steadily increasing in price (to offset the fact kids aren’t really buying them in number)

 

[Sunstorm]

I've been a collector since 1979. To me, there never was a difference in playing and collecting. I loved Shoguns, Mego Pocket / Comic Heroes, Star Wars, Adventure People, etc. Basically, if it was a mech or scaled with 3.75 figures, I wanted it. Was also a huge playset fan, (and still am). I loved collector cases like the rebel transport, C-3PO and Vader as well.
While I agree that the 80's and 90's were great times to be a kid and collector, we still didn't get a lot of properties that I desperately wanted. (Thundarr and D&D come to mind because I still would love to see these made in 1:18).
Personally, I don't think we hit a "Golden Age" until circa 2008. Something seemed to change around that time in the areas of character availability, sculpting and design mechanics, not just in Transformers, but lines like GI-Joe, Marvel Infinite, and yes, even DC Infinite Heroes. Not a 6"collector, but the same could be said for the various 1:12 lines as well. However, I didn't start using the term "Golden Age" until we hit 2014 and Thrilling 30 started to roll out. I'm not saying T30 designs are the reason, many people hate them, just merely that Hasbro really seemed to be dialing in to what the collector wanted and began to produce product that I consider "can't miss". Brands like He-Man, Thunder Cats, and many others began to see a resurgence in various obscure releases and scales as well. I'm also a customizer, and I have to throw in that we even got lines that are intended to be customized, which I think is icing on the cake.

Ultimately, we've been blessed with several decades of awesome plastic. The biggest concern, to me, is how these lines survive in a coming age where parents, (some even die-hard collectors themselves), have to choose between feeding their kids or paying an electric bill. There's just no place for $40.00 "deluxe" figures in that equation, even for middle-class, two income families. Eventually, the X and Y axis are going to intersect. When that happens, I think it will be the death of collecting as we currently have become accustomed to it. I used to joke that while most people were sinking their money into silver and gold, I had put all my money into plastics. May not have been a bad investment after all.

 

[Platypus Prime]

I did well selling a lot of stuff when I had to get a tumor out, that's how I lost my TFSS combiners and such, selling them to people who had the obsession and money to pay for my medical mess. I am by no means lacking in stuff, but back then even I saw the market will NOT support $800 toys forever. Even at a lower area, when the choice, like what was said above, is between the $40 toy and the cereal, milk, and bread, the food WILL in, and if it doesn't, there's something wrong with that parent's value system. I have known crappy parents who did get their toys (however defined) instead of feeding their kids. That did not end well.

What has thrown me the most, though, is the idea people have carried over from the 'nostalgia boom' of the toys being investments for fiance. Before ebay I got a lot of my Transformers years after they were out from flea markets. Now that doesn't work so well. And when a toy might cost well over a hundred bucks or much much MORE, where is there for the price to go?

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

The golden age of collecting was probably 1981-1993.

It started with He-Man and ended with TMNT. You had several expansive figure lines with associated multimedia and licensing (comics, TV, cereal, etc) with a wide range of stores that catered exclusively to you (TRU, Kiddie City, Children’s palace) that could be perused at your leisure. This period also just missed Ebay and the assorted scalping that that shot into overdrive.

Now we pretty much have nostalgia properties that adults order online because stores don’t bother with most of them and the highly successful “toys” that *aren’t that* are blindbox money sinks.

Hm, with that timeframe, maybe extended slightly, you could probably include Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in there, too.

I might be mistaken, but that feels like the last of the HUGE action figure lines everyone was into. Not the last toys, of course, but specifically stuff focused around action figure stuff.

 

[Steevy Maximus]

I think the last time we had a major “action figure event”, the surprise sell outs and insane demand from parents and kids, was probably Transformers 2007. Maybe Avengers in 2012.
The Force Awakens had a lot of hype (and HUGE buy in), but actual results kind of fizzled out pretty damn quick. I’d almost guarantee that there are Dollar Generals with leftover 3.75” figures or some Walgreens with Black Series figures from that era (mine still has a 2016 vintage Jynn Erso!).

 

[Sunstorm]

I think the last time we had a major “action figure event”, the surprise sell outs and insane demand from parents and kids, was probably Transformers 2007. Maybe Avengers in 2012.
The Force Awakens had a lot of hype (and HUGE buy in), but actual results kind of fizzled out pretty damn quick. I’d almost guarantee that there are Dollar Generals with leftover 3.75” figures or some Walgreens with Black Series figures from that era (mine still has a 2016 vintage Jynn Erso!).

Wait. Dollar General sells/sold mainline action figures in your area?
Other than evergreen Transformers, I can't remember anything close to a mainline figure being there since I got Cybertron Megalo Convoy at DG....maybe the GI Joe line a year or two afterwards, but even then, those weren't mainline, but a low-cost line produced specifically for the dollar store type market. Wouldn't mind seeing another run of those, but they would be $12+ in today's market.
*Edit - Even drugstore selection is terrible and mostly "evergreen" properties and dollar store type product in my area.

 

[Steevy Maximus]

It’s not common anymore. Back circa 2004-ish, it wasn’t uncommon to find standard retail overstock (and I’m not counting the Universe repacks of Energon and Cybertron) find their way to Dollar General. This was before Hasbro and Mattel started to develop product explicitly FOR that sort of market.

But in terms of The Force Awakens, good god, that stuff ended up EVERYWHERE. Like, stores that hadn’t touched toys in decades were carrying mainline stuff like the 3.75 figures and Micro Machines. JC Penny had TFA figures IN STORES. JC Penny probably hadn’t had any sort of “in store”toys in over 20 years!

 

[Sunstorm]

Most Star Wars overstock in my area hit stores like Ollie's and BigLots. I can probably go to my local Big Lots now and still find the TFA two packs.
We discussed TRU and its collapse in the interview, but really, didn't touch on the demise of stores like K-Mart, Kay-Bee, and Magic Mart. The fun of collecting for a lot of people is the thrill of the hunt. Used to be able to go to different stores and find exclusives at each place. Personally, I have lots of memories with friends going around just to see what we could find. Really sucks there's not as many stores around.

 

[Platypus Prime]

And driving costs a lot more. I loved being able to pop out to town to see what was new, but when 'pop out' cost me at least five dollars rather I find anything or not, it quickly adds up to where I can't afford what I wanted to find if I came across it.