Is The Hobby Dying?

[tulk]

I for one, agree alot of what Frops said

Keeping it REAL

[#Brian]

Yes, the Frops post is good. And that mirror shelf....keeping windex in business!

[forps]

Originally Posted by #Brian

Yes, the Frops post is good. And that mirror shelf....keeping windex in business!

Haha.....Good one....I have over 60 mirrored decors-displays (one for each LSB and every single one is different from the other) and i am cleaning them once a month. NO WAY i will let my lady or a cleaning lady to touch my masterpieces. NO WAY.....So its a lot of work for me and i am a businessman myself so i have limited time in my hands.....Especially for the 3 beasts, Iron Man-Hulk-Terminator life size! I need 30 minutes for them alone! I love Life size as a scale in general (busts or statues in life size scale). BACK TO THE DISCUSSION, guys.....Back to the hobby and its future. The photos were just a justification of what i said in my earlier posts and to silence the TROLLS who are constantly mocking me

Dont worry, guys....Prices are going to stall and then are going to slowly come down....The "new breed" of collectors stemming from movies are already FINANCIALLY EXHAUSTED (around 80% of them, the other 20% are rich enough to continue buying) and they NEVER were TRUE FANS of comics or of our hobby. They are "collectors due to hype". So they are slowly reducing the stuff they order. They will exit the hobby soon and then ES are going down as well as prices from chinese factories....

Be patient and dont worry if you miss 1-2 statues, life isnt depending on a da.... statue of Thanos.....Be patient....The majority of collectors are already financially exhausted and priced out. Companies and chinese factories are going to acknowledge the situation soon.

[Python]

It's interesting that for all of the talk about companies playing it safe with repeat main characters. The two threads for the new Boba Fett and Chewbacca PF's are absolutely dead, nobody cares about them in the least! Maybe it wont be that simple....

Thanos is different, he is one of the most spectacular statues we've seen in a while and he had a relatively low ES slapped on him, he was always going to sell. Clearly the hobby isn't dead, it's the not too distant future that is the issue. Can we all carry on paying $1200 for statues, even if they are staggeringly good? Maybe not. But assuming not all statues are to that level going forward, the expensive one off masterpieces like Thanos will probably keep doing well in a time where we all pick and choose more wisely, can they maintain the hobby though?

[HeavyMetalSpike]

Originally Posted by Python

It's interesting that for all of the talk about companies playing it safe with repeat main characters. The two threads for the new Boba Fett and Chewbacca PF's are absolutely dead, nobody cares about them in the least! Maybe it wont be that simple....

Thanos is different, he is one of the most spectacular statues we've seen in a while and he had a relatively low ES slapped on him, he was always going to sell. Clearly the hobby isn't dead, it's the not too distant future that is the issue. Can we all carry on paying $1200 for statues, even if they are staggeringly good? Maybe not. But assuming not all statues are to that level going forward, the expensive one off masterpieces like Thanos will probably keep doing well in a time where we all pick and choose more wisely, can they maintain the hobby though?

That fella is making sense again

Ah - calm, logical thought on an internet forum - it'll never catch on.

.

[Python]

Ahhh thanks, I try on occasion.

It's a mixed bag, we're seeing amazing statues at a level we really haven't seen before from several established and promising new producers. So in that sense it's a great time for the hobby, it deserves to be more alive than ever. But at the same time, we're seeing genuinely shocking prices for them and people desperately trying to keep up with the hobby we all love. I suspect the current rate prices are rising simply can't be sustainable much longer. I think we've pretty much reached breaking point in that regard, the $500 PF was the starting point and we've blown past that in a very short amount of time. I'm genuinely worried I'll not be in the hobby as much as I'd like to be going forward, in fact I know I won't as I've already passed on several items this year I usually would have bought without thinking twice. But it will none the less be interesting to see what does happen... I hope a compromise is found somewhere so things can stabilise.

[#Brian]

If the bubble pops and a lot of fair weather collectors cash out, is it conceivable that the secondary market could become saturated and bring prices down?
I'm sure there are some pieces that will never drop in price, Doom on throne, Cinemaquet Predator...etc, but I mean statues in whole.
Do you think we could se readily available PFs at or below retail?
That would be good for me!..or..if companies shift toward a smaller scale and slow down on the PFs, Wil the existing ones become more valuable because they were from the "golden age" when all statues were big and beautiful?
Hope that makes sense....

[HeavyMetalSpike]

Originally Posted by Python

Ahhh thanks, I try on occasion.

It's a mixed bag, we're seeing amazing statues at a level we really haven't seen before from several established and promising new producers. So in that sense it's a great time for the hobby, it deserves to be more alive than ever. But at the same time, we're seeing genuinely shocking prices for them and people desperately trying to keep up with the hobby we all love. I suspect the current rate prices are rising simply can't be sustainable much longer. I think we've pretty much reached breaking point in that regard, the $500 PF was the starting point and we've blown past that in a very short amount of time. I'm genuinely worried I'll not be in the hobby as much as I'd like to be going forward, in fact I know I won't as I've already passed on several items this year I usually would have bought without thinking twice. But it will none the less be interesting to see what does happen... I hope a compromise is found somewhere so things can stabilise.

Ditto. The "overall" cost was one of the reasons I passed on the mediocre P1 maquette. Wolf 1:2 LSB is still the only thing I have on preorder (excepting a load of NECA stuff).

Originally Posted by #Brian

If the bubble pops and a lot of fair weather collectors cash out, is it conceivable that the secondary market could become saturated and bring prices down?
I'm sure there are some pieces that will never drop in price, Doom on throne, Cinemaquet Predator...etc, but I mean statues in whole.
Do you think we could se readily available PFs at or below retail?
That would be good for me!..or..if companies shift toward a smaller scale and slow down on the PFs, Wil the existing ones become more valuable because they were from the "golden age" when all statues were big and beautiful?
Hope that makes sense....

Yeah - all of that is possible.

I don't worry about resale value though - I buy because I want to own & look at something I think is cool

.

[#Brian]

Originally Posted by HeavyMetalSpike

Ditto. The "overall" cost was one of the reasons I passed on the mediocre P1 maquette. Wolf 1:2 LSB is still the only thing I have on preorder (excepting a load of NECA stuff).




Yeah - all of that is possible.

I don't worry about resale value though - I buy because I want to own & look at something I think is cool

.

Like I said, if prices go down, that would be good for me...I could buy some more pieces that I want.

That is why I was inquiring about prices, there are a few PFs I want that I missed when released, but only at or below retail, I don't want them bad enough to pay an inflated price.

I have an investment portfolio for my finances and statues for my enjoyment.

[brutikong]

I thought I might add a slightly different perspective. I am a digital sculptor, working in the video game industry. For a long time I had no real way of realizing my artwork outside of rendered images. With the explosion of 3D printing it has finally become possible to have physical copies of my work. For me and many of my cohorts, statues were a logical next step. I think this coincides with the rise of Prime 1, the increased quality of sculpts and the over-saturation of the market. It really is faster and easier to create sculpts, with higher detail and fidelity, digitally than it is in traditional media.
Additionally most movie models are created digitally anyway, we now use those models to make movie accurate statues.
I think for long time collectors the sudden rise in quality, would entice you to purchase them, but there needs to be an understanding that this is the new normal.
I am not entirely sure where the increased price is coming from. I would imagine there is some early profit taking, until the market flattens.
I think statue collectors need to fundamentally rethink why it is they are going to buy statues. Resale market might not be there for them.

On a side: The comment made earlier about everybody wants movie accurate statues, may not be the case for people like me. Chris Helmsworth is not MY Thor. My Thor is not a doofus in the ghostbusters movie. When I read Norse myths as kid I had a completely different idea of him. I think there is still room for a variety of ideas.