Best Selling Action Figures and How to Sell Your Action Figure Collection

Every now and then, a collector gives up collecting, or takes their collection in a new direction. Here are some tips (a few nice, and a few harsh) for selling your action figure collection.

Action figure collectors might only spend $5 or $8 at a time buying each new action figure, but over time, five bucks here and ten bucks there adds up to a substantial amount of money. If you buy vintage figures or the more expensive “collector” figures, the amount adds up even faster.

Incredible Hulk Action Figure

Juggernaut Action Figure

Collectors often find that their tastes change, what they liked last year no longer appeals to them. Others buy extra figures for trading. For whatever reason, most collectors at some point accumulate many unwanted figures. Rather than waste closet space on figures they no longer want, they often sell off those unwanted figures.

Other collectors are victims of unfortunate financial circumstances, and have to choose between selling off a few figures, or not being able to afford car insurance, for example.

For a wide variety of reasons, there comes a time when most collectors will want or need to sell part or all of their collection. Below is some advice to make this process easier: some of it is a bit harsh, but it is based on reality.

Fisher-Price Hero World DC Super Friends Batman

Alternatives to Selling

Selling your collection isn’t the only alternative: you can always donate it to a charity, such as Goodwill, shelters, or Toys for Tots. In addition to being a nice thing to do, donating can help on your income taxes, if you itemize your deductions.

Another option is to trade for things other than more action figures, such as DVDs, books, CDs, etc. Trading across categories of items requires a bit more negotiation than normal trading, but can leave both parties very satisfied. Most comic book stores will trade store credit for some action figures, but that will obviously vary from store to store.

Price Guides and Value

Price guides are good for two things: (1) as checklists to see what figures you might not otherwise know about, and (2) as a means of “putting a value” on your collection for insurance purposes. When you insure your collection, you want to use price guides, so that you can insure the replacement value of it.

Price guide prices are not, however, an indication of what you can expect to reap from selling your collection. No one pays guide prices unless they purchase a figure from a dealer. That means that if you sell your figure to a dealer, he will give you less than the guide price. Dealers are businesses, and they can’t make money if they are buying at guide prices.

With that in mind, there are several online ways to sell your figures or your collection: on website forums and in online auctions.

Thing Action Figure

Abomination Action Figure

Forums

You can post individual posts for each figure, or one long post for a slew of figures. If you have a web page, put your list on your site, and link to the site in your posts.

There are many forums on the Internet that allow similar buy/sell/trade ads, including the Action Figure Collecting Forum, formerly the MarketBuzz on the Raving Toy Maniac, and the Action Figure Times. Mailing lists also often allow buy/sell/trade posts, depending on their rules.

One crucial thing to remember when posting in any of these places: No one cares how much you paid for it. No one. They only care what you are asking for it, and could care less if you paid $12 for it at a toy show. If the figure has been spotted in clearance bins, no one is going to give you $12 for it just because that is what your original cost was. It is not that action figure collectors are insensitive, it is more a matter of common sense: why buy something for $150 from another collector when they could buy it at KB on clearance for $30?

In addition to not caring what you paid for a figure, no one cares WHY you are selling it. Posting that you need to sell your collection because you are getting married will get you sympathy, yes, but isn’t going to inspire more buyers than a plain “for sale” post. Posting reasons for selling is also likely to annoy potential buyers: everyone has a different pet peeve, and you never know who you are going to annoy with your perfectly valid reason. Annoyed buyers look elsewhere.

Online Auctions

There are many online auction houses, but the one with the most action figure listings is eBay.

Rather than auction off your collection as a whole, which greatly limits your potential customers (see sidebar quote), you may want to break your collection into smaller lots. You’ll have better luck attracting bidders with small lots than with one giant lot, perhaps all Spawn series III in one lot and all Dark Ages Spawn in another.

There will always be some things that just won’t sell, so rather than sell each figure individually, break them into small lots. Maybe one short-pack figure in a lot with two or three common figures. Otherwise only the short-packs will sell.

Deadpool Action Figure

Captain America The First Avenger Movie Action Figure

Based on my own experience as a bidder, here are a few tips to follow when you list your action figures in an online auction:

• Mention in the listing what the shipping cost will be. I like to know what shipping is so that I can factor my bid around it. I’ll bid a bit higher on an auction with $3.20 shipping than I will for one with $6 shipping.
• Don’t gouge people on the shipping: Americans can get boxes free from the US Postal Service, so please don’t claim that you need to charge another $3 to pay for a box – people won’t fall for that. If you do charge extra for a box, don’t expect good feedback if you ship it in the box from your last Amazon.com order.
• PayPal is a huge boost. If you accept PayPal as payment, and mention it in your listing, more people will bid. This type of convenience is why people love the Internet. There are other similar payment services, but PayPal is the most popular.
• Include photographs in your listing. There are a ton of places online that will let you store your images, so there is no reason why you can’t include a picture. No digital camera? No scanner? Copy shops rent digital cameras, and also offer scanning services. I won’t bid on an item that doesn’t have a picture.
• Use paragraph breaks in your description and avoid using ALL CAPS. If I see a listing with one giant upper case paragraph for a description, I don’t bother reading it, I just move on to the next listing in my search results.
• If you don’t know enough HTML to add your pictures to your listing, use one of the free software programs that will generate your listing for you.
• Know what you are selling. There is nothing wrong with a non-collector selling garage sale finds in online auctions, but make an effort to know what you are selling. No one clicks on auction listings that just say “action figure” or even “action figure, could be Star Wars.”
• Once the auction is over, keep in contact with the buyer: let them know that you received the payment, and let them know that you shipped out their item. If your listing said that “PayPal payments get immediate shipment,” don’t wait until the next week to ship out the figures. Buyers can read the postmark dates, and they remember that when feedback time comes.

If you can’t take the time to learn these basic concepts, why should anyone take the time to bid in your auction? The bidder is doing the seller a favor by bidding, always remember that. This is a harsh lesson to learn, but it will serve you well when liquidating part or all of your collection.

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