Toy Companies Who Re-Release Old Molds

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by mikey0

Those Real Ghostbusters action figures are from late in 1986. So, that wasn’t 35 years ago!

Most reasonable people would've understood that it's a parody meme, Mikey0. I know this is hard to understand, but being so rigid about details in a situation where everyone else is looking at a situation holistically does not actually make you appear smarter or observant - instead it makes people think that you don't understand things.

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

I'd rather buy a Origins Scareglow for $20 then the laughable prices a vintage one goes for.

And I have some appreciation for this. It's a mixed bag of cats because the market commands those prices - basically ridiculous? Yeah, but people pay it so it remains expensive. I can't help but feel that simply going back to old molds for the cash grab is an issue for so many reasons. Yet, just like your Scareglow example, the market responds to these re-issues.

Here's the thing - I think it's one thing, a positive thing, for toy companies to use a little nostalgia grab but bolstering it by doing something creative. Make a new figure on a vintage cardback, or maybe make previously unissued figures in a vintage style. Something like that adds value and tugs on the nostalgia strings.

There was one argument elsewhere that stated "well the only reason someone wouldn't like these re-issues is because they are scalpers and want to make money off the old stuff!". That assumption is such a simplistic example of accusational, lowest common denominator thinking that I'd rather just assume that many people here understand why it's nonsense rather than for me to address it. I simply feel that these reissues often prey on the "addict collector" mentality. And sometimes I think it's worse that that consumers will just blindly buy the **** than the fact that a company will make the ****. It's not a perfect argument, but the reissues drive me nuts for a myriad of reasons that have nothing to do with me doing an occasional vintage ebay event, you know?

The other thing to consider is from the collector point of view, which should not be ignored. For example, Candy Kappa you are a TMNT collector of some kind. And for this example we are going to say that Scratch is, for whatever reason your personal grail figure. You save for one, you've studied the market on it and spent time hunting for the right example to pull the trigger on. You finally drop the coin on a Scratch, and you have some degree of pride that you didn't just buy it blindly, didn't just throw money at acquiring it. But instead you curated that piece into your collection based on the market demand for it. Now Playmates reissues the exact same Scratch toy as a cash grab and people who put no effort into understanding the market are excited to buy it. But what's worse is that the reissue didn't benefit kids because kids don't buy it. Instead it's a bunch of adult collectors who could've put the market effort in, enriching the hobby and giving everyone more market experience to bring to the table. But they didn't. Instead they went to 7 Targets across two weekends and bought three each through self-checkout. There's more I could add, but give consideration to the point of view from within the hobby as well as the outside looking in.