72 replies to this topic

[TheOrgg]

Up to probably $420 (over half of the increase to JKaris alone! LOL!) on the Ultimate Muscle CCG. The other stuff hasn't changed that much more, as I havn't been able to afford Magic packs for a while with college.

[mimoman]

The most i've ever spent in a single run on toys was about $600, dropped in one day at a comic convention (Incidentally i was signing at the convention and made about half of that back, so that might count towards my net ...).

Color me intrigued. Why were you signing at a comic convention?

I used to do a bit of comic book work with a small label called The Three Legged Black Cat Society, run by Aaron Bordner. Nothing incredibly prestigious, but enough to get me into comic conventions in the midwest for a few years.

That's pretty damn cool. Props for being in the comics biz

[Scumdogg]

Don't feel bad, Veers. If you hadn't purchased single toys for hundreds of dollars each, the Star Wars Geek Union would probably have revoked your avatar by now.

[phillinley]

I almost broke my record today and I'm so glad I held off pressing send on my paypal payment today before I put the kids to bed. I bought a C9+ MOC Laser Light He-Man for $1030 after taxes and shipping. I was planning on paying for it today but the kids were jumping all over me. After I put them to bed I get a message from ebay's loss prevention department stating the seller's auctions have been closed and he is no longer a registered ebay user. That was a four figure bullet I just dodged there. :thanks:ebay!

But my official answers now still stand as follows:
1.) Most Money Spent On A Toy
Spent $500 each on two unproduced carded Manimals prototypes from the GI Joe line back in 1997. Weird to think it's over 10 years later and I still haven't topped that one.

2.) Most Money Spent On A Vintage Star Wars Toy
$55 for a loose Yak Face. Not a big spender on the Star Wars stuff since I'm a loose collector.

3.) Most Money Spent On A “New” Star Wars Toy
However much the most expensive At-At walker cost.

4.) Most Money Spent On A M.U.S.C.L.E Toy
$29.99 for a SC kinnikuman sculpt

5.) Most Money Spent At Once On Toys
$6500. I buy lots big...real big. I convinced my wife one year when we got our tax return check that if I could borrow the check so I could drive out to Utah and buy this massive 80's toy collection and that I'd give her the money back in three months. I had a friend come with me and we rented the biggest SUV on the market and I still almost had to make him sit on the roof the whole way home. It took four months to get the money back, and with the stuff I kept from the lot I completed 99.9% of my gijoe collection.

[msugarpants]

man, you guys rock! and you with the wife that let you spend all that cash! if i told my wife i would make it back, she would still say no!

Most on a muscle: $.25

most on a star wars figure: $15. jabbas playset as a kid

most on yamato: some plastic yamato vending toys from the 80's for 60 bux.

most on your mom: fifty cents

most on a L.P: $70 on NOFX 7inch of the month club

most on a baseball card: 300 for a tom seaver rookie

the most expensive toys i own are the Wii, guitar n amp, and the MAC on which i communicate with you

i roll pretty cheap, there fellas. saved all my shizznit from when i was a kid. the he man guy on here and i should get in touch.

[Scumdogg]

5.) Most Money Spent At Once On Toys
$6500. I buy lots big...real big. I convinced my wife one year when we got our tax return check that if I could borrow the check so I could drive out to Utah and buy this massive 80's toy collection and that I'd give her the money back in three months. I had a friend come with me and we rented the biggest SUV on the market and I still almost had to make him sit on the roof the whole way home. It took four months to get the money back, and with the stuff I kept from the lot I completed 99.9% of my gijoe collection.

Is it weird that i want to sit down and listen to you tell a ridiculously long and detailed version of this story? That sounds awesome, i'd love to know what was in a haul like that.

My wife is awesome when it comes to the toys, but even she'd probably draw the line at something so epic. She'd assume (and rightly so) that i'd just "never get around" to selling parts of it to recoup the loss. The only things i ever seem to be able to resell are Star Wars toys.

[phillinley]

Is it weird that i want to sit down and listen to you tell a ridiculously long and detailed version of this story? That sounds awesome, i'd love to know what was in a haul like that.

My wife is awesome when it comes to the toys, but even she'd probably draw the line at something so epic. She'd assume (and rightly so) that i'd just "never get around" to selling parts of it to recoup the loss. The only things i ever seem to be able to resell are Star Wars toys.

Well there's a little history to that to get an idea of why she allowed me to do that. In the 90's when she was in graduate school I was making all the money in the family as opposed to being the lowly houshusband that I am now. On top of my regular job, I spent most of my spare time buying and selling garage sale stuff on ebay to make extra cash for the family. So I have a long track record on correctly estimating the individual resale value of a lot. And it wasn't like she just said 'sure honey go ahead'. I had to type up a full estimate plan and present everything to her.

The hardest part was convincing her of the amount I wanted to keep. When I said I was keeping 25% of that she kinda flipped, and didn't understand why I'd keep any of it When I explain that its a hobby and even if I did sell it all it'd still be far less than a minimum wage job she began to understand. It's like if someone told you guys to do four months of ebay grunt work for $2000 you might balk at the idea. but if they said you could do four months of ebay grunt work for a crap ton of complete laser beasts, I know a lot of folks on here would be jumping at that. It's also just cool as heck to be able to hold and see some of this rare stuff even for a short time. The hard part is agonizing about which ones I keep, and which ones need to be individually relisted.

Oh yeah, forgot about the lot itself. The guy who had the lot was the son of Toys R Us manager back in the 80s. His dad gave him almost every gijoe and he-man figure that was returned to the store and one of everything they sold. It was rediculous on the gijoe drivers. 16 complete secto vipers, 13 complete avac pilots, etc.

Edited by phillinley, 25 January 2008 - 10:41 AM.

[SiberianSpecialForces]

muscle: $50, Dr. Bonbe
Star Wars: the whole Shadows of the Empire figures @ $5 a pop(don't remember the figure count for it)

[Safeatsecond]

5.) Most Money Spent At Once On Toys
$6500. I buy lots big...real big. I convinced my wife one year when we got our tax return check that if I could borrow the check so I could drive out to Utah and buy this massive 80's toy collection and that I'd give her the money back in three months. I had a friend come with me and we rented the biggest SUV on the market and I still almost had to make him sit on the roof the whole way home. It took four months to get the money back, and with the stuff I kept from the lot I completed 99.9% of my gijoe collection.

Is it weird that i want to sit down and listen to you tell a ridiculously long and detailed version of this story? That sounds awesome, i'd love to know what was in a haul like that.

My wife is awesome when it comes to the toys, but even she'd probably draw the line at something so epic. She'd assume (and rightly so) that i'd just "never get around" to selling parts of it to recoup the loss. The only things i ever seem to be able to resell are Star Wars toys.

That's awesome phillinley! I always have a hard time justifying spending big bucks on 'toys'. Ya, I'm a collector and ya I know the value and such but there is still a part of me that balks at the idea.

Like Scumdogg's wife, my wife is , thankfully, pretty understanding. She figures I could have worse habits or hobbies. Besides playing sports all summer I really don't spend a lot.

That said, I spent $40 on a Playmates Defiant, but promtly turned around and sold it for a fair coin.

I think $40 is the most I've spent on any single one purchase. Add up the amount I spent on Fistfuls when my local Walmart was clearing them out, and it's exponentially bigger. In fact I'd rather not know.

On my daughters, on the other hand (budding little collectors, both of them) we dropped about $100 in one go on Littlest Pet Shops. Through them I now collect way too much...

Currently, I'm trying to convince my ID that the Mattel Space 1999 Eagle and Black Hole Old B.O.B are worth the large coinage.

Edited by Safeatsecond, 25 January 2008 - 05:27 PM.

[JonnyPac]

I spent $250+ on Kickback and Green Reefer LBs. That was tops here.

[Xamot]

Most ive spent is $850usd on a transfomrers MIB Grand maximus

[Henchman]

The most i ever spent was $1000 on a Han Hoth POTF Chromalin and $850 on a POTF Bib Fortuna Unproduced Proof Card.

Much like Phillinley i like to purchase large collections. A couple years ago the wife and i drove up to San Francisco so i could pick up a MOTU collection that included a MIB Eternia i paid $250 for everything .

Edited by Henchman, 28 January 2008 - 06:56 PM.

[Scumdogg]

A couple years ago the wife and i drove up to San Francisco so i could pick up a MOTU collection that included a MIB Eternia i paid $250 for everything .

That's awesome! Eternia's one of the few things i still need to get for my MotU collection. There's a place nearby that's had a boxed one for sale for a while, but it's $600.

[DoctorKent]

Most ive spent is $850usd on a transfomrers MIB Grand maximus

Would love to get one of those!!!

But I have gotten Fort Max, which was good enough for now.

John K.

[Czarcher]

Ugh! Well I could'nt pass this up. I just spent $700 on an AFA 80 G1 Bluestreak. Pretty good deaL,AS they usually go for $1200-$1500.

[jkaris]

Ugh! Well I could'nt pass this up. I just spent $700 on an AFA 80 G1 Bluestreak. Pretty good deaL,AS they usually go for $1200-$1500.

Wow!

[Ghost Lion]

$500 for my complete Fort Max. The next question should be how much money have you paid Marty for customs?

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Sorry guys, rediscovered this topic! We have a ton of new guys, and I know alot of us who have been around have changed our habits a bit. So being it's a new decade, and it's been a couple years, I figured it would be neat to see what everyone has been spending that hard earned cash on lately.

I enjoyed re-reading this thread. Some of the earlier post really show how the leaps and bounds us collectors eventually go to for our hobbies. Especially when you read a few posts from members from one year to another. (I especially thought it was interesting how Arforbes mentioned spending nearly a $1000 bucks on his entire Muscle collection back in '02, and those of you who remember, how his spending on the hobby skyrocketed shortly there after to $1000 or better on single pieces.) That's just one example of a big Change in spending I noticed.

It's funny how a collector will seemingly evolve from a bare minimum spender to an all in bidder to go for the most valuable pieces they desire.

For instance my first post a few years ago stated I spent a maximum of $30 bucks on any given toy. Man, I can't honestly tell anyone what sparked my change, but I have easily spent 5 times that on a single figure since.
That was probably my MOC Japanese Exclusive Street Fighter SOTA Black Gen variant that was limited to 300, cost me $120 Smackers. Sooo... I'll just have to blame Czarcher for my excessive spending to date. I'm sure other things have come close.

And where before I'd have been highly reluctant to spend over $70 bucks at one time on toys, I have easily topped out at about $400 bucks from folks liquidating their long stored collections.

I now spend WAAAAYY more on toys these days than I'd have every expected I would. The only time I regret it, is when I do my taxes every year, and somehow can't figure out where all that alleged EXTRA money went to. So.. I try to do my taxes quickly.

Edited by Universal Ruler Supreme, 01 January 2011 - 01:55 AM.

[BaltanII]

Wow, this topic is such a blast from the past!

I think my Monster Heaven Gigan is still my most expensive single toy, but it's hard to say. Some of my S.H. Figuarts may have come close if I bought them on the secondary market instead of preordering, but I didn't save the price I paid for every single one. Lots of figures in the $40-50 range though.

I've put my "most expensive single purchase" to shame over the past year thanks to AmiAmi, easily spending $200+ a month at certain points.

[Biffard]

This is interesting to see how high muscle prices have soared in the last few years!

My current list of high priced single items includes:

Purple #15 -$150
Purple #154 -$110

I know these prices are dwarfed in comparison to what some members here spend, but I NEVER thought I would spent these amounts on a single piece of plastic!!! My justification is that when compared to other hobbies toy collecting is relatively inexpensive(or at least that's what I tell myself).

Edited by Biffard, 01 January 2011 - 09:48 AM.

[00Ice00]

Think the most I spent was close to $195.00 for a hot toys P1 predator.

Medicom AVP Clear set: $85
Medicom AVP Reg Color set: $65.00
Meidcom Clear Pred: $85.00

Vintage Figure: $25.00