Last week there was one overpriced Flesh figure that we knew wouldn’t sell. There was a Magenta #135 figure with a $20 BIN, but has had an average sale price of $10.72. Looks like collectors weren’t interested in paying nearly double. Finally, the lot with three Class A figures appears to have been purchased with it’s BIN price. Like I said before, it’s not horrible. Spending $0.93 per-figure for the rest of the figures is tougher to swallow than the Class A values.
This week eBay is clogged with terrible listings. I’ve ranted about this before. I’ll spare you my “ruining the hobby” speech. However, other people are seeing it too. New people. Look what someone posted on an Instagram post:
I’ve been looking into buying some, I loved them as a kid , I figured they would e sorta cheap lol ya right
That was posted this week. Potential new collectors are deterred from joining our hobby. That’s bad. There’s no way around it.
M.U.S.C.L.E. is not Star Wars, Transformers, or GI Joe. It is a niche – an extra small niche. It needs new people coming in, because the burnout is way too high for such a tiny niche hobby.
Here’s how ugly it has become. It looked like the 2nd AOTW Battle of the Champions Fatal-Four Way Winner had sold his Ramenman with Dragon keshi for $1500. Anybody with a superficial knowledge of M.U.S.C.L.E. knew this was a keshi and not a M.U.S.C.L.E. figure.
But some poor soul was duped. Is that the end of the story? No.
Kinnikuman M.U.S.C.L.E Kinkeshi RamenMan Dragon RE SUPER RARE Magnificent 11 has been relisted, with nothing changed, except for the price. It now features a $100 BIN.
“Seriously dude, why do you care?”
Because I love this tiny little, extra-small niche community. It is not a valuable toy. There isn’t money to be made here. Maybe, at best, 1% of M.U.S.C.L.E. items would bring in a worthwhile amount of money. The remaining 99% should be easy for people to buy, trade, and collect. When they aren’t; people burnout and/or never begin collecting. That’s not good – even for the people trying to sell M.U.S.C.L.E. figures.
Is something valuable if nobody wants to buy it?
No. The answer is no.
The 2nd AOTW Battle of the Champions Fatal-Four Way Winner is extra toxic because he tried to scam one person and now is looking for a second person. That’s a $3 figure. Shit, even if it was a $10 or $20 figure the $100 BIN is still problematic and toxic to our hobby. This figure and situation brought my brain back to this editorial and this thread. I may need to recruit and/or collaborate with Soupie to get some Sunday Paper content.
