Toy Bender

While trolling Google to find if anything has said anything about me recently (hey, I’m a writer, it’s something we do), I found an interesting blog post that directly referenced Toy Bender. The post was titled “Why I Hate Toy Collectors and Toy Traffickers” so I had to bear down before I read it, because a name like that makes me think I might be going through the wringer like in high school gym class. Yep, believe it or not I wasn’t a big jock back in the old high school days! I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it wasn’t an all out attack on me or toy collectors in general. Instead, it was a well put together reason for why this person doesn’t like us. By the way, I have no idea who wrote this as there aren’t any bylines associated with any of the posts on the site.

From the site:

He recently posted an article called “Toy Collecting is for Losers: Defending Toy Collecting.� The article is about how toy collectors are not all like the 40 Year Old Virgin. Ok, that’s fine. I believe him even though ALL the toy collectors I have ever met are in fact freaks who do still live with their parents. However, given the size of the toy collecting industry I can believe that there are some socially, well-adjusted toy collectors.

To borrow an analogy from the gay folk, perhaps one of the reasons why the only toy collectors that are freaks (and the ones that gave the writer a bad impression of them) are the ones that are exceedingly flamboyant about it, if you will. A lot of people would never guess that I collect toys, unless I’m “outed” in a conversation. I don’t know, it’s just a theory. Also, let’s clear something up (again), because I take issue with one particular statement in the article. I don’t collect toys that cost obscene amounts of money. Believe it or not, I’m not getting rich writing this blog and I don’t have the kind of budget to allow me to spend the entire financial output of the Dominican Republic on toys. Regardless, even if I did collect expensive figures the term “obscene amounts of money” is a sort of a put down in my eyes. There’s an invisible boundary for some between being okay to collect some toy trinkets and spending four hundred bucks on a toy. I don’t get this. If you can afford it, by whatever the hell you want be it a car, fishing equipment, or new shoes.

Regardless, the main point of the article is that the unnamed author takes issue with the fact that us adult collectors buy up stuff they want for their kids. I’ve never heard of this before as being any sort of problem. The main reason is that I mostly collect toys that are in the upper range of the boys toys category and the only ones I want are usually the obscure characters that kids don’t care about. There is a reason why there are 10,000 Batmen and Supermen hanging on pegs at the local Toys R Us and about three Elongated Men. Certain figures won’t sell like hot cakes with the kid market, and they’re basically thrown in there for the older collectors who will purchase them. If I want a Darth Vader, I can get one and there are enough of them to go around 99% of the time. I could see there being a problem when a kid wanted a specific clone figure, but tough titties, I have just as much right to buy that clone as someone buying one for their kids.

Now the real issue is the “Toy Traffickers” or as toy collectors call them, scalpers. I can’t agree more with the ill feeling directed towards them. I will admit that I have bought specific figures with the sole intent of selling them before, usually just to pay for a duplicate one that I was purchasing for myself. I think that’s fair to do, even if it is a little slimy. The guys that I can’t stand are the dudes who go to every store in town every single day of the week snatching up every rare figure or in demand figure so they can resell them on their eBay stores. I want to smash them. Smash them good.

However, to put all of the blame on scalpers isn’t entirely fair. Toy companies have to take some of the blame when they haven’t anticipated demand for specific toys. Collectors complain about this all the time. Using Star Wars as an example, Hasbro has always short packed characters who are popular and filled pegs with odd character choices that don’t sell worth a crap. It’s almost impossible to predict what won’t sell or what won’t, but sometimes these choices seem a bit odd. Why in the hell are there eighteen million goober aliens (my fiancee’s way of referring to Nemiodians), and hardly any McQuarrie Boba Fetts? Decisions like this boggle my mind. Boggles it, I say. To compound the problem there are store exclusives that collectors will want and if your kid just happens to want one, you better hope to bloody hell the store anticipated the demand and ordered enough.

Finally, if you’re pointing fingers, blame should be directed at anyone who buys a figure that’s still in production on eBay or at a convention for an exorbitant price. Scalpers wouldn’t exist if they weren’t making money on the secondary market. It’s not just toy collectors who create this kind of problem, either. It was insane parents who drove up the price of Tickle Me Elmos, Cabbage Patch Dolls, Furby, etc. And the people who were selling them were opportunistic jerks, not necessarily toy collectors, but even here the picture isn’t entirely clear cut. It’s hard to cast judgment on the scalpers in some cases. If I’m some guy making minimum wage and has a hard time making car payments and I spot a Tickle Me Elmo on a store shelf that I know I could sell for two hundred bucks, of course I’m going to resell it.

It’s all very complicated mess of supply and demand with no easy solution. I guess in the end it comes to this: Don’t hate the player, Baby. Hate the game.

Edit: This article was written before the author wrote to me, so I do now have a name. I decided to leave it as it was, however. The author is a nice chap and is a regular reader of the site, so I want to stress that this isn’t meant to be any kind of attack, more of an exploration into the issues presented.

toy, toy collecting, toy collectors, hobby, action figure, children, parents