The real reason things from the golden age like baseball cards, comics, and action figures can be worth a lot is due to rarity:

1. They were not mass produced, at least not in what we think of as mass production today.
2. They were considered toys and saw heavy play.
3. They were considered junk and discarded by parents.

Collectors who want to relieve their childhood are willing to pay for items in box / mint condition. Other collectors may simply just acknowledge and appreciate the rarity of an item.

If you want to hold onto your in box X-Wing ships until 2074, hope the 3 points still hold true.

When the game goes out of print it'll (mostly) start to die so demand'll drop. X-wing doesn't really have a secondary market.

This is not a collectors hobby, it is a game and is meant to be played... if one wanted to keep pristine ships for ones own edification so be it, but I will never collect a game.. I find it rather gauche, and down right irritating. It really does nothing but harm a game like this..

In my not so humble opinion.. lol

how does OP keeping a single copy of a ship on his shelf hurt the game?

This is not a collectors hobby, it is a game and is meant to be played... if one wanted to keep pristine ships for ones own edification so be it, but I will never collect a game.. I find it rather gauche, and down right irritating. It really does nothing but harm a game like this..

In my not so humble opinion.. lol

how does OP keeping a single copy of a ship on his shelf hurt the game?

You misunderstand my comment. Him keeping them has no impact, people wanting to 'collect' is the bad.. they will artificially inflate prices for collecting. People keeping ships won't effect that.

I despise most of the collecting world due to people valuing items more than their worth. Collecting has always been about what one would pay for something. This is where I see the fault in 'collecting' this game.. anytime I see people paying more than retail makes me cringe.. it'll be reprinted soon enought, there is no reason.. NO .. reason to pay 60 bucks for a falcon on ebay right now.. and 200+ dollars for those clear dice.. sorry, more money than sense... they're just dice.. they don't make you win more..

Just my 2 credits

These ships may someday have some collecting value. The problem is there is SOOOOOO much out their for people who collect Star Wars stuff. If some one is looking for a vintage awesome model of an X-wing they are going to be able to find so many other things besides ships for this game.

There's no collector value in X-Wing because everything is still being printed. The only reason the cost goes up is due to shortages and people thinking they can make a few extra bucks off people unwilling to wait.

FFG has said they will keep printing every model for as long as the game is being produced.

I'd also note that even though they aren't adding to the Warhammer Fantasy LCG any more, they are still producing the expansions and base set. I'd imagine X-Wing will be the same for as long as they hold the license.

Collecting also depends on rarity to sone extent, as has been mentioned, they are producing mass quantities of these ships. If they did become collectible, the value on them would be low and there would be value determined by condition as well, much like grading comics or cards...

won't happen.. only ebay scalpers will charge more due low store sales, like now with Falcons going for 60+ bucks. they will be in stores probably before xmas.. so fools rush on not knowing.. just knowing hi price means low numbers.. it's silly.. as long as FFG makes the game they will reprint..

According to the info on the page from the poster below, there is no chance the falcon will be out before Christmas.

There seems to be a lot of confusion on what gives something value. A company slapping an msrp on a product because that's what they can sell it at does not dictate intrinsic value. Supply and only supply dictates value. If 100 people want 50 units, those units are going to be bid on. This doesn't even require an auction house, it happens natural. 1 of those 100 who wants it most will offer a price that makes the ones who actually got the item part with it. Ie I bought my falcon at price a bc the cost made it worth it to do so. I will keep my falcon till the cost hits a price b that convinces me to part with my item.

There isn't some secret consortium hoarding products and raising prices on you. People negotiate with money, sometimes some one with more money is going to want the same unit as you. There is nothing nefarious going on it's buyers wanting using the market to convince sellers to part with their item.

The fact that you are bringing it up, suggests there are things you want now but aren't willing to pay. That's your choice, don't get miffed at the buyers who think $60-90 for a falcon is worth not having to wait.

Go to FFG's Upcoming page, change "All Types" to "Miniatures", click "Apply" and you'll see every ship that is being reprinted. If it's not on the list, that probably just means that it's still in stock at the moment.

The real reason things from the golden age like baseball cards, comics, and action figures can be worth a lot is due to rarity:

• They were not mass produced, at least not in what we think of as mass production today.
• They were considered toys and saw heavy play.
• They were considered junk and discarded by parents.

Collectors who want to relieve their childhood are willing to pay for items in box / mint condition. Other collectors may simply just acknowledge and appreciate the rarity of an item.

If you want to hold onto your in box X-Wing ships until 2074, hope the 3 points still hold true.

Most of what you say is true. I just wanted to point out the one misconception people have about the golden era items. They were actually produced more. The 1 st issue of superman had a print run 5 times greater than the print runs of the bronze and modern era which sell at bargain basement prices.

A big cause for golden era prices is like you said they were toys and played with. Interesting that's what x wing seems to be like. Looks like I'm the only one in this threads leaving ships in the packaging.

This is not a collectors hobby, it is a game and is meant to be played... if one wanted to keep pristine ships for ones own edification so be it, but I will never collect a game.. I find it rather gauche, and down right irritating. It really does nothing but harm a game like this..

In my not so humble opinion.. lol

For X-wing I am inclined to agree.

But I do collect old GW pre 95 pewters.

Me too

I only play and paint pre 1990 GW, i've no interest in multipart plastics.

I've found that GW plastics dont appreiate very well, many are still dirt cheap but I bought nearly all the old 'rogue trader' models in the 80s... sold them all when i worked for GW nd got new stuff for free.

After i left GW i wanted the old stuff back. I was lucky enough to buy it all back before the 'oldhammer' collecting thing started. Now some lead GW stuff goes for pehnominal prices.

But....

its the stuff that wasnt popular back in the day.

Marines, space orks, eldar... all very easy to get for around £5 a figure or less.

stuff no one wanted like 'space adventurers', 'zoats', 'robots'... well adventurers go for abotu £10 to £40 depending on which one they are.

I have a model called 'piscean warrior', its a sort of shark man. This was about 50p when it came out in 87. It now regularly sells for £60 to £70 *if* you can find one.

On the fantasy side its things like 'gothic horror', 'townspeople' and 'travelling players' or 'slann' that go for silly money.

I saw a 'townspeople' sheep model got for £250 last year. It would have cost 25p in the 80s.

Its because when you were a kid or a gamer in the 80s you wanted models that could *fight*. if i had £5 pocket money it went of two £2.50 packs of space marine (with 3 in a pack)... not two packs of 4 'adventurers' with the risk of getting 'halfling cook' or 'squat miner' etc... so all that stock was melted down and recast as stuff that sold... marines.. eldar... orks.

So there is less in circulatation.

I collect comics too. It works the same way. its often harder to find prog (issue) 30 of 2000ad comic from the late 70s as *everyone* bought issue 1 and saved it in case it was valuable... the readership drops off by issue 30 six months down the line and more unsold copies get pulped.

And as for 'rare' toys.

As a kid i had an up and down childhood. My family were either broke or affluent. My parents were crap at saving and some years i'd have nothing for christmas, other years i'd have the entire run of 'starcom' or whatever.

I used to have a *lot* of starwars, swapped my action man (12" gi joe) with mates for it... when i moved house at about 13 i was too old for those toys and in that stage where its fun to destory stuff... there was a skip at the end of my drive. My friend and I put tissue paper n the cavities of my Y wing, tie fighter, tie adv , xwing, falcon etc.... set fire to them wtih lighter fluid and 'crashed' them into the skip. Around that time you couldnt *give* star wars toys away, it would be about 1989?

Nobody wanted it.

My fave stuff was always 'starcom' in a fit of nostalgia a few years back i hunted down about 90 per cent of the range on ebay and have it in mint working condition. The only thing i dont have are the rare late release repaint figures that came in double packs and the 'shadow upriser' tank but you dont want to know the money 'starcom' goes for these days.

it was never a very popular range but has an obsessive modern collector market as they were such good toys, design wise they were light years ahead of star wars toys.

As a long-time collector from a family of antique buy-and-resale veterans, my number one piece of advice is to avoid collecting new toys in the hope that they will provide a "pawn stars" worthy windfall. The number one factor in toy value is rarity, followed in distant second by quality. And when I say "quality", I mean a level of quality most normal people cannot afford to maintain. I mean no discoloration over time, flawless original packaging, etc.

X-Wing Miniatures fail the first one hard. Every one of the top 10 most valuable Star Wars collectables currently is a figure that was rare either due to limited runs or faults in production. Buying a $15 FFG miniature in the hopes that in 20-30 years it will get you around $100 NIB is about as likely as playing the lottery.

Having an entire set NIB may be worth a couple thousand in 50-100 years, but it's highly unlikely considering how many Star Wars toys there are - the supply is just too high to make anything but rare oddities valuable. If you find some sort of satisfaction in having a NIB X-wing Miniatures collection, go for it. Nothing wrong with that. But it is NO substitute for a modest ISA as an investment.

Now, if you have a good-to-mint condition tin toy zepplin from 1900-1930's Germany you're looking to get a valuation for and possibly sell, let's talk.

Bakura

I've found with the starcom stuff the most common problem is the clockwork mech.

I quite often buy wrecked lots and rebuild working ones out of them, a non discoloured starmax with all its parts can go for up to (and sometimes over £100) but the three wrecks it cost me to buy them were about a fiver each.

I take it among serious collectors creating a working 'clean' toy out of several other damaged ones is a no no. just want to check in case i ever sell em on and whether i should make it clear that its been rebuilt to 'new' condition out of several others.

don't get miffed at the buyers who think $60-90 for a falcon is worth not having to wait.

I don't think anyone's miffed although I seriously doubt the judgement of people who'd pay that much for a Falcon.

Bakura

I've found with the starcom stuff the most common problem is the clockwork mech.

I quite often buy wrecked lots and rebuild working ones out of them, a non discoloured starmax with all its parts can go for up to (and sometimes over £100) but the three wrecks it cost me to buy them were about a fiver each.

I take it among serious collectors creating a working 'clean' toy out of several other damaged ones is a no no. just want to check in case i ever sell em on and whether i should make it clear that its been rebuilt to 'new' condition out of several others.

Restoration is the cardinal sin of antique toys. Let me give you an example:

Dinky no. 698, original box, good condition: £200-400 at the right auction on a good day.

Good condition, no box: £80-£120 at the right auction on a good day.

Poor Condition, no box: £30-80 at the right auction on a good day.

I had a guy come to me once who had lovingly restored one of these that had started out as poor, and it looked great. Problem was, as soon as he started, the value went from £30-80 to £0. I felt bad for him so I gave him £30 to compensate his time and gave it to my Dad as a present (he had one when he was a kid). His first comment was "Thanks son, that was thoughtful". His second was: "didn't love me enough to shell out for a decent example, huh?"

Toy collectors DO NOT WANT restoration. If it helps you remember, Toy Cars are Bizzaro World real cars - restoration destroys the value of the former but massively improves the value of the latter.

So to answer your question, no, a serious toy collector would not be interested. BUT: A nostalgic fan of the brand with money to burn MIGHT prefer a restored working one if the price was right. You just need to know your market. If you find a MIB working one, sell it to a serious toy collector for good money. If you buy 3 crappy ones and restore, sell it to a nostalgic for decent money.

Remember, every so often you can sell dirt to a pauper if you're lucky and good.

Cheers worth knowing

Its only starmaxs i've had to restore so far as they discolour *really* badly and i had one that was internally shredded but pure white and two that were urine yellow but mechanically sound.

More for my own collection really but I know now to be honest about it if i sell it on.

I've got two 'shadow vampires' in bits at the mo as i was fixing the clockwork and i was going to make one 'good one' out of the two but again now i'll be honest and state that if i sell it on.

thanks

A lot of my 'hobby money' (i dont earn a lot so only spend money on toys i make via selling other toys) comes from buying badly listed old GW stuff on ebay or spotting rare figures in job lots.

Stripping the lot down with dettol and a good brush and then relisting it properly as seperate items. I dont do crazy 'buy it now' prices that create an artificial value. I just put stuff up at a low start price and let the buyers decide what it's worth.

It always makes me laugh when some dealer lists a £10 squat(space dwarf) standard bearer mine as 'LOOK OOP SUPER RARE' at £35 but has eight of them in his sales list... not that rare then mate if you've got eight eh?

My biggest regret is that while i swapped a lot of action man stuff for star wars things, i had *boxs* of it in the attic. we moved house and my parents forgot... by the time i'd thought about it it was far too late to try and reclaim it.

I'd had all my cousins hand downs from the 60s and 70s so someone will go into that attic and find a few grands worth of 1970s action man stuff carefully boxed up one day....

Game items usually don't sell well in collector's markets, aside from the really good, out-of-print, classic ones that had small print runs to begin with. The modern manufacturing sector is so large, and this game is so popular, its like saying: "Will the sealed copy of Monopoly that I bought in 2004 be considered a collector's item?" Doubtful. Also, as soon as people stop playing a game en masse, its value plummets in a market. Hence, why you see those sets being sold on eBay. It isn't evidence this game is crashing (yet). It's evidence that people are getting out while the game still has value.

Purely aesthetically, anything YOU like has collector value. But unless you LIKE keeping your ships in blisters, rather than playing with them and displaying them, keeping them in blisters is doing absolutely nothing. Someone is probably much more likely to buy something in its original blister. I personally think that you're wasting your money, but that's your call to make, not mine. If the thought of selling an unopened blister 30 years down the road gives you feels, more power to you. Just don't expect to get much. The days of making millions of dollars off of vintage toys is long, long gone.

Even more so when you consider that truly popular stuff gets 're-issued' for nostalgic adults.

Like the recently redid the imperial shuttle from the end of the ROTJ range, used to be *really* rare and if you want the original it still is but if you're like me and just want one because your mate had one as a kid and you never had one but as an adult all of a sudden £40 isnt a world shaking amount of money... well the nostalgia collector market is sated.

Same with 'action man' in the UK. At one point it was very hard to get boxed uniforms in good condition, the latex divers suits perished etc etc.

A few years back they did a 40th anniversary re-issue of every iconic uniform for a really reasonable price and a lot of guys my age bought them. To the point where you only buy the 70s made stuff now if you'e a purist.

if you just want the 'deep sea diver' you loved as a kid again you can get it for £20 or whatever rather than the £200 it might have been mint in box before the re-issue.

Like I only ever saw the one 'tie fighter' i had as a kid in the 80s for star wars.. you just couldnt get them easily in the UK (well perhaps not in the midlands...) *everyone* i knew had 'darth vaders tie fighter'. But when they re-issued it with the POTF range in the mid 90s it was available again (only withouth light or sound).

As with any other game like this. Once a unit goes out of print, it will jump in price. It will continue to rise in price as availability drops and demand continues. It will eventually hit a point where it doesn't matter if it's mint or not, people just want the units.

However, the only reason I see something in this game going out of print is because they stop supporting the game entirely.

This creates a secondary effect. Without support, there are less events. With less events, less people play. With less people playing, the game as a whole loses popularity.

So those OOP units eventually skyrocket in price, but then suddenly plumet to nothing.

I've seen common units in other games go for as much as $50 at peak, and then a year later they go for $0.10 a piece.

Since this game has no blind booster element, and stock tends to be high, I don't think you'll ever see a profit worth your time and effort from keeping MIB versions of ships.

For me, I have some extras I am putting back for my kids. I fully expect that they will really enjoy playing when they are old enough and having some "new" boxes to open rather than only getting dads old stuff will be exciting. So far I have been able to keep myself from getting into their starter boxes.

Like the OP, about half of my ships are still in the package, mostly because I have not needed them yet. I have 4 a-wings (6 now with aces) but have never put more than 2 on the table at once, therefore, 2 of mine are still in the package. same with most of the other ships. If i need one, it's getting opened up, if not, no real reason to potentially hurt it's future value. If i need it on the table though, it does not bother me any to crack it open. I also open at least one of each model just so I can check it out.