Those with more experience might be able to help with this. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but prices seem to be slowing down lately, and high price items aren't going as quick as would be expected. Could it be symptom of the time of year? Or, maybe it's that the hype wave has crested and is slowly coming down, especially after the exaggerated poor performance of The Last Jedi?

I hope for the later. Dropping prices should flush out the speculators who will then liquidate their stock. Although, that doesn't seem to mean a definite drop in price itself. I've noticed that prices for SW toys aren't necessarily dependent on scarcity, but something a little harder to pin down. Anyway, if people stop paying outrageous prices, prices will come down, and that would make me happy since my focus has turned to non-US variants, which always command a premium price.

Refreshing post mate; I do sincerly do hope for the latter.

It’s insane how much the prices have increased - even within the last 24 months. I tried to contact dealers that I sold to when raising money for the baby fund and I am looking to pay 4-5 times what what I sold items for if want to try and rebuy.

There was a huge hype in prices and lack of availability of Luke Jedi MOC around the time of the film, now I can the more common MOCs starting to creep back out for sale, so maybe the tide is turning!

we can only hope .....

as for people liquidating their investment , I don't see how in the big picture that would affect a price drop. after all it all about what people are willing to pay .

the foreign market figures surely have slowed a bit but will always command a higher price as their are surely less people willing to shell out the money for some of those . these days its all about patience for the rarer stuff . I know I personally have scored some at great prices while others I lost my shirt on .
just depends on how bad your going for an item .

it would seem that after javis book that the Spanish line has garnered much interest in th collecting community as well as glasslite and top toys .

Price speculation is always a big gamble. I suspect prices may dip some but they won't drop back to the old days prices (90s) anytime soon i imagine. They will level off though as "investors" leave the market and collectors retake it. Of course that just my opinion but I don't see guys who been paying top dollar willing to lose a ton on this stuff so it won't fall far.

I would say prices have dropped from a peak last July. I suspect that prices were high as a result of the death of a few high profile Star Wars legends (Princess Leia Organa figures were astronomically high), coupled with the 40th anniversary celebrations. Prices may continue to fall or slow down, but I wouldn’t bet on them remaining low.

Well, they'll only drop to a certain level, for sure. As has been pointed out, no one wants to get hosed on the outrageously expensive figure they bought last year, but if prices show drops or slowing, investors might still be inspired to liquidate if they think things are flattening out. I really think prices have been over inflated since the announcement of the new trilogy. As I recall, the same happened when the prequels were announced. Once Star Wars becomes more commonplace, films will have less of an effect on prices, is what I'm thinking, and the people who stick around are dedicated collectors, and prices will stabilize as people put realistic values on their figures. This sort of thing has happened with trading cards, comic books, etc.

The year of the 40th anniversary of the release of ANH was not the best time to start vintage collecting.

Calrissian_Charm wrote:

The year of the 40th anniversary of the release of ANH was not the best time to start vintage collecting.

It was also quite underwhelming how Disney handled it. Could have done so much more.

They bought a large chunk of Fox. They own the entire saga now. Before doing that, they couldn't do anything with ANH because it wasn't theirs. That's a big deal.

Them buying Fox was a big deal. I was referring to release of vintage-styled products and toys, among other things. However, the Disney Fox deal is not finalized yet, it could fall through. There is word/rumor that it could fall through or Disney may not be able to buy as much as they intended.

That's cool, so how do you see this fitting into vintage market prices?

Prices are crazy. Just to get a decent Leia from SW with original gun you have to pay like $100-120.

Calrissian_Charm wrote:

That's cool, so how do you see this fitting into vintage market prices?

My initial thinking was how the rumored re-release of the original vintage Kenner figures would affect prices, but neglected to mention it in my initial post. But, what Disney did with the 40th anniversary was, overall, underwhelming. Which may be a good thing, as that may cause confusion in the secondary marketplace. What really is vintage? The re-release vintage being sold as original vintage. However, I digress, as to not further derail the thread . . .

I hadn't heard that they planned to rerelease vintage figures. The uproar that Hasbro caused with their 4 pack of revintage figures it was rumored that fans caused such an uproar over it that was the reason they didn't do more figures. More likely it was a poor selling item. Little appeal to current collectors which had the potf2 crap to snag at the time and some appeal but more upset to older collectors who got turned off by the idea. I would love to see some vintage style figures made that never were made before though. I think given the amount of customizers who make such figures and some selling for big dollars on occasion that there is a possible marketplace for those.

the redone 95 vintage 4 pack is the only item I kept from those days as I thought it was pretty cool they redid vader, luke, han , chewy but that was enough for me . id imagine if they had made more I woulda kept those as well .

Well, I love Bryan's idea of making vintage-style figures that were unproduced. That would be awesome. There's a guy on Facebook who has made to custom vintage-style Fetts, one with the Droids armor colors featured on the card, and now one with the Holiday Special armor. He went all out and did his own sculpts. Very nice figures, but they were more than I wanted to pay for something like that.

Those sound neat. Ryan Shaw used to do some figures and he made a holiday special fett new sculpt many many years ago. Would love to see some pics of this guys work if you have them.

I have noticed there is a steady decline in price's for vintage figure's myself, even ones I sold in the past are now almost impossible to sell. This could be due to a few factor's from the newer generations just not wanting them to all the place's that buy and sell now like eBay, etsy, fb groups, forms etc. Personally I don't know how brick and mortar stores can even compete with the price's.

If you think about it the average complete figure is less then $20, only the hard to find ones are over the $100 mark. It make's selling figure's a challenge as one need's to think before you sell. For example if you make custom figure's like most of us do, then do you want to sell a nice incomplete figure for $10 - $15 and then try to find $1-$2 betters, then when you add shipping on top of that $1-$2 beater it make's more sense to just use the one's you already have and save money. That also take's much better figure's out of the market as well.

I also look at trading with local store's as well they may have an item you want so trading a bunch of figure's or ship's for say a MR Saber or a gentle giant item make's a more better deal. The big thing to know if your a collector or your just starting out is this is a hobby if you are thinking it's a good investment then you better rethink that plan as it's not.

I know some will blame repo stuff for the decline in the pricing of figure's but it has no real bearing on it at all, the only advantage for repos is for custom making instead of using real weapon's you can use fake one's. When people do sell Repo's it's only about 10-15% that try to scam people, the rest on say eBay and etsy for example do state they are fake and the price does show it.

So what can we do about the decline or lack of interest for vintage star wars item's, not a whole lot. But if your like me and you just like the hunt for odd things or to get item's you had from your childhood then have fun. I do hope it picks up again though as I don't really want to see the vintage item's to mean nothing to new collector's, or become so cheap that no one will part with them.

I called this about 18 months ago (pats self on back lol)

The climb on pricing was a steady incline and I blamed it squarely on FB. Collecting became about "likes" and "Look at me" with people buying up stuff purely to impress. Then they got tired, sold to the nest guy (at a profit) and it continued. When I started seeing pricing getting to an unsustainable level made an assumption that people were beyond spending fun money and had moved into debt. It was a matter of time before the bill came due, and the market leveled out and then declined.

These have been great posts. I am a buyer right now. I have been going after the South American variants for a few years now. I have seen just a slight dip in prices, and only from South American sellers. U.S. sellers prices for South American variants still are high. Where does the market for both Kenner and the more rare variants go after the 3rd installment of this current Star Wars trilogy has left the theater? Does it fall off dramatically?