What Brand Of Toys Should You Collect?
The action figure world offers lots of choices from very cheap toys you can buy at any Target, Walmart or even CVS Pharmacy, all the way to very expensive collector pieces sold by specialty dealers.
When I first started out, I didn’t know any better and just bought the cheapest figures I could find on Amazon.
After three months of serious study, on a daily basis, I have some advice for those of you who are new to the hobby and want to get help choosing the right figures for you.
So here are some basic guidelines.
1. Collect what you love. PERIOD. This is the most important consideration. Don’t worry about being the cool kid on the block. You don’t have to buy the expensive stuff if you don’t just absolutely love it. So collect what you love. And don’t worry about being made fun of. While the toy community has trolls like every other community, they are few and far between and easy to avoid.
2. Decide on which scale you want to collect. You can go from small model train size (HO 1/87 scale) all the way to life size. Most people collect 1:12 or 1:6 scale figures. But you collect the scale that fits your needs and don’t worry about what others do. Think about how many characters you might buy, where you would store or display them and how you would use them, how much room you want to devote to your collection and that will help you pick the right scale.
3. Establish a budget and that will help you pick a brand. In my opinion, HotToys figures are the top-of-the-line toys available to the general public. Their 1:6 figures usually start at about $220 and go way up from there. That might be above your pay grade so consider less expensive brands.
So now we have the basic guidelines down, I’ll just riff on some of the things I think will help you and it’s all based on my own trial and error.
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Hasbro (https://hasbropulse.com) is one of the most widely distributed brands. Their toys are well made and they have a pretty good lock on the Star Wars stuff. Lucasfilm owns the intellectual property and licenses it to toy makers. Hasbro is reliable for 1:12 figures. They aren’t cheap but they are cheaper than most. Lately, the Star Wars Black line has been very good. Price range is $20-$39 for most toys. You can always save money by buying older figures (not so much in demand) or by purchasing used figures on Ebay. More on that at the end of the article.
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The next brand I want to talk about is McFarlane Toys. (https://mcfarlane.com) Todd McFarlane is very possibly the real MOST INTERESTING MAN IN THE WORLD (If you’re not familiar with this marketing campaign read about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Interesting_Man_in_the_World
He has achieved greatness in many areas from business to sports and yes toys. His SPAWN comic book is epic and he’s created toys that come from that universe but also has a license to do the DC Comics stuff amongst other things.
His toys have far more articulation than Hasbro toys (Articulation means you can move hands, feet, heads, necks, arms, to pose the figure in multiple ways.) Hasbro usually has about six points of articulation and McFarlane 22. McFarlane’s toys are easier to pose and I just tend to like them. One caveat. . . they aren’t strictly 1:12 toys. They work well in a 1:12 environment but McFarlane’s toys tend to be seven inches tall not six as they would if they were 1:12. Bang for the buck, pound for pound, value for the money, etc., if you like the characters that McFarlane makes, in my opinion, this is the best deal in action figure collecting.
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Neca Toys (https://necaonline.com) is a very well respected action figure company. I do not own any of their products but I do have some Ninja Turtle action figures on pre-order with them. Many reviewers say Neca figures are some of the most durable figures available with great detail and attention to accessories. The down side of their toys is that they tend not to have leg articulation, making them more difficult to pose.
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Mafex (I cannot find their corporate website because it’s in Japan — if anyone has it please send me a message so I can update the article — in the meantime their products are available here: https://bit.ly/mafextoys) make very high-quality figures. They are more expensive than Hasbro, Neca or McFarlabe but less expensive than HotToys.
I have a MAFEX Batman that I really like. He has a real cape instead of plastic. He’s very detailed. You will find their toys start at about $100 each when buying new.
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HotToys (http://www.hottoys.com.hk) is the top of the heap in my opinion. I buy as many of their figures as my wallet will allow. Their products are expensive, but well worth it. A good collecting strategy might be to spend all your money on a few characters you really love in 1:6 scale from HotToys rather than hundreds of lesser characters you buy for 1/10th the money.
(One caveat about HotToys figures. . . they tend to be very detailed and VERY fragile. You need to be very careful even when you unbox them. It’s not that they are poorly made — just the opposite — it’s just that there are tons of very small, very fine details that can break.)
Sideshow (https://www.sideshow.com) is the top US distributor for HotToys and some other premium brands. Start here if you have a big budget, want the best, and desire a collection that will be worth something when you pass it on to your family.
CONCLUSION
There are many other brands I could have mentioned but I don’t want to write a white paper here. This is just a quick primer on how to choose what you collect.
The good news is that there are lots of choices.
As for WHERE to buy them? Well you can find product at Target, Walmart or CVS if you want the mass market stuff. GameStop has a lot of inventory in some locations, but not all.
Online you’ll be safe with BigBadToyStore.com — SideShow.com — McFarlane.com — and maybe Ebay. BUT!
ABOUT EBAY…
If you’re buying really expensive toys, beware Ebay. There are lots of counterfeit toys coming out of China and the fakes are VERY good — so good that sometimes even experts cannot spot them. Ebay is where you are more likely to run into fakes than the other sources I mentioned. So buyer beware. Pick sellers in your home country if you can and look for sellers with older accounts and lots of feedback. A new seller, in China, with less than five feedback is a red flag — especially if they are listing toys for far less than they usually cost.
Of course if you have a local comics/toy shop, they may be your best source and I always encourage people to support their local businesses when possible. You also have more recourse if something goes wrong when you are dealing locally.
Whatever you do decide to collect, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
Remember — toys are joy.
