I don't really get the Funko appeal

[EnergizedLib]

As someone who collects sports memorabilia/has an untold amount of signatures, I can’t quite fathom the craziness people have over Funko - going to shows, seeing them signed, how much they sell for on eBay, it’s just not for me.

Now, do I *hate* Funko? No, give me a bobblehead from a ballpark, I’ll take some baseball cards I can send through the mail to get signed or a Sports Illustrated cover to get signed at a show, as I proudly have more than 100 SIs signed in my ever-growing collection that I began getting serious about in July 2019.

Funko? You get the box signed and you don’t see toy itself, and what’s to say the autograph wouldn’t fade?

That’s just my two cents.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

1. the backpacks are kinda cute... but these rooms full of funko pop squared headed things is a lot

[EnergizedLib]

2. I don't have the space for one, let alone 3,000

[vercetti2021]

3. I collect them because they are little Investments essentially

I have one of the very first Sonic the hedgehog funkos that was released and it's worth about 500 bucks if not more now

[EnergizedLib]

6. That sounds like a really cool thing

For me, I collect stuff because I love it, an emotional investment more than a monetary one, but good for you.

[vercetti2021]

7. Oh I'm the same this was a gift I got

A lot of the stuff I buy is very sentimental to myself essentially things I grew up with and so happens I get some that are luckily worth some money over the time. So I started collecting more and more stuff over time you know different types of action figures and sets and whatnot like this and some of them are surprisingly worth a lot of money just because you know I wanted to expand the collection

[EnergizedLib]

9. Do you see yourself selling off?

Because me, I’m only selling my autographs/memorabilia if I was absolutely desperate for money and was a last and final resort.

[vercetti2021]

13. Nope I plan on just keeping them

Some of the stuff I would never part with. A lot of these are like original figures from Star Wars episode 1 2 and 3 a lot of these I completed overtime that I missed so like having all these figure sets is very special to me. I mean you're talking to somebody who spent $62 on a box of urkelos that was sealed with the cereal inside of it still and bought an Urkel doll to go with it

[EnergizedLib]

14. I guess you really like Family Matters

Or you’re a Star Wars fan, cool stuff.

Like, if you collect Star Wars Funko or Sonic Funko because you love all things Star Wars or all things Sonic, I get that more than I personally would buy 3,000 Funkos just to have 3,000 Funkos when I have no space at all for one of them, much less thousands of them.

[vercetti2021]

16. Yeah I don't buy funko's unless I like the thing that they're tied to

Like the only time I ever got a Funko that I didn't really need was probably this weird Funko that my friend gave me that was a box of cereal as a character it was really weird. But I kept it because my friend gave it to me I wasn't going to get rid of it but everything that I have is related to something that I personally love you know Star Wars or South Park or sonic or Ghostbusters you name it.

[Fiendish Thingy]

11. Sell before the bottom falls out

Funkos are today’s beanie babies, and will eventually be worthless- count on it.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

4. I collect

Statues of egyptian gods.. Than I repaint them. It. might not be everyone's cup of tea but I love them and I love painting them.They are from the Hachette gods of the ancient Egyptians series,got 108 out of 110. Almost complete! I have a dedicated shelf for them.


However I understand the appeal of the funko thing but I myself dont want to collect funkos.they arent my cup of tea .

Who. Am I to judge someone elses tea,I aint drinking it.

[EnergizedLib]

8. I'm not judging at all

I’m just talking about me personally. I just Googled some sports Funkos and some of them are cute and distinguishable, others I would never be able to tell what they were otherwise.

Again, I’m only talking about me, not hating on anybody, not even hating on Funko. I’ll take a signed Sports Illustrated over a signed Funko any day of the week.

[Ziggysmom]

5. I don't see the attraction with Pops. They are nothing special, static and boring to look

at. The massive square heads and soulless bug eyes don't appeal to me at all.

[Fiendish Thingy]

10. They are the beanie babies of the 21st century. Nt

[EnergizedLib]

12. I guess so

They’re cute, but nothing tells me that I want to go out, buy a Funko (or do so in eBay), then drop some money to get it signed.

If I were famous, and I had my own Funko, and if someone approached me and asked me to sign, I’d be tempted to roll my eyes or think ‘Really?’ before signing it.

[Fiendish Thingy]

15. My sense is 90% of Funko collectors are in it for the money

There is a strong belief that Funkos will only grow in value, especially the figures made in limited quantities.
This was the same as the madness over beanie babies, with collectors forking over large sums to get desirable ones, only to have the “market” collapse and most beanies are now selling for less than their original retail price.

My smallish (100,000 people) town on Vancouver island has at least two stores devoted exclusively to Funkos, plus numerous toy, comic and record stores that also carry them.

If the economy ever tips into a recession, watch these two shops go out of business, and Craig’s list and eBay will be filled with cheap Funkos being sold for pennies on the dollar.

There is a documentary on one of the streaming services about “Beaniemania”, and a film about the Tulip mania in the Netherlands in the 1600’s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

[Freethinker65]

17. Remind me of Ty Beanie Babies, Longenberger baskets, collector plates, Hummels, Lladro...

Precious Moments, etc. Pretty much all can found at thrift stores (often entire collections) sitting on shelves getting dusty waiting for landfills.

Buy them if you like them, don't expect them to fund your retirement.

[EnergizedLib]

18. It reminds me of the baseball card hobby of the 1980s

Though born in the early '90s, I'm a big card enthusiast and have read about how people in the 1980s thought they'd be rich owning rookie cards of Jose Canseco and Gregg Jefferies, when cards were mass produced then and don't really go for much now.

The Pre-1980 cards can fetch some value, ironically, those cards a collector's mom once threw away. It's not often you'll find a Mickey Mantle Topps card for under $100.

Is Funko going to depreciate in value? I'm not an expert, but there are reasons to think it could. I'm not sure I've got the time or the energy to monetarily or emotionally invest in Funko when I'm emotionally invested in Sports Illustrateds and even a few different card sets.

[ZonkerHarris]

19. Will Funko's hold long term value? The answer lies in an old Calvin & Hobbes cartoon...

where Calvin has bought 3 copies of Stupendous Man #1 and says he will be rich someday because of them

Hobbes says "If everyone else has three copies too how will they become valuable?"

Calvin: "We're all counting on everyone elses Mom to throw theirs out."