The POP-EXPOSE ‘Has GI Joe become a collectors item’?
(Story Courtesy of Serpentorslair Contributor TRAIN)
Has GI Joe become a collectors item?
I’m guessing 1963 a group of guys were sitting around talking about action figures. 12 inch solders to be exact. I’m sure there was some sort of conversation on weather a boy would play with a doll or not. The rebuttal may have very well been, they’re not dolls they are action figures. There also might have been posed the question, do we want to have our children playing with guns and knives? Or maybe that question didn’t come about as back then boys most likely would have had a toy gun, or a Beebe gun, or they may very well have gone on a hunting trip and fired a real gun, and it wouldn’t be a surprise for a boy to have a knife back then either. So a boy would not want a doll, but an action figure, well why not give it a shot. Then in 1982 the 3-3/4 inch figures came about and a good # of the boys who made mass adventures with their 12 inch Joe probably had kids of their own and they bought the new stuff for their kids. The kids craze was fueled by comics and cartoons. I really feel that the focus from 1964 up into the late 90’s and perhaps right into the 25th anniversary was on a small group of kids ranging from 5-10 give or take a few years. The past 2-3 years though it seems that GI Joe has become a collectors item.
Now I have a perfect cover up for my collecting habit, a 7 year old boy going on 8. Some of the best Joe years from my childhood. There are a lot of toy lines today that are collectable as well as kid driven. My son loves Star Wars and he has mounds of figures, he also loves Lego Star Wars. He picked out a Lego Star Wars game with a Game Stop card he got for Christmas. On his off time from the Wii he grabs up his hand full of Star Wars Lego guys and builds adventures such as he has played on the video game. Recently with the Rebel Star Wars series that spiked my son’s interest to collect all the figures from that series, Star Wars had made a surge on the kid playing adventures. With all the marketing and advertising, the Star Wars line has stayed strong among youngsters and adults. The problem I see with GI Joe is that it has gone from a toy to a collectors item. After they pushed out some nice 25th anniversary figures and each year after improved on the quality and detail, it seems that the conversation may have taken place these are not kids toys any more. Adults want to collect these and they will pay large amounts of money to get them. Lets improve the figures a little more and we can sell them to adults for 5 times what we are making now. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
So it seems to me that GI Joe has been reformed to a collectors market only. They keep putting out awesome figures at an average price of $50.00 which no average American would buy a $50.00 figure and give it to their kid who probably will snap the arms off and/or let the dog get it and eat his head off. I won’t even let my son touch anything I have gotten at a normal retail price. The only Joes I felt safe giving him were the clearance ones I got for $4.00 at Marshalls. Even the recent $6.00 figures at Dollar General, the $5.00 figures at 5Below, and the wave at Toys R Us, all seem to be aimed at army building and customizing. So a generic figure in a Dollar store will be scooped up by an adult such as myself, then it will get a repaint and head swap and posted to a site such as this one. Bottom line they are making money hand over fist, and there are very few kids getting involved in any of it anymore. So maybe GI Joe is a collectors item, and maybe that isn’t a bad thing, from my corner of the room, I would love to see some staple figures come back to retail at an affordable price.
