annoyedBeing a crazy toy collector means, among other things, that I wind up acquiring and treasuring some things which are limited, and some things which are no longer available through anything but the action figure black market. It's all part of the game. And that includes the limited dolls made for the San Diego Comic Convention, or for the various Tonner Doll Conventions.
I have a point, I swear.
While I was in New York, I missed the 2011 Tonner Doll Convention, because, well, BEA. Several people on my Evangeline Ghastly Doll Collectors mailing list attended the Tonner convention, and were excited to get the convention-exclusive dolls. They started lining up at 7AM to get them. Supplies were exceedingly limited, and not everyone got a doll. There was much wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth. And the first dolls started showing up on eBay less than twenty minutes later.
Now, these are dolls which cost $150 new. Not cheap, but understandable for a limited-edition vinyl ball-jointed doll. And they went up on eBay at $450 each. Why? Because people would pay it. The same thing is happening right now in my Monster High community. People who can't get to San Diego are ordering dolls from eBay scalpers who promise them the exclusives at three or even four times the original purchase price. (These are people who don't even have dolls yet, mind you; they're selling doll futures, the promise that they will go to the convention and somehow find a way to obtain all these toys.) It isn't limited to exclusive dolls, either. Toy scalpers regularly clear the shelves of "new and hot" toys, listing them on auction sites at two to four times original purchase price.
This bothers me. I understand supply and demand. I understand "I bought this doll and now I don't want her and I'd like to make back my purchase price," or even "I bought her and I want my purchase price plus five bucks for me standing in line." But there's something that just seems faintly scummy about going into a collector situation and buying things to resell at that kind of markup when you know there are other people in that line. Saying "I'm doing it for the people who can't be here, I have to charge extra to pay for my time and effort" doesn't really wash for me unless you're doing it at the last minute, after all the people who are there have had the opportunity to get the toys for themselves.
I wish we didn't do this sort of thing to each other. I wish we'd share, and say "I need one for me, and you need one for you, and maybe if there's some left over, I'll take an extra for selling later," instead of forcing the conventions to put tighter and tighter restrictions on people, because they feel like we just can't be trusted. Maybe they feel that way because we keep proving, over and over again, that we can't be.
And it sucks.
June 15 2011, 20:14:11 UTC 6 years ago
I put serious thought into buying a spare copy of one of the World of Warcraft collector editions so I could eBay it. Decided not to screw over someone trying to get it for personal use.
My sister with up a Black Friday sale to get me a limited edition gold Legend of Zelda Nintendo DS the year the Wii was really popular. When she got to the counter, the salesclerk reached for a Wii. (That's what everyone else was in line for, pretty much.) She said she thought for about 2 seconds about taking it, selling it for 2 or 3 times what she paid for it, and getting herself something nice, but there were people outside waiting.
A friend of ours bought a PS3 that he ended up selling to a frantic woman before he even left the store. (In his defense, she wasn't there when he bought it; he worked there and had bought it on lunch.)
I understand the nature of supply and demand, but artificially reducing supply to make your item more valuable is kind of a dick thing to do.
June 16 2011, 00:22:04 UTC 6 years ago