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 16 2011, 06:20:01 UTC 6 years ago Edited: June 16 2011, 06:20:27 UTC
I've occasionally done the "buy one for me and one for a friend or two", but that's different, as I'm not trying to make a profit. And, we're talking stuff that's either not in short supply ("Pamela should get into the Toby books, so I'll pick up an extra") or not in huge demand ("Wow, only six bucks for this thing I know is good? It's still here? Okay, I'll find someone who wants it.")
What I've found really annoying: There are, or were (it's been a while since I checked), some really good semi-annual library book sales in NYC. One weekend long event starts with prices reasonable and drops them as the weekend progresses. And we're talking a huge room full of books.
We're also talking a lot of people wanting to buy these books, so the staff only lets a limited number of people in at a time (fire safety regs). So far, so normal.
People line up for hours before the sale begins. Specifically, used book dealers do this, go in, grab the stuff they think is most likely to be in demand -- grab bags and bags of it -- and sell it at a large mark up.
I get that this is different than "I'm going to buy up rare dolls so no one else can get them and then mark up the prices" and way different than selling future dolls-to-be-acquired. I get that it is legit for used book dealers to attend book sales. This, after all, is their business, acquiring and selling books. Heck, they may be able to make some people very happy by placing some of these books in their hands, people who'd never think of going to the library sale. But, it still annoys me.
June 16 2011, 14:38:54 UTC 6 years ago
That sort of thing at book sales bugs me, too. When I was a kid, situations like that were pretty much how I got most of my library, and having the booksellers clean them out would have crushed me.
June 16 2011, 23:48:08 UTC 6 years ago
Well, except, of course, that books aren't interchangeable. I didn't just want a pound or two of them. I have no way of knowing if I found less than I might otherwise have, or if, by the time I was going to these sales, my library was well enough established that I was looking for specific books and specific types of books. I was in my late twenties to early thirties, and I had been buying books for a very long time.