Where's This Market Even Going?

[Illuminatus]

I've been meaning to get this off my chest.

I earn just about enough money right now to be able to afford most, if not all, of the most expensive BIONICLE collectibles... 10 years ago.

10 years ago those same collectibles were barely any more expensive than they were 20 years ago. I just never went after any of them because I was literally broke and from Eastern Europe where PayPal wasn't even a thing until 2008. "That's fine," I'd tell myself, "one day I'll get 'em all."

*scoff*

When did we, as a community, decide that this was less of a hobby and more of a business opportunity? And by business opportunity I mean pyramid scheme. When did we collectively decide that we all deserve to have all of the BIONICLE stuff there is to buy and turn a profit? Who's going pay for all of our collections?

Oh that's right, the last guy.

And once he pays, I'm thinking, he'll be wanting to turn a profit too.

In 2018 I bought an incomplete Toa Mata Nui set from a very friendly local woman for the equivalent of $40 (discounted from $80!!!). I then immediately resold it for $100 at a profit of $60.

If I'd kept that set I could've resold it today for a profit of $600. But that's not the point.

The point is I felt icky doing that. Because that's not what this hobby is supposed to be about. I don't want the $600 I could've made. I want the set back because the lady was kind to me and she let me have it for what she thought was a fair price. So right now I could've kept something that's neat for someone like me to own and kept the untarnished memory of how sweet that lady was to me.

When did this market become so aggressive? When did it, in fact, even become a market? It didn't feel that way right up until 2012. It felt like a community of dudes and dudettes that just shared a passion. There was plenty to go around for everyone (maybe just not for my poor Eastern European *redacted*).

Is there no longer plenty to go around? Is all of the good stuff firmly in the hands of the die-hard and the scalp-hard?

How long is this going to keep going? Will the last guy want to pay $1,000,009.23 for a single GPKK and then immediately list it for $1,000,000,000?

[tourmalinex]

It's just going to go up and up.

Edited July 22, 2023 by tourmalinex

[Nato G]

9 hours ago, Illuminatus said:

When did this market become so aggressive? When did it, in fact, even become a market?

When the sets stopped being produced and sold.

There's a finite number of Bionicle sets and parts left in the world. The number of sets and parts that are unopened or in good condition is even lower. Those numbers are lower still for exclusive sets and rare parts. People who know the value of and demand for what they have are going to price things accordingly.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Nato G

[tourmalinex]

Some of the prices are highly unreasonable I don't known why a krana is worth $5.

Edited July 23, 2023 by tourmalinex

[CareCreations]

The situation can only get worse over time. At some point a "stable" point will be reached and prices will stop rising, or at least stop rising so fast. But when the new standard is reached and people start buying again, the cycle will start again and again and again...

[Illuminatus]

All of those points are valid but let's not kid ourselves that this is just the result of "the market playing itself out" or of simply supply and demand.

Supply is getting lower, yes; demand is (for the time being) getting higher, yes, but:

1) Several key players are also strong-arming the market by very consistently monopolizing the supply;

2) This encourages other players to emulate said market behavior in an attempt to earn a free collection as well as a profit (at whose expense, ultimately?);

3) It also encourages otherwise tame players to hoard resources out of fear that they will otherwise go in the hands of scalpers, turning panic-buyers into de facto scalpers;

None of these things were even factors prior to 2012 and the majority of the stuff that you could buy was still decently rare, if not even rarer than now, because prior to 2012 there simply wasn't an army of dudes that mass buy Tower of the Toa sets in hopes of striking pearl gold just for the sake of profit. Back then just having the thing was enough.

Personally, I think the community/market is in a very unhealthy and generally unpleasant place. I don't imagine the prices are ever going to "stabilize" (whatever that means with these particular items) let alone drop but what I do know is that interest in BIONICLE will die out when we die out (unless LEGO brings it back and it's all the rage again, forever). And when that happens, I genuinely think the last guy to shell out major cash over BIONICLE is gonna be pretty bummed about it.

[CareCreations]

It is also the "fault" of how LEGO and its secondary market have become more and more globally known in recent times. In recent years, scalping in any other theme has increased a lot, unfortunately this has also happened for Bionicle.

I personally know some individuals who have only recently started buying many Bionicle-related items/sets almost for free with the sole purpose of reselling them at 10/20/30 times the value they originally paid for them. They don't even use them, they just look for the sets for a financial interest. 

It's a very, very sad situation.

 

[IgnikaTV]

Well only two ways it can go: up or down. The prices will keep on growing until noone is willing to pay it anymore. And then...

Or it could stop growing and go down aggain, but I don't know how that is gonna happen. Its the same thing happening with Lego right now: the price goes up because demand isn't going down and the profit is everything that count's.

The times have changed or mabey we have. I'm not sure what exactly caused all this, but nothing will ever be as it was before.

[Axelford]

12 hours ago, IgnikaTV said:

Or it could stop growing and go down aggain, but I don't know how that is gonna happen.

Aging fandom is my only suggestion. I collected stamps for a while (grandfather gave me his old collection) and that is an old hobby globally, but stamp values have been dropping for a while now, because even though an item is rare, the amount of people interested in buying stamps is decreasing. Plus, perception of the item has changed, a piece of paper and ink is not really wiz-bang compared to a piece of laminated paper that can be used in a trading card game, let alone an item in a digital game where you can actually use the item and flex on noobs or whatever. Idk, just spitting random stuff 😅

That being said, issues like an aging audience are a long way off and the fact that the product is now finite does compound things. I only started caring about collecting Bionicle around about 2016 and barely snuck in with getting some mid-tier collectibles before things kept getting higher. I think a shocker example is Lesovikk, I sort of was on the fence about getting that set but not now at the prices it goes for. I doubt people even like the set that much nor the character if they like lore, it will be the mask and blade they're after I'd say 😕 

[Skybird]

Part of it is the pandemic

It forced people inside, inevitably they get bored, do their spring cleaning, find something they were into as a kid, and reconnect with thay spark. And sometimes that spark is Bionicles, sometimes it's video reviews and other things.

 

I mention videos too because with the higher quality reviews coming out, and people buying sets to review and resell them at an insane markup, it really sours the market 

 

Lastly there is a bit of a halo effect, where a few pieces selling for a very high price kind of drive up the whole market. Is a good Ignika worth $500? No of course not, it's plastic, but people willing to buy in a sellers market means that prices are going to stay high, and higher prices will unfortunately justify the ever growing profit.

[freshbonkle]

Not only has scalping practices affected Bionicle prices, but other hobbies too such as video games, TCG, etc. It's a sad reality really. Especially for the fact that these things, Bionicles and video games as examples, are meant to entertain, to delight. To help build communities with those who enjoy it. Instead, with the scalping practices being the norm these days. I for one can attest to being afraid of using the stuff I acquire sometimes in the fear that it will become "rare" one day and that I'm not allowed to enjoy it. It almost feels wrong to use them with that rarity nonsense lingering in the back of my mind sometimes

[Iruini Nuva]

Part of it is age/life stage. Enough folks who grew up with Bionicle and maintained some interest in the hobby are now far enough along in their careers and lives to bring more $$ to bear against what's now a smaller pie. Obviously disposable incomes vary widely, but it's enough to move the market, which I think is smaller than it feels. Doesn't take all that many folks who are willing to pay $20 or $50 to resettle the market at the higher price.

Some of it is just...whatever zeitgeist is in the air like @freshbonkle mentioned. Seems to be hitting everything people collect.

That said, at least with some things, there's a knowledge gap where collectors (who recall/know what something is worth) may pay more than they prefer, but still avoid the heavy prices newbies face.

The typewriter market is like that now. If you don't know better you buy your first one for $400 on Etsy. If you do know what you're doing you're still able to find a $40 machine that old-hands will say should never be more than $20 because they made 30 million of it in 1955, but maybe you can tolerate that level of erosion.

Bionicle is tougher because it doesn't show up in downsizing/estate sales yet but it's getting rare in garage sales (i.e. anywhere not impacted by unrealistic internet prices). The good deals will return when our kids start auctioning off ours.

Edit: Or, for a more positive spin, if in fact there are folks buying up all the supply, there often comes a tipping point where a bubble pops and suddenly they're a bagholder with no buyers. Market cools, prices drop 90%; happens all the time.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Iruini Nuva

[Lorentz]

Economics 101

[The Archivist]

On 7/25/2023 at 7:34 AM, Lorentz said:

Economics 101

It really is. No supply, the idea of a much higher price, and a vague nostalgia among every turning-30-year-old who just came into income. People who think "the bubble will pop" aren't really understanding. Look at what happened to old MTG/Yugioh/Pokemon cards during the 2008 crisis. Unfortunately plastic items that can be kept for 20 years easily in a drawer will not depreciate as long as expendable income exists. 

Anyway watch me throw an irresponsible amount of money at this SDCC disc and send OP into a state or gibbering madness. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185994762215

[Master Inika]

It's not unique to BIONICLE. When it comes to hobby stuff, if multiple people all want to buy it, it gets bought.

Back in around 2015, I worked over about $175 for about nine misprint masks, and I still don't regret it. It sucks that this is how it is, and it's probably going to just get worse as BIONICLE becomes more nostalgic to the people who grew up with it.

4 hours ago, The Archivist said:

It really is. No supply, the idea of a much higher price, and a vague nostalgia among every turning-30-year-old who just came into income. People who think "the bubble will pop" aren't really understanding. Look at what happened to old MTG/Yugioh/Pokemon cards during the 2008 crisis. Unfortunately plastic items that can be kept for 20 years easily in a drawer will not depreciate as long as expendable income exists. 

Anyway watch me throw an irresponsible amount of money at this SDCC disc and send OP into a state or gibbering madness. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185994762215

If I were able to responsibly, I'd bid on that disk.

This are completely non-utilitarian pieces of plastic; ultimately, all of its value is subjective and comes from the happy thoughts it brings us, whether it's $10 for that feeling of $100.

[Illuminatus]

On 7/25/2023 at 5:34 PM, Lorentz said:

Economics 101

Yeahhhhhhh, not really though.

11 hours ago, The Archivist said:

No supply, the idea of a much higher price, and a vague nostalgia among every turning-30-year-old who just came into income.

This much is absolutely right and entirely unsurprising in hindsight, but again:

On 7/23/2023 at 4:21 PM, Illuminatus said:

1) Several key players are also strong-arming the market by very consistently monopolizing the supply;

Excusing this behavior as just how the market "is" while ignoring any individual or collective responsibility in not acting like absolute predators is just... morbidly depressing. I mean yeah, let's not sugar coat it, but let's also not justify it. Please.

On 7/25/2023 at 5:11 AM, Iruini Nuva said:

The good deals will return when our kids start auctioning off ours.

Yeah that seems like it'll be the case! The part that kills me is that in the end we'll have just distributed some cash amongst each other but not actually produced any value. Hail the best predator in the bunch.

11 hours ago, The Archivist said:

Anyway watch me throw an irresponsible amount of money at this SDCC disc and send OP into a state or gibbering madness. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185994762215

Here's hoping it hits 1k so I can list my sealed SDCC Vakama + SDCC Kanoka combo for 10k (or who knows, maybe 50k in a year). 🤞🤞🤞

[Letagi]

1 hour ago, Illuminatus said:

Excusing this behavior as just how the market "is" while ignoring any individual or collective responsibility in not acting like absolute predators is just... morbidly depressing. I mean yeah, let's not sugar coat it, but let's also not justify it. Please.

Totally agree with this. Much of the recent price hike is attributable to a handful of predatory scalpers. Set You Up/Yo_Yo_Flamingo and Bionicle Universe are the main culprits but there are others. Set You Up currently has a light gold Avohkii prototype listed for $5000, no doubt the same one that just sold on eBay for $3000.

I suspect that sellers like him buy their own stock using duplicate accounts to establish a sales record, making people believe that certain items are worth a fortune, but I don't have proof of this.

I get most frustrated when items that really aren't that rare become prohibitively expensive, like the pearl gold Kraahkan. There must be tens of thousands of them out there, if not more, and they are pretty much always available for sale. If I can buy multiples of an item with a few clicks, it's not rare. 

It extends way outside of Bionicle. There are currently 41 Cloud City Boba Fett minifigs on BrickLink and around a dozen more on eBay. Clearly not a rare figure, and yet the Lego Star Wars AFOL community has unanimously decided that it's worth thousands. Just a few years ago they sold for a couple hundred - still a lot for a mass-produced plastic minifig, but attainable for most collectors who want one.

And as for the "demand is greater than supply" argument - if that were true, then every time one of these pieces gets listed, it would sell immediately. The demand for Cloud City Boba Fett minifigs is very obviously not greater than the supply. Pearl gold Kraahkan listings on BrickLink stay up for months. The perception of rarity in these cases has somehow been artificially created. Contrast this with something like an SSKK, which actually is rare and justifiably valuable.

I really hope the bubble bursts soon. I won't have any empathy for the predators who are out thousands of dollars. As much as I like the idea that my collection is valuable, I like the idea of being able to buy all the rare pieces I want even more.

[Illuminatus]

1 hour ago, Letagi said:

Totally agree with this. Much of the recent price hike is attributable to a handful of predatory scalpers. Set You Up/Yo_Yo_Flamingo and Bionicle Universe are the main culprits but there are others. Set You Up currently has a light gold Avohkii prototype listed for $5000, no doubt the same one that just sold on eBay for $3000.

It pains me to say it, as Bionicle Universe is a friend, but his contribution to the steady (and occasionally abrupt) rise in prices for the past decade has been enormous (and we all know once they go up, they stay up; ain't ever been such a thing as a "correction" in this type of market).

I can vouch that he (unlike some others) is particularly pleasant to do business with and while his pricing has always ranged from slightly over-the-top to downright obscene, he's also done a great service to the community in providing a readily available marketplace for the fandom especially in terms of sealed sets and collectibles. I'd really like to think he hasn't ever dabbled in any of the more shady stuff but I'm sure at least some people have, as you described.

2 hours ago, Letagi said:

I get most frustrated when items that really aren't that rare become prohibitively expensive, like the pearl gold Kraahkan. There must be tens of thousands of them out there, if not more, and they are pretty much always available for sale. If I can buy multiples of an item with a few clicks, it's not rare.

This. Absolutely this. Same goes for the pearl gold Ignika, 5-hole Kraahkan (lol??) and honestly even the misprint Kaukaus; these things are literally abundant but the consensus seems to be that they're ultra rare so they're just treated as such. And if it ever happens that a relatively high number of extra units are suddenly injected into the market (like with the yellow Huna), that doesn't ever appear to have a stabilizing effect, like ever. It's just "more of the rare stuff = more money to charge." It is absolutely backwards (and also proof that supply doesn't amount to anything in this particular case).

2 hours ago, Letagi said:

The perception of rarity in these cases has somehow been artificially created. Contrast this with something like an SSKK, which actually is rare and justifiably valuable.

And here lies the biggest tragedy of it all: if some pieces that are as common as the pearl gold Ignika can get pumped so high, then sellers will naturally use that as pretext to pump the prices of actually rare items to unfathomability.

Bionicle Universe has just listed his gold Hau for €50,000. And a few prototype sets for €5000 each. I saw that yesterday and unironically wanted to cry because I guess all the good stuff really is taken. :)

[tourmalinex]

6 hours ago, Letagi said:

Totally agree with this. Much of the recent price hike is attributable to a handful of predatory scalpers. Set You Up/Yo_Yo_Flamingo and Bionicle Universe are the main culprits but there are others. Set You Up currently has a light gold Avohkii prototype listed for $5000, no doubt the same one that just sold on eBay for $3000.

I suspect that sellers like him buy their own stock using duplicate accounts to establish a sales record, making people believe that certain items are worth a fortune, but I don't have proof of this.

I get most frustrated when items that really aren't that rare become prohibitively expensive, like the pearl gold Kraahkan. There must be tens of thousands of them out there, if not more, and they are pretty much always available for sale. If I can buy multiples of an item with a few clicks, it's not rare. 

It extends way outside of Bionicle. There are currently 41 Cloud City Boba Fett minifigs on BrickLink and around a dozen more on eBay. Clearly not a rare figure, and yet the Lego Star Wars AFOL community has unanimously decided that it's worth thousands. Just a few years ago they sold for a couple hundred - still a lot for a mass-produced plastic minifig, but attainable for most collectors who want one.

And as for the "demand is greater than supply" argument - if that were true, then every time one of these pieces gets listed, it would sell immediately. The demand for Cloud City Boba Fett minifigs is very obviously not greater than the supply. Pearl gold Kraahkan listings on BrickLink stay up for months. The perception of rarity in these cases has somehow been artificially created. Contrast this with something like an SSKK, which actually is rare and justifiably valuable.

I really hope the bubble bursts soon. I won't have any empathy for the predators who are out thousands of dollars. As much as I like the idea that my collection is valuable, I like the idea of being able to buy all the rare pieces I want even more.

Price fixing and messing with auctions on eBay is a real thing. I was selling a lot of 10 sets on eBay, 5 people bid it up to $800, then 4 of them dropped out leaving a $75 winner. I had to talk to eBay and get them to un-fine me for refusing to sell, I gave the buyer’s money back. Also, I was told by a group of eBay Lego sellers on Discord on how to rig the prices on eBay by making fake sales. I wanted to sell my Blue Rurn, I was told how to use two accounts to buy my own item and how to cancel the sale and have eBay still register the sale.

[Letagi]

21 hours ago, Illuminatus said:

(and we all know once they go up, they stay up; ain't ever been such a thing as a "correction" in this type of market).

I dunno, I think it could happen. Prices are approaching a level of absurdity that I don't think is sustainable. Eventually, everyone who is able/willing to spend exorbitant amounts of money on the pieces they want will have done so, and there will be no one left who can pay $1000 for a pearl gold Kraahkan. The market will stagnate and sellers will have to drop their prices significantly in order to break even.

It's actually a version of the supply/demand argument, but reversed: when the supply of buyers is less than the sellers' demand, prices should drop.

18 hours ago, tourmalinex said:

I was told how to use two accounts to buy my own item and how to cancel the sale and have eBay still register the sale.

Yikes, that's very disturbing. It creates an environment where it's impossible to know what an item is really worth since you can't know know which sales are real. Especially frustrating given that I have been meticulously documenting collectible values for almost ten years, and now doing so is a complete waste of time lol.

[protodite]

Yeah I was wondering the same thing! It felt like not long ago I could scoop up some random things on eBay for cheap cheap cheap. During this year my little nieces and nephews discovered a Lewa Nuva I had and have gotten really into it, and it’s been tough searching for sets to get for them that will be a reasonable price… they’re kids that are 5, 6, 7 - they want to play with these things, not overpay and collect!

[The Archivist]

There seems to be this fundamental belief that the prices aren't the "right" prices because they're higher than what most people would pay. People like BU, Yo-Yo, and others like to buy rare masks and sell them at a markup. This creates the idea that these aren't the proper prices. And when people fake Ebay auctions this reinforces the idea. 

To be clear, these sellers aren't the cause of the Bronze Komau price spike. And the pearl gold Ignika. And the PGKK. They don't sell these pieces. They certainly aren't buying out 10 Bronze Komaus to spike the price. They buy a rare mask which isn't on the market, and list it at a price that only one person will buy. Because there's only one seller. To be clear, my below arguments don't really apply to the above masks, since there IS an abundance of supply on the bronze komau and no recorded sales at the high price. But three people aren't manipulating it, the general public just sees the writing on the wall. 

I buy stuff from BU and Yo-Yo. Sometimes they have stuff that nobody else has, and I buy it since I can't get it anywhere else. Does that not make it the "correct" market price? If there are 100 people who want a mask, and 1 seller, the seller should only sell it to the highest bidder. If he does it right, the other 99 should be saying "wow that price is too high" and then many buy into the cop-out that "well I saw that Ebay sales can be faked so its not the "right" price." 

If you see a mask go for an outrageous amount, either 1) the sale was fraudulent or 2) someone was willing to pay that price. Let's take the Pearl Gold Avohkii that was recently on Ebay. Yo-Yo bought it for $3100 and relisted it for $5000 where it currently sits. No amount of fake Ebay auctions will make this profitable unless someone boys it. And considering multiple people bid close to $3k within the 10-day window it was available, the price over a 12-month period is probably higher than 3k if there's only one on the market. "Market manipulation on ebay" doesn't apply to this specific piece. I don't think I can find a single prototype peice, with only one on the market, that's been manipulated. I've seen bits of manipulation regarding the above komau and ignika but zero to suggest the whole market is being forced up artificially. 

I purchased a trans-orange Kraata for $1000 on Ebay. There hadn't been any on the market for a year. Still a good purchase. 

I purchased a SSKK for $1300 on Ebay. There hadn't been any on the market for a year. Happy with my purchase because there still aren't any for sale. 

I see these referenced as evidence of fake purchases on Ebay. But to me its like "okay where were you when I needed one? Can you sell me yours for $400 then?" After I bought, several more hit the market. Likely because people had them sitting around and thought "I'm not selling my favorite piece for $150" and then realized it was $1k and sold immediately. There were several sitting around but the market value hadn't adjusted to what their owners thought they were worth until I paid it. 

Also, after clarifying that I bought the above pieces for high prices, people on this forum suggested "you should contact the Ebay seller privately and sell off-the-books as to not record the prices". Literally, people posting in this thread have suggested that I should engage in market manipulation to keep the prices artificially low. Many others on this forum have done this personally. Price suppression like this makes the market prime for the jumps we've seen recently. 

Others have said "well they will run out of buyers and sell low to make their money back". Has this ever happened? Have rare LEGOs ever run out of buyers and dropped? Have old, rare MTG cards ever lost their demand because all 100 people who wanted them finally purchased them? 

 

Edited July 29, 2023 by The Archivist

[T.B.O.C]

On 7/27/2023 at 11:09 AM, Letagi said:

Totally agree with this. Much of the recent price hike is attributable to a handful of predatory scalpers. Set You Up/Yo_Yo_Flamingo and Bionicle Universe are the main culprits but there are others. Set You Up currently has a light gold Avohkii prototype listed for $5000, no doubt the same one that just sold on eBay for $3000.

I suspect that sellers like him buy their own stock using duplicate accounts to establish a sales record, making people believe that certain items are worth a fortune, but I don't have proof of this.

I get most frustrated when items that really aren't that rare become prohibitively expensive, like the pearl gold Kraahkan. There must be tens of thousands of them out there, if not more, and they are pretty much always available for sale. If I can buy multiples of an item with a few clicks, it's not rare. 

It extends way outside of Bionicle. There are currently 41 Cloud City Boba Fett minifigs on BrickLink and around a dozen more on eBay. Clearly not a rare figure, and yet the Lego Star Wars AFOL community has unanimously decided that it's worth thousands. Just a few years ago they sold for a couple hundred - still a lot for a mass-produced plastic minifig, but attainable for most collectors who want one.

And as for the "demand is greater than supply" argument - if that were true, then every time one of these pieces gets listed, it would sell immediately. The demand for Cloud City Boba Fett minifigs is very obviously not greater than the supply. Pearl gold Kraahkan listings on BrickLink stay up for months. The perception of rarity in these cases has somehow been artificially created. Contrast this with something like an SSKK, which actually is rare and justifiably valuable.

I really hope the bubble bursts soon. I won't have any empathy for the predators who are out thousands of dollars. As much as I like the idea that my collection is valuable, I like the idea of being able to buy all the rare pieces I want even more.

I agree with this - I've more recently started to detest several of these named sellers for their practices. The Pearl Gold Avohkii in particular struck me - I wasn't bidding on the central auction (as I do not have that sort of money for a mask), but turning around just to resell it is extremely lame. These are collectors pieces! Think about all the prototypes and rare masks we've seen in the last few years by people who just like BIONICLE and want to show rare pieces of history. I think a great amount of people are either people who actively build and buy parts, or who collect. I fall more into the latter, and it's extremely upsetting how many people clearly move through BIONICLE selling as a means to make money. It's well known and expected at this point, but I dislike these people nonetheless.

We are, however, primarily in the age of BIONICLE rising in price. The pandemic hitting, as well as being well within the nostalgia window for people who are starting to come into solid income with BIONICLE being over 20 years old now. That being said - there's absolutely bad actors performing market manipulation. The fact several have been named dropped here says something to me. Particular parts are 100% the issue - you know how a boxed Toa Mata Nui was $600 even a year or two back? $1-1.7K now. I remember when most people on BZP sold masks for a few dollars at a time, you wouldn't dream of pricing most Krana over 50 cents, and occasionally WMKK would show up on eBay for something like $300. Forget $10-25 price tags on Kraata, unheard of. Even less than 10 years ago several over $100 sets were worth nothing. I bought my Exo-Toa and Boxor for $35. My Muaka and Kane-Ra was $40.  

There's an extent to which it'll burst. The vast majority of people are not looking for the rarest things and are going to shill out money for them. The poster above brings up a valid point in that these markets will continue as they have for TCG and other ones, but how many people are actually willing to buy some of these things for outrageous prices? The vast majority of people who buy BIONICLE sets are looking for significantly less insane things. Most people are looking for some canister sets and maybe some retail collectibles, the second of which most people are already priced out of. Kanohi only go so high before no one buys them. Someone who really wants Tahu Mata isn't going to buy that $30 buy-it-now for a loose one, they're gonna buy a lot of like 8 Toa for $20 that has what they wanted actually. I have waited out auctions for several years of people not buying them. There are price points where only very few select people will pay the price. Like if that one Bricklink seller who keeps buying up Black Metru torsos to resell for $20 each keeps doing their work, no one is gonna care about building Bomonga anymore. Not like we won't have someone able to 3D print decent enough ones for cheaper.

Not even gonna go into how prominent YouTube channels have negatively affected pricing. Every "Top 10 Rarest BIONICLE Set" video contributes, just like how "Hidden Gem Games" videos helped decimate game collecting markets.

Even dedicated collectors have limits - there are many people like me who have collected since BIONICLE came out who are basically done. I have a handful of collectibles and 4 sets left before I stop caring. I've adjusted my expectations for "rare" collectibles I've wanted and simply don't care anymore. If the niche people aren't buying, who is? People who perpetually want to resell? It's ridiculous, and again why I dislike the advent of scalpers and resellers in these communities. Their purpose is to wring money out of people, and those who are desperate pay the prices. It goes until people don't care anymore. Why do you think the good resin printers right now sell nearly perfect gold Ignika for $20? They fill the market for the people who just want something that looks like that. It's why significant amounts of MTG players just play in Tabletop RPG instead of going bankrupt affording cards they want. 

[Illuminatus]

24 minutes ago, T.B.O.C said:

I agree with this - I've more recently started to detest several of these named sellers for their practices. The Pearl Gold Avohkii in particular struck me - I wasn't bidding on the central auction (as I do not have that sort of money for a mask), but turning around just to resell it is extremely lame. These are collectors pieces! Think about all the prototypes and rare masks we've seen in the last few years by people who just like BIONICLE and want to show rare pieces of history. I think a great amount of people are either people who actively build and buy parts, or who collect. I fall more into the latter, and it's extremely upsetting how many people clearly move through BIONICLE selling as a means to make money. It's well known and expected at this point, but I dislike these people nonetheless.

We are, however, primarily in the age of BIONICLE rising in price. The pandemic hitting, as well as being well within the nostalgia window for people who are starting to come into solid income with BIONICLE being over 20 years old now. That being said - there's absolutely bad actors performing market manipulation. The fact several have been named dropped here says something to me. Particular parts are 100% the issue - you know how a boxed Toa Mata Nui was $600 even a year or two back? $1-1.7K now. I remember when most people on BZP sold masks for a few dollars at a time, you wouldn't dream of pricing most Krana over 50 cents, and occasionally WMKK would show up on eBay for something like $300. Forget $10-25 price tags on Kraata, unheard of. Even less than 10 years ago several over $100 sets were worth nothing. I bought my Exo-Toa and Boxor for $35. My Muaka and Kane-Ra was $40.  

There's an extent to which it'll burst. The vast majority of people are not looking for the rarest things and are going to shill out money for them. The poster above brings up a valid point in that these markets will continue as they have for TCG and other ones, but how many people are actually willing to buy some of these things for outrageous prices? The vast majority of people who buy BIONICLE sets are looking for significantly less insane things. Most people are looking for some canister sets and maybe some retail collectibles, the second of which most people are already priced out of. Kanohi only go so high before no one buys them. Someone who really wants Tahu Mata isn't going to buy that $30 buy-it-now for a loose one, they're gonna buy a lot of like 8 Toa for $20 that has what they wanted actually. I have waited out auctions for several years of people not buying them. There are price points where only very few select people will pay the price. Like if that one Bricklink seller who keeps buying up Black Metru torsos to resell for $20 each keeps doing their work, no one is gonna care about building Bomonga anymore. Not like we won't have someone able to 3D print decent enough ones for cheaper.

Not even gonna go into how prominent YouTube channels have negatively affected pricing. Every "Top 10 Rarest BIONICLE Set" video contributes, just like how "Hidden Gem Games" videos helped decimate game collecting markets.

Even dedicated collectors have limits - there are many people like me who have collected since BIONICLE came out who are basically done. I have a handful of collectibles and 4 sets left before I stop caring. I've adjusted my expectations for "rare" collectibles I've wanted and simply don't care anymore. If the niche people aren't buying, who is? People who perpetually want to resell? It's ridiculous, and again why I dislike the advent of scalpers and resellers in these communities. Their purpose is to wring money out of people, and those who are desperate pay the prices. It goes until people don't care anymore. Why do you think the good resin printers right now sell nearly perfect gold Ignika for $20? They fill the market for the people who just want something that looks like that. It's why significant amounts of MTG players just play in Tabletop RPG instead of going bankrupt affording cards they want. 

Absolutely based.

[The Archivist]

On 7/27/2023 at 7:32 AM, Illuminatus said:

Here's hoping it hits 1k so I can list my sealed SDCC Vakama + SDCC Kanoka combo for 10k (or who knows, maybe 50k in a year). 🤞🤞🤞

It sold for $1825 for just the disc alone

[Illuminatus]

19 minutes ago, The Archivist said:

It sold for $1825 for just the disc alone

Was just about to double post (that still a rule?) saying I was rich.

Maybe the market's not so bad after all.

[The Archivist]

1 hour ago, Illuminatus said:

Was just about to double post (that still a rule?) saying I was rich.

Maybe the market's not so bad after all.

I am curious what the effect a sealed set will have on the price of the disk.

[Letagi]

On 7/29/2023 at 9:43 AM, The Archivist said:

To be clear, these sellers aren't the cause of the Bronze Komau price spike. And the pearl gold Ignika. And the PGKK. They don't sell these pieces. They certainly aren't buying out 10 Bronze Komaus to spike the price. They buy a rare mask which isn't on the market, and list it at a price that only one person will buy. Because there's only one seller. To be clear, my below arguments don't really apply to the above masks, since there IS an abundance of supply on the bronze komau and no recorded sales at the high price. But three people aren't manipulating it, the general public just sees the writing on the wall. 

Yes, they are. Yo-yo is personally responsible for the 400% price increase of the PGK. He has bought and sold several of them over the past two years. Sellers do exactly what you are saying they don't do - they buy all the supply of a piece that is uncommon but not terribly expensive, and then they sell their stock one at a time and control the market for that item. I've seen it happen in real time. One of these days I might do it myself just to prove it can be done.

On 7/29/2023 at 9:43 AM, The Archivist said:

Also, after clarifying that I bought the above pieces for high prices, people on this forum suggested "you should contact the Ebay seller privately and sell off-the-books as to not record the prices". Literally, people posting in this thread have suggested that I should engage in market manipulation to keep the prices artificially low. Many others on this forum have done this personally. Price suppression like this makes the market prime for the jumps we've seen recently. 

No, we're asking you to prevent sleazy sellers from engaging in market manipulation by artificially raising prices. Literally the opposite of market manipulation. There is nothing natural about Yo-yo buying a prototype for $3000 and flipping it for $5000 a week later. Guess that's just the market doing its thing, right?

On 7/29/2023 at 9:43 AM, The Archivist said:

Others have said "well they will run out of buyers and sell low to make their money back". Has this ever happened? Have rare LEGOs ever run out of buyers and dropped? Have old, rare MTG cards ever lost their demand because all 100 people who wanted them finally purchased them? 

Yes, every time Lego releases a new version of a set. Desirable sets like the original UCS Millennium Falcon, UCS Star Destroyer, and the old Eiffel Tower used to be worth two to three times as much but plummeted after the new versions came out. Obviously there won't be a rerelease of Bionicle sets, but this shows that it is possible for prices to drop when buyers decide to spend their money elsewhere. I don't know if this will happen with Bionicle but I have a feeling that collectors are getting fed up with sellers ripping them off.

[The Archivist]

30 minutes ago, Letagi said:

Yes, they are. Yo-yo is personally responsible for the 400% price increase of the PGK. He has bought and sold several of them over the past two years. Sellers do exactly what you are saying they don't do - they buy all the supply of a piece that is uncommon but not terribly expensive, and then they sell their stock one at a time and control the market for that item. I've seen it happen in real time. One of these days I might do it myself just to prove it can be done.

I haven't been able to find evidence of the PGI and the Bronze Komau being resold specifically by these sellers. I see a single Bronze Komau sold by set-you-up and that's it. Six other sellers. 10 PGI for sale and none by the scalpers you claim. So 10 separate people are all scalping to drive the price up 60% in two months? Every single seller on the market is a scalper? 

30 minutes ago, Letagi said:

No, we're asking you to prevent sleazy sellers from engaging in market manipulation by artificially raising prices. Literally the opposite of market manipulation. There is nothing natural about Yo-yo buying a prototype for $3000 and flipping it for $5000 a week later. Guess that's just the market doing its thing, right?

You explicitly suggested I should do it for the Trans-orange Kraata. Even though me, and the buyer, agreed on a price that was over every other buyer's price. It was literally a public auction. Even though I'd checked BL and Ebay every day for a year loking for one. That IS the market doing it. Even if the purchase took place behind the scenes, you'd still have one seller and one buyer agreeing on a price. But it's not a public price. Then, when the mask sells for a high price publicly, everyone goes "whoa where did this come from this must be inauthentic" because nobody has all the data because of these secret sales this forum advocates. 

 

30 minutes ago, Letagi said:

Yes, every time Lego releases a new version of a set. Desirable sets like the original UCS Millennium Falcon, UCS Star Destroyer, and the old Eiffel Tower used to be worth two to three times as much but plummeted after the new versions came out. Obviously there won't be a rerelease of Bionicle sets, but this shows that it is possible for prices to drop when buyers decide to spend their money elsewhere. I don't know if this will happen with Bionicle but I have a feeling that collectors are getting fed up with sellers ripping them off.

Yes, prices go down when they effectively reprint the set. When are the next Bionicle set reprints coming? I see you acknowledge they're not reprinting Bionicle but when are the next Bionicle-similar sets coming out, such that people buying PGKs suddenly buy an off-the-shelf set instead? There is no meaningful replacement for these. Look at MTG (I run a MTG store, can you tell?). The company running it has explicitly said they won't reprint any cards from the early days of MTG. Prices have gone nowhere but up. WOTC (The company) has explicitly said "we're gunna print as many comparable alternatives to these cards as we can, as we see price as an issue" and price has gone nowhere but up. Functional reprints don't, and can't, replace the originals. Bionicle doesn't even have the molds anymore. 

Edited July 30, 2023 by The Archivist

[tourmalinex]

I believe prices would go down if people stop hording. Why would you want to own 4000 Kanohi Nuva Boxs.

Edited July 30, 2023 by tourmalinex

[Toa Matia]

On 7/29/2023 at 10:43 AM, The Archivist said:

Let's take the Pearl Gold Avohkii that was recently on Ebay. Yo-Yo bought it for $3100 and relisted it for $5000 where it currently sits. No amount of fake Ebay auctions will make this profitable unless someone boys it. And considering multiple people bid close to $3k within the 10-day window it was available, the price over a 12-month period is probably higher than 3k if there's only one on the market.

 

Let’s set the story straight here, Yo Yo did not “buy it for $3100 to relist for $5,000”. There was a toothbrush collector who had multiple of the toothbrushes containing the “pearl gold” (actually copper) Avohkii. A year or so back, he was in conversation with multiple people and recently reached back out to them and sold at least 5 that I know of to at least 3-4 buyers that I know. Without giving away everyone’s prices, what I’ve heard from people who bought them and now have them in their possession, the general consensus is that they each got them for under $500. Set You Up posted about his before the eBay listing even went live, so he couldn’t have bought it for $3,000 to relist on Bricklink at $5,000. If my deductions are correct, he got them from the same seller everyone else did, and most likely at the same price. AFTER the Bricklink postings at $5,000 the original seller became upset and was wondering if he had been scalped/ripped off, so he listed another one of his on eBay to see where it ended up. Then, probably largely influenced by that $5,000 Bricklink listing, the eBay auction ended up just over $3,000. Meanwhile the other buyers just paid the original seller a fair price to add to their personal collection for their own enjoyment.

 

Basically, Set You Up (and Bionicle Universe too) posted their Copper Avohkiis BEFORE the eBay auction even appeared, so it’s not a case of trying to turn a $5,000 profit after paying $3,000, it’s more like they’re attempting to turn a profit of over 10 TIMES what they paid. And this isn’t new at all, Set You Up bought a prototype trans-orange shadow leech for $60 and immediately relisted at $1,000. This is where the “predatory” description comes from, but unfortunately yeah, if they have something I needed and no one else did I might have to buy from them too 🤷‍♂️ luckily that hasn’t been the case yet, but who knows lol

Edited July 31, 2023 by Toa Matia

[The Archivist]

51 minutes ago, Toa Matia said:

Then, probably largely influenced by that $5,000 Bricklink listing, the eBay auction ended up just over $3,000.

You are more correct than I am about the specifics. I didn't have this info and appreciate it. Slight correction, I am 100% sure the 5k listing appeared AFTER the ebay auction. Which is what made me think it was the same mask from the auction. 

And you are also correct that this reseller is a scumbag. I mean, if a guy doesn't know what it's worth, and you know it's ~3k and lie and tell him 200, go **** yourself. Straight up theft from a guy providing prototypes to the community. I don't debate that you and Legati have the moral high ground here about resellers in general. The morally correct thing is not to resell. My arguments are purely economic, to attempt to predict the future of the mask market. 

[Toa Matia]

Hmm you might be right, I have some DMs from 6/29 before the auction ended on 7/1 saying ”they’re asking 5k for the pearl gold Avohkii” that I now thought meant the Bricklink listing was before the eBay sale, but they’re out of context cuz we were talking in a group chat too at the same time lol, so I’m not sure if I meant Set You Up or someone else.
 

Yeah that’s what I was thinking as I was typing, I realized it’s basically a “that’s mean of someone to do!” vs “if one person will pay it, then someone can sell/resell that high.” Whether or not we think it should happen a certain way, it’s happening the way it is regardless of how we feel lol. Obviously I would love for there to be a drop in prices, but it sure doesn’t seem like there will be. I mean, I’m lucky enough to have nearly everything for a collection already besides prototypes and stuff like that, so of course “everything” will seem very high when the main things that I watch the prices for now are brown Komau’s, white and yellow Huna’s, pearl gold Avohkiis etc lol

Edited July 31, 2023 by Toa Matia

[Illuminatus]

I think it's important to not get carried away when describing what the market is and does because the line between that and justifying what the market is and does is very thin. If we're to logically follow the line of thinking where we simply observe, describe and predict how something will be, we sweep the "should" bit very comfortably under the rug. And the "should" bit isn't unimportant. Because the market doesn't exist in isolation. The market consists of every seller and buyer that's ever participated in it and every seller and buyer has agency in the process. Going by that logic, there is nothing more "natural" than a market being overrun with bad actors. But natural doesn't make it excusable.

That's why I'm all for constant, active discourse on the subject. Certain things really are a certain way "regardless of how we feel" but the market is something that is very much defined by how we feel; it's not just a thing out there doing its thing.

I think a big part of the reason why most of us are willing to give scalping behavior a pass is that deep down we all kind of wish we could operate with that type of cash on that kind of level. And we all kind of admire what the scalpers do (not unlike one admires a very well thought out con; except in this case the con isn't even sophisticated).

EDIT: The reason why I think discourse is important is because if people have easier access to information that validates their frustration with the market, it would make them feel less isolated and powerless. It is one thing to just "go with it" when only a scalper has that thing you really want when everyone seems to think that's just how things are; but when you know that quite a few others share your frustration, you'd be much more likely to reconsider how much you really want (let alone "need") that thing you're after. It also helps you unframe every single other fan as your competition or potential buyer.

There is tremendous power in not caring. As @T.B.O.C very adequately put, there is nothing stopping any of us from just moving on if we see the market is hopeless, because hopelessness is exactly what makes an "eager" (actually desperate) fan accept the price tag. This hobby is meant to bring joy, not misery.

Edited July 31, 2023 by Illuminatus

[Aiden]

8 hours ago, The Archivist said:

You are more correct than I am about the specifics. I didn't have this info and appreciate it. Slight correction, I am 100% sure the 5k listing appeared AFTER the ebay auction. Which is what made me think it was the same mask from the auction. 

It didn’t. He briefly had the listing up before the 5k listing went up. (Assuming the worst) I’m assuming he took it down when the 3k listing showed up and put it back up afterwards to try and “justify” his price more.

The prices people like SYU and BU ask are exorbitant, even for how rare the items are. That trans orange shadow leech prototype SYU sold for 800? (Well firstly, he claimed it was the only one in existence “to his knowledge”, which was lying on both fronts). These were given out free (as quite a few prototypes have been) years ago, and on top of that hundreds of shadow leech prototypes in varying colors were made. I own a trans orange as well, and reached out to him letting him know his wasn’t the only one, and provided pictures, and he RESPONDED and acknowledged this to me- and then didn’t update his listings. So I can personally prove his claims were a lie.

Ideally the only items going close to or above $1k are the items made of precious metals. Anything else, including, yes, sought after prototype masks, should realistically not go over 500. Both the proto masks I’ve owned (which were pretty recently purchased) I bought for $300. Non mask items like prototype zamors or other prototype weapons I’ve bought for $50. That’s my ideal market as far as prototypes go- and I’ve been able to make it happen. So if you see something listed way too high don’t bite or cave into FOMO. Be patient and be diligent, chances are you’ll find it cheaper.

Obviously the market has some part in everything, but there are sellers who knowingly and willingly take advantage of it. SYU is widely regarded as somebody who has almost SINGLE-HANDEDLY scuffed the market to where it is today, and has been banned from quite a few bionicle communities for his practices. Defending such practices does nobody any good and enables them further. 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Aiden

[T.B.O.C]

On 7/31/2023 at 7:02 AM, Illuminatus said:

I think it's important to not get carried away when describing what the market is and does because the line between that and justifying what the market is and does is very thin. If we're to logically follow the line of thinking where we simply observe, describe and predict how something will be, we sweep the "should" bit very comfortably under the rug. And the "should" bit isn't unimportant. Because the market doesn't exist in isolation. The market consists of every seller and buyer that's ever participated in it and every seller and buyer has agency in the process. Going by that logic, there is nothing more "natural" than a market being overrun with bad actors. But natural doesn't make it excusable.

That's why I'm all for constant, active discourse on the subject. Certain things really are a certain way "regardless of how we feel" but the market is something that is very much defined by how we feel; it's not just a thing out there doing its thing.

I think a big part of the reason why most of us are willing to give scalping behavior a pass is that deep down we all kind of wish we could operate with that type of cash on that kind of level. And we all kind of admire what the scalpers do (not unlike one admires a very well thought out con; except in this case the con isn't even sophisticated).

EDIT: The reason why I think discourse is important is because if people have easier access to information that validates their frustration with the market, it would make them feel less isolated and powerless. It is one thing to just "go with it" when only a scalper has that thing you really want when everyone seems to think that's just how things are; but when you know that quite a few others share your frustration, you'd be much more likely to reconsider how much you really want (let alone "need") that thing you're after. It also helps you unframe every single other fan as your competition or potential buyer.

There is tremendous power in not caring. As @T.B.O.C very adequately put, there is nothing stopping any of us from just moving on if we see the market is hopeless, because hopelessness is exactly what makes an "eager" (actually desperate) fan accept the price tag. This hobby is meant to bring joy, not misery.

Mm, very much so to your first point - I think people often get bogged down in the action of a market as just the way it goes and its justified. I think in a lot of ways we're still relatively new to major price shifts - BIONICLE carried fairly stable prices for a number of years after cancellation. I really feel like it's the past few years so much has gone up, though I know some rare pieces have been climbing hard (pearl gold Kraahkan and Vohtarak shell).

The point about admiration makes sense too in some regards. I've had to several times go "am I frustrated because I wish I had these things?" and the answer was absolutely yes. There's also some dissatisfaction I find watching these resellers kind of attempt to rewrite history - especially as we see newer fans show up who were not there for original release. A lot of "rare" and expensive things were dirt cheap and common. Doesn't make them worth less now, but it's always sort of rough watching people just straight up fabricate things to sell them.

On 7/31/2023 at 7:53 AM, Aiden said:

It didn’t. He briefly had the listing up before the 5k listing went up. (Assuming the worst) I’m assuming he took it down when the 3k listing showed up and put it back up afterwards to try and “justify” his price more.

The prices people like SYU and BU ask are exorbitant, even for how rare the items are. That trans orange shadow leech prototype SYU sold for 800? (Well firstly, he claimed it was the only one in existence “to his knowledge”, which was lying on both fronts). These were given out free (as quite a few prototypes have been) years ago, and on top of that hundreds of shadow leech prototypes in varying colors were made. I own a trans orange as well, and reached out to him letting him know his wasn’t the only one, and provided pictures, and he RESPONDED and acknowledged this to me- and then didn’t update his listings. So I can personally prove his claims were a lie.

Ideally the only items going close to or above $1k are the items made of precious metals. Anything else, including, yes, sought after prototype masks, should realistically not go over 500. Both the proto masks I’ve owned (which were pretty recently purchased) I bought for $300. Non mask items like prototype zamors or other prototype weapons I’ve bought for $50. That’s my ideal market as far as prototypes go- and I’ve been able to make it happen. So if you see something listed way too high don’t bite or cave into FOMO. Be patient and be diligent, chances are you’ll find it cheaper.

Obviously the market has some part in everything, but there are sellers who knowingly and willingly take advantage of it. SYU is widely regarded as somebody who has almost SINGLE-HANDEDLY scuffed the market to where it is today, and has been banned from quite a few bionicle communities for his practices. Defending such practices does nobody any good and enables them further. 

SYU in particular upsets me - a ton of gouging for limited edition sets. 2 of my 4 remaining sets are the yellow Jetrax and Toa Mata Nui, which he is commonly the only seller of. Very frustrating!

Speaking of - has anyone else noticed he sells regular Kanohi Nuva polybags and claims they can have protodermic ones? It's intriguing to see someone outright lie - no way he doesn't know that was just the Krana-Kal packs. I've reported that listing for fraud before but I'm doubtful it'll do too much. Just frustrating again in regards to the whole "fabricate something to sell stuff" thing we see sellers do on occasion.

[Illuminatus]

On 7/29/2023 at 6:43 PM, The Archivist said:

But to me its like "okay where were you when I needed one? Can you sell me yours for $400 then?" After I bought, several more hit the market. Likely because people had them sitting around and thought "I'm not selling my favorite piece for $150" and then realized it was $1k and sold immediately. There were several sitting around but the market value hadn't adjusted to what their owners thought they were worth until I paid it.

This is a really good argument I forgot to address (thanks for that) and (imo) a prime example of the market doing its job right. The point here is that you were missing something for long enough that you were willing to nudge the market along, and any lasting inflation resulting from it should be condoned (even if scalpers inevitably hijack it too) as there effectively wasn't a market prior to it. It's a win-win for both of you because you got what you were looking for and the seller probably got a fair price for a piece that they love to death.

It doesn't feel like extortion, is what I'm trying to say. It's demand-driven and not (blatantly) profit-driven. What you did with these pieces should not be conflated with what's been happening with a lot of other pieces, because it is categorically not the same. Which leads me to my next point.

Obviously scalpers don't go out and buy every single unit of any given piece all of the time, but they absolutely buy every piece that's priced significantly lower than their own and then relist it at the "market" price. Which is very neatly excused as healthy and normal business if you fail to consider that you can pretty much set whatever price you like for any piece you can think of that way. The way it usually works is not that one seller buys out everything and then singlehandedly twists the market's arm (more on this in a bit), but rather enough sellers buy enough stock that other sellers inevitably feel compelled to catch up.

Take the orange Vahi for example. It seems to be doing pretty abysmally right now despite having a moderately good storyline appeal and being objectively rarer than most regular 2001 Kanohi. Don't you think it has a bit more "rare" energy to it? What do you imagine is to stop me from buying out all 30+ pieces currently on BrickLink and then drip-selling them at $350 a pop? What do you imagine will happen next? If any other Vahi show up for less, I buy those too. If they show up at my price, I let those be. How long do you imagine it will be before everyone starts listing at my price (the "market price")? How long do you imagine it will be before I break even and start raking in hard cash? Is this the market just being the market?

And this is the least likely scenario of all. Nothing is stopping me from carrying out the least likely scenario with the biggest initial investment on my end and still turn a profit. Obviously most sellers don't brute force the market quite like that; most times it takes just a couple of lots of a couple of units each to produce the exact same effect in the long run, though.

As for my previous point of "singlehandedly" twisting the market's arm, I really don't see how even that is so hard to believe. I can think of at least four instances of sellers stumbling on mass reserves of items and then pretty much deciding the market price for those items. I don't recall a single one of them going "Hm, I guess these are dirt cheap now and there's plenty to go around, here you go, everybody!"

4 hours ago, T.B.O.C said:

There's also some dissatisfaction I find watching these resellers kind of attempt to rewrite history - especially as we see newer fans show up who were not there for original release. A lot of "rare" and expensive things were dirt cheap and common. Doesn't make them worth less now, but it's always sort of rough watching people just straight up fabricate things to sell them.

Part of what really fascinates me about the market is how much stuff went entirely under the radar because it didn't happen in the US. Collectibles that were previously considered astoundingly rare have been proven to be just decently rare (however still astoundingly priced); the brown Komau is a prime example of this; the copper Komau has in fact been proven to be entirely common within Poland (I can only think of a single Polish BZPer back in the day). I think we have yet to see what kind of treasures Eastern Europe has because the market is apparently just starting to blossom here whereas I previously thought it was dead after being practically nonexistent. Guess I was wrong. But yeah, new collectors from around here are especially vulnerable to buying fake hype and taking a scalper's price at face value.

4 hours ago, T.B.O.C said:

Speaking of - has anyone else noticed he sells regular Kanohi Nuva polybags and claims they can have protodermic ones? It's intriguing to see someone outright lie - no way he doesn't know that was just the Krana-Kal packs. I've reported that listing for fraud before but I'm doubtful it'll do too much. Just frustrating again in regards to the whole "fabricate something to sell stuff" thing we see sellers do on occasion.

Not defending him but if he's been through enough of those packs then I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this. It has crossed my mind that overlapping releases of Krana and Krana-Kal packs might both include Protodermic Kanohi Nuva as LEGO doesn't appear to care all that much about consistency; I also think I read that someone had stumbled upon one as a kid? Like I for one had no idea that Rahi Kanohi were available in 2001 polybags but that appears to have been proven at this point.

[Darknut]

16 hours ago, Illuminatus said:

Part of what really fascinates me about the market is how much stuff went entirely under the radar because it didn't happen in the US. Collectibles that were previously considered astoundingly rare have been proven to be just decently rare (however still astoundingly priced); the brown Komau is a prime example of this; the copper Komau has in fact been proven to be entirely common within Poland (I can only think of a single Polish BZPer back in the day). I think we have yet to see what kind of treasures Eastern Europe has because the market is apparently just starting to blossom here whereas I previously thought it was dead after being practically nonexistent. Guess I was wrong. But yeah, new collectors from around here are especially vulnerable to buying fake hype and taking a scalper's price at face value.

I wouldn't say Brown Komau are only decently rare, they haven't necessarily flooded the market. I just think Lego resellers and old fans getting rid of their collections are more aware of what they are now. Having watched them pop up over the last 5 years, it seems the flow of them is pretty stable. Even then if we are just counting all of them that have shown up and assuming none of them are being flipped, there still aren't even half as many documented ones as there are say G2 Translucent Blue Masks of Water, which have always fetched an equal or higher price than the Komaus have. The Official Rare Collectibles topic has had them listed in the hundreds since 2014, and it seems like they are selling for $1X00s USD these days. I don't feel like that's a huge price jump, it's really just the market following inflation with a little bit of a boost of nostalgia from people coming back into the hobby as adults. Just trying to say that it's not the worst offender of recent prices.

I do agree on the the Copper Komaus though, and I would throw all the Euro Misprints (Kaukaus included) and special edition or rarer set masks like the movie Kraahkan and PGKs into that bucket. As @Letagi mentioned, there's probably hundreds of thousands of all of those masks out there, if not millions. The artificial inflation of them is insane. I remember the Kaukaus costing about $30-40 USD, and almost all of the Rurus and Matatus costing less than $20 USD each back in the mid 2010s. The supply has always been there for these, it was just harder to get a hold of them if you weren't in Europe was all. So yeah, none of those should be listed for what people are listing them these days. It is predatory, and it's sad that the same thing seems to be happening with some sets nowadays too.

16 hours ago, Illuminatus said:

Not defending him but if he's been through enough of those packs then I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this. It has crossed my mind that overlapping releases of Krana and Krana-Kal packs might both include Protodermic Kanohi Nuva as LEGO doesn't appear to care all that much about consistency; I also think I read that someone had stumbled upon one as a kid? Like I for one had no idea that Rahi Kanohi were available in 2001 polybags but that appears to have been proven at this point.

Almost all of the evidence from prior years goes against that being the case, but even if what you theorized could have happened, it's still incredibly disingenuous to advertise a possible production/release error as a feature of the product you're selling. If it happened a customer bought those packs and found a Protodermic Kanohi Nuva, people would chock it up as incredible luck or good fortune, not as the norm, so it shouldn't be advertised as such.

So I opened a bunch of Kanohi packs back in the day, and a couple later in life after the end of Bionicle. With the exception of the Infected Hau, I've never gotten or heard of any Rahi exclusive masks (i.e. Translucent Blue Ruru, Teal Kakama, Yellow Komau, Light Blue Pakari, Black Huna) appearing in those polybags or boxes. I'm genuinely curious about the proof of this happening, cause that would totally blow my mind.

Another point to bring up are the few instances where sellers who aren't aware of the rarity of their items sell them at great prices to collectors and re-sellers alike, only to feel like they got conned out of their items when they see their stuff re-listed by the predatory re-sellers. I feel like events like that only hurt the fandom, because it not only drives up prices like we've seen, but also ends up painting the private collectors who bought at low or "fair" prices as liars or cheats to the original seller. Events like that just make all of us on the buying side look bad, which I feel we can all agree really isn't a look we want for the fandom. To add to this, as @T.B.O.C mentioned, the fandom has hit it's nostalgia wave and the social media influencers creating videos about the rarity of certain items are absolutely affecting the market, and as many of us have mentioned there are definitely bad actors in the seller scene, and while some of them have always been predatory, others may have originally been enthusiastic fans who got caught up in the dollar chasing game. But having those videos and guides to pricing also help in protecting outside sellers from viewing the community in a negative light. And as @The Archivist mentioned, it sometimes can result in more product entering the market by setting an estimated value for said items.

While I am in agreement with the majority that the market is a bit haywire these days, I don't think it's as a unbalanced as most, at least on the very rare side of things. When we're talking about pieces that have less than a hundred, or sometimes less than a dozen even in existence, shouldn't they be priced pretty exceptionally? Yeah maybe not in the thousands, but at least in the hundreds. I still feel like the prices Letagi has collected/documented in The Official Rare Collectibles topic are fair. However, at what point are we just being sticklers for low prices? Not trying to say I don't want better prices for collectibles, but there is a line between predatory sellers manipulating the market for some items, and other times where us as buyers are just being priced out.

On 7/24/2023 at 3:33 AM, Axelford said:

Aging fandom is my only suggestion. I collected stamps for a while (grandfather gave me his old collection) and that is an old hobby globally, but stamp values have been dropping for a while now, because even though an item is rare, the amount of people interested in buying stamps is decreasing. Plus, perception of the item has changed, a piece of paper and ink is not really wiz-bang compared to a piece of laminated paper that can be used in a trading card game, let alone an item in a digital game where you can actually use the item and flex on noobs or whatever. Idk, just spitting random stuff 😅

I wouldn't say it's random stuff, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. The prices in any collecting scene in general just go up until people don't want to collect anymore, and the reality is, we'll probably all be gone or too old to care by the time the prices are really competitive again for Bionicle. As for Lego as a whole, especially licensed theme stuff where the IPs are either still going or have inevitable reboots every few decades, I don't think a market collapse is ever going to happen, since interest in those fandoms is continuously being nurtured, thus injecting more life and staying power into the collecting scene.

[T.B.O.C]

19 hours ago, Illuminatus said:

Not defending him but if he's been through enough of those packs then I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this. It has crossed my mind that overlapping releases of Krana and Krana-Kal packs might both include Protodermic Kanohi Nuva as LEGO doesn't appear to care all that much about consistency; I also think I read that someone had stumbled upon one as a kid? Like I for one had no idea that Rahi Kanohi were available in 2001 polybags but that appears to have been proven at this point.

My only issue is there would have been a lot of news on the subject back in the day - both MoD and BZP don't have any articles relating to finding them in these packs. I wanna say there really wasn't much overlapping production in mask packs - from what I recall anecdotally LEGO was burned on them after the initial ones and discontinued stock when new ones came out. I might be misremembering, but I think there's an MoD article about rates of Protodermic Kanohi Nuva in the Krana-Kal packs.

My thought is - this guy knows these well enough to know they don't, and hopes potential buyers don't know there were different ones. I figure too if they had any widespread availability of protodermic masks you'd see them be virtually non-existent the way Krana-Kal packs are. But - at the same time, can't say I bought any then and actually know.

As for Rahi masks in the Kanohi Packs - do we have any evidence of that? Again, a lot of coverage back in the day and little reporting I've ever seen. I know we're unsure about Huna prints (as there may have been initial plans to print Noble Kanohi in Great colors). I saw someone link a LUGNET article from early 2001 with people complaining they didn't get any correct noble colors and just misprints. Wonder if they've seen the market prices now...

[Illuminatus]

19 hours ago, Darknut said:

I wouldn't say Brown Komau are only decently rare, they haven't necessarily flooded the market.

That was poor phrasing on my part. My point was they used to be inconceivably rare whereas now they are quite reliably rare in that you can pretty much bet a new one will surface in Scandinavia every year or two. The latest one surfaced just now. Can't say that about any of the GPKK or VMKK at this point.

19 hours ago, Darknut said:

While I am in agreement with the majority that the market is a bit haywire these days, I don't think it's as a unbalanced as most, at least on the very rare side of things. When we're talking about pieces that have less than a hundred, or sometimes less than a dozen even in existence, shouldn't they be priced pretty exceptionally? Yeah maybe not in the thousands, but at least in the hundreds. I still feel like the prices Letagi has collected/documented in The Official Rare Collectibles topic are fair. However, at what point are we just being sticklers for low prices? Not trying to say I don't want better prices for collectibles, but there is a line between predatory sellers manipulating the market for some items, and other times where us as buyers are just being priced out.

Fair points.

16 hours ago, T.B.O.C said:

As for Rahi masks in the Kanohi Packs - do we have any evidence of that? Again, a lot of coverage back in the day and little reporting I've ever seen. I know we're unsure about Huna prints (as there may have been initial plans to print Noble Kanohi in Great colors). I saw someone link a LUGNET article from early 2001 with people complaining they didn't get any correct noble colors and just misprints. Wonder if they've seen the market prices now...

I may be misremembering whether just the Infected Hau or other/all Rahi masks were available that. Going back to old convos that I think mentioned it doesn't yield any results, so don't take my word for it, lol.

EDIT: Upon researching something else entirely, I inadvertently found proof that only the Infected Hau was in fact distributed in those packs and also that those packs absolutely contained predominantly default masks (absolutely shame on you, LEGO).

Edited August 3, 2023 by Illuminatus