A brief guide to buying vintage G1 Transformers

[Admin]

A brief guide to buying vintage G1 Transformers
===========================================

If you are a collector of vintage Generation One Transformers, there are many traps when buying, especially on eBay.

1) Researching prices is essential for the Transformers market. Unlike other areas of collecting, we do not have the benefit of looking up closed auction records (save a few months on eBay). There isn't really much to go on. Any price guides that exist are too general and unreliable.

2) Re-issues and KOs: The flood of fake but realistic knock-offs from China has hit the market for 10 years. Although the majority of sellers disclose that fact, be able to tell apart the differences on highendtfs.com

3) Buy It Now or Best Offer: Knowledge of actual selling prices is your only ally here. Sometimes, sellers on eBay mark-up prices more than 100% of their value. This is a horrible but common practice.

4) Shill bidding: You might find yourself outbid at the last minute by a zero feedback buyer. This is an eBay problem, but guard yourself by knowing actual prices and doing your research. You might be presented a 2nd chance offer by the seller. To combat shill bidding, stick to your bid, the price you are willing to buy at. You are not obligated to buy anything.

5) Flakers: When doing your pricing research, flakers need to be taken into account. They artifically inflate the Transformers market with skewed prices.

Flakers tend to buy a lot of Transformers. But they may not be flakers at all. They might be people whose identities' had been stolen. This is a problem of society, which is ironic. With new technology of recent years, our
government has made massive efforts to eliminate our privacy, yet robo-callers and identity thieves run rampant more so than ever.

Do your research by checking the closed listing. Sometimes, a relisted listing means that the item never sold. Also, you can check the seller's feedback to verify if the transaction had been consummated. If the buyer has a lot
of good feedback, the chances are better that they did follow through.

For more info, join the forum to read about this and more!

6) If you're new to Transformers AFA grading, this site is a must-read:
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Action_Figure_Authority

7) Using the population reports for AFA Transformers: Join the forum to read about this and more!