What Collectors Want Changes: Cycles in the Toy Market

I've been at this nearly ten years now. I opened Uncanny back in 2017, and I was buying and selling for a good while before that. In that stretch I've watched what collectors want shift under my feet more than once. Lines that couldn't stay in stock going quiet, quiet corners of the hobby waking up. This piece is me thinking out loud about those cycles, because I'd rather you heard the honest version from someone in the trade than the hyped-up one that tells you everything old is money. It isn't. Some of it is, some of it was, some of it will be, and which is which depends a lot on who's holding the money and how old they are.

Quick Answers

Are vintage toys still worth money?

Some are, but it's not a given, and it changes over time. A vintage toy is worth what someone will pay for it today, and that's driven by how many people still feel a pull towards it. When the generation that grew up with a line is in its earning years and chasing its childhood, prices are strong. As that generation ages out, downsizes or passes on, demand cools and prices can drift down even on genuinely hard-to-find pieces. Age alone doesn't make a toy valuable. Demand does, and demand moves.

Why has demand for 1970s toys dropped?

Because the collectors who chased them have moved on. When I started, lines like The Six Million Dollar Man, Starsky & Hutch and Bionic Woman had a keen following, mostly people reliving the telly of their own childhood. That crowd has aged. Some have downsized, some have shifted their spending to other parts of life, some have passed away. The toys didn't get any less likeable; the people who most wanted them simply aren't as many, or as active in the market, as they were. That's the cycle in plain sight.

Will vintage Star Wars figures lose value?

I think some could soften over time, and I say that as someone who likes them. Not because they aren't great pieces, but because of supply. A large generation of collectors holds those 1980s figures, and over the coming years a lot of those collections will come onto the market at once through bereavement, moves into care, medical costs, or just life changing. When plenty of supply meets demand that's already cooling, prices come under pressure. It might not happen evenly, and the hardest-to-find pieces may hold up better, but the broad direction worries me more than the hype admits.

Should I buy collectibles as an investment?

Enjoy them first. I'd never tell you a toy is a pension. Collecting value is cyclical and uncertain, it depends on a generation's nostalgia, and that fades and shifts. If a piece happens to hold or grow in value, treat that as a bonus, not the plan. Buy the things that make you happy to look at on a shelf. If you only ever buy what you'd be glad to own even if it never went up a penny, you can't really lose.

The cycle I've watched

When I got going, the demand that struck me most was for 1970s lines. Action figures tied to shows people watched as kids on a Saturday morning, that whole era. The collectors after them weren't chasing an idea of value. They were chasing a feeling. They were buying back a piece of being eight years old in front of the telly. That's a powerful engine for a market, and while it's running, prices stay firm and pieces move.

That engine has cooled. The people who drove it have aged, and as a group they're less active than they were. Some have stepped back, some have downsized their collections, some are no longer with us. The figures sit a little longer now, and the prices that once felt locked in have loosened. None of that is a knock on the toys. It's just what happens when the generation with the strongest pull towards something moves through its life stages.

The pattern in one line: a toy is worth most while the generation that loved it is in its earning years and reaching back for it. Before that and after that, it's quieter, and the prices follow.

Funko and Pokémon: what happens when the market gets flooded

You don't need to look back forty years for a lesson in cycles. Funko is a live one. When Pops first went mad, a chase variant was roughly a 1 in 36 pull. Genuinely hard to get, and priced accordingly. Then Funko tightened the odds to something closer to 1 in 6, re-released loads of vaulted characters, and turned out variant after variant of the same figure. That's not a rare hobby anymore, that's a fire hose. The company itself has been publicly in serious trouble, and I see it on my side of the counter too. Collectors who spent big are trying to offload lots in bulk. They've aged out of it, they've run out of shelf space, and they've cottoned on that the "rare" thing they paid a premium for isn't rare at all.

Pokémon cards are on a similar road, just earlier in the cycle. What was once an affordable childhood hobby is now the reason for Black Friday-level queues and, in some countries, break-ins at shops. That heat is coming from a genuine shortage. The Pokémon Company has been open about expanding card production, and once that new capacity is properly online, the supply picture changes. If it plays out like Funko, and history suggests it might, a lot of what feels like a life-changing card today will look very different once no kid ever has to go without again.

Neither of these is a moral point about the companies. Businesses print more of the thing people want; that's what businesses do. The point is what it means for a collector: if the scarcity is engineered, it can be un-engineered, and the "investment" story unravels quickly.

Star Wars: three cycles in one franchise

Star Wars is a good place to see all of this at once, because different eras of the same brand sit in totally different parts of the cycle.

Take Power of the Force, the 1990s Kenner reboot. They tried to bring the vintage crowd back with beefed-up sculpts and a very "action" style of card art. The collectors of the day hated the over-muscley look and largely ignored it. That's why you can still pick up Power of the Force figures carded and mint for around €10 each. Age alone didn't save them. A line the collectors of its own moment rejected is a line that stays cheap, even when it becomes objectively "vintage".

Vintage Star Wars, the original 1977 to 1985 run, is the flip side, and it's the line I quietly worry about the most. Prices have held up because the generation that grew up with it has been reaching back. But that generation isn't earning forever, and a lot of what's now in loft boxes will land back on the market at the same time. I don't think it crashes, but the middle of the market, the common carded figures, has more room to soften than the hype suggests.

Then there's the Phantom Menace and the wider prequel-trilogy stuff, which is the most interesting cycle happening right now. That line was famously overproduced, and the original-trilogy crowd hated it, Jar Jar Binks above all. Twenty-five years on, the kids who were the target audience are adults with disposable income, and they've got warm memories of what everyone else scorned. Jar Jar is quietly getting some love. Prequel-era pieces are finding a new following. That's a cycle turning in the other direction, and a useful reminder that "hated when new" doesn't always stay hated.

Generations and what they chase

The next generation doesn't seem to want the same things in the same way. The younger crowd, the ones raised on screens, lean more towards art, prints and stickers than towards a shelf of boxed action figures. Their nostalgia is real, but it's pointed at different objects. Digital-first stuff, art they can hang, smaller and cheaper bits they can collect without giving over a whole room to it. That reshapes what the next decade of collecting looks like, and what a shop like mine should be paying attention to.

The wave that's coming

This is the bit I'd want a seller to hear most, because it cuts against what people are usually told. There's a wave of supply building behind the 1980s vintage market, and it has nothing to do with the toys themselves and everything to do with the people who own them.

A whole generation of collectors holds those collections, and over the coming years a lot of it is going to come to market, often not by choice. Bereavement, moves into nursing homes, medical bills, downsizing, a partner who wants the spare room back. These aren't grim hypotheticals; they're the ordinary way collections change hands, and they tend to cluster as a generation reaches a certain age. When that supply lands at the same time as demand is already softening, because the very people who'd buy it are the ones selling, prices feel the squeeze. Lots of stock meeting cooler interest only goes one way.

I'm not saying everything will crash. The hardest-to-find pieces, the genuinely scarce stuff, tends to ride it out better. But for the bread-and-butter vintage that everyone assumes only ever climbs, I'd be cautious. If you've held something for years on the belief it'll be worth more later, it's at least worth asking whether "later" is the part of the cycle where there are more sellers than buyers.

What it means if you're buying

Buy what you love. I know that sounds like a line, but it's the only advice that survives every turn of the cycle. If you buy a figure because looking at it makes you happy, the market can do whatever it likes and you've still got the thing you wanted. If you buy purely because someone told you it'd go up, you're exposed to a cycle you don't control, driven by a generation's nostalgia that will eventually move on to something else.

It also means you can buy well right now in the cooler corners. The 1970s lines that have softened, the Power of the Force figures sitting carded for a fiver, the prequel-era stuff before the reappraisal picks up more steam, they're all fairer buys than they were at the peak. If you genuinely love those eras, this is a decent time to be in them. For a fuller picture of how I think about second-hand value, the piece on the real value of Funko Pops in Ireland walks through the same honesty applied to a very different line.

What it means if you're selling

If you're going to sell, timing and the cycle matter more than most people are told. The rough rule I work to: the time to sell something is usually while people still remember wanting it. Sell into demand, not after it. A line that's hot because its generation is reaching back will get you a stronger price now than the same line will in ten years, once that generation has aged out and a wave of other sellers has hit the same market.

That's not me telling you to panic-sell. It's me telling you to be clear-eyed. If you've got a collection you're holding "for later", be honest with yourself about whether later is a stronger or weaker point in the cycle. And don't fall into the trap of assuming high-end always equals easy money later, some of it is genuinely hard to move second-hand, which I get into in why Hot Toys and Sideshow figures are hard to resell.

When you do decide to sell, talk to someone who'll be straight with you about where the market actually is rather than flatter you to get the stock. That's how I try to run it. You can see what that looks like on our we buy collections page, and there's plenty of softened-but-lovely vintage in our vintage toys (20+ years old) collection if you'd rather buy into the quiet part of the cycle than sell out of it.

Collect what you love

If you take one thing from a dealer who's watched a couple of these cycles turn: don't treat toys purely as a pension. The value is real but it's cyclical and uncertain, tied to whose childhood is currently in fashion and who's old enough to be selling. Collect because it makes you happy. Enjoy the shelf. If a piece appreciates, grand, that's a bonus on top of years of liking the thing. If it doesn't, you've still had years of liking the thing, and that was always the point.

Thinking of selling a collection? Talk to us

If you're weighing up selling, come and have a straight conversation. I'll tell you honestly where I think the market sits for your pieces, including if the honest answer is "hold" or "this part's softening". We buy collections, we pay fairly, and we can arrange UPS pickup across Ireland and Northern Ireland so you're not lugging boxes anywhere. No pressure and no flattery to get the stock off you. Reach us on the contact page, message us on WhatsApp at +353 85 827 2191, or email us at info@uncannycollectibles.com, and we'll give you a real answer.