LogFAQs > #971942527

From what I've heard it has nothing to do with the Funko bubble popping (no pun intended) and more to do with the fact that Disney is self-destructing.

Basically, Funko invested heavily in making Star Wars and Marvel themed figures, but with fan apathy for both franchises at an all-time high, none of them are selling (it's been mentioned that stores like Wal-Mart have had the same problem with Star Wars toys in general). So Disney fucking themselves into a hole is dragging multiple other companies down with them.

But anyone who thought these things were "collectible" in the first place were idiots, because there's been evidence for years that the collectible market in general has been a scam for decades. A lot of the stuff marketed as collectible as far back as the 1980s (mainly Hummel figures and Franklin Mint stuff) was kind of revealed to be worthless as older collectors died and their kids tried to sell off their collections, only to discover that literally no one was buying. The same happened when 90s stuff (like Beanie Babies) started going on the market.

Generally speaking, if something is being sold as a collectible, it will never actually have value as a collectible. The main reason why things like comic books and baseball cards and early Star Wars figures wound up selling for so much was because they weren't collectible. They were treated as disposable by most of the people who bought them, meaning surviving copies became rare, and thus in-demand and valuable. But the moment people started keeping comics and cards and toys, the bottom fell out completely and most new releases aren't worth shit. Artificial rarity can boost prices for short-term collectors, but over the long term the value decreases for almost everything (because the only people who actually want to own it already do).

The only real reason to buy a Funko Pop is if you have nostalgia for the thing it's representing, and think it would be neat to own for yourself. Which is why I have a couple (one from LotR, one from M:tG, one from Tron, and Claptrap from Borderlands), but I'd never even remotely attempt to "collect them all" or even try to buy full sets.