Robot Collector Prices Then and Now?

[Hymie]

I'd be interested if some of you who have been chasing robots for twenty or thirty years would speculate about price fluctuation over the years. For example, it seems to me (though I was not collecting robots in those days) that prices went pretty crazy in the early nineties and into the early 2000s (perhaps initially spurred in part by that first big Kitahara book?). Of course, prices can get pretty crazy now, but it seems clear to me that compared to the nineties and the first decade of the 21st Century, prices now are relatively tame (especially when adjusted for inflation). Of course, I wasn't watching robots and space toys that closely in those days (I was obsessed with pedal cars and Schwinn Sting-Rays), so I may be wrong about when the robot craze crested (assuming that it did!). Any observations would be appreciated.

[steve]

It all comes down to supply and demand - most of the lets say wealtheir collectors have a good majority of the robots that can be found without a lot of difficulty - thus the prices are as you would say are more tame these days.. However rare items especially boxed  ones are carrying a premium. Especially character pieces which the original robot collectors are now gravitating towards. Just look at some of the Mandrake auctions for character piece prices.. Also there have been non public private sales for rarities that have been on the high end of the price spectrum.

[Hymie]

Thanks for the comment Steve. I guess even robot collecting can't divorce itself from simple economics.

So speaking of supply and demand (or at least demand), let me refocus my question to get at the heart of the matter: During what period would you (or any other member who wants to weigh in) say robot collecting was at its apex?  That is, when was the largest number of people competing against each other to buy vintage (fifties/sixties-era) Japanese toy robots and spacemen? I'm guessing it would correspond to when Alphadrome had its highest average number of active members, if anyone knows when that was...And that may be an important sub-question: How does the number of current active Alphadrome members compare to the best numbers the site has ever seen (assuming someone can hazard an educated guess -- or can actually provide the data)? And I am presuming from comments I've read here that current numbers are significantly lower than they once were, but maybe I've misunderstood...

[steve]

Off hand I would say December 9th 2000 -the Griffith Soethby's auctions would be a good time portal to revisit. At this period in time even the well healed collectors still had gaps in their collections -there were still toys shows to go to with major name dealers from both sides of the ocean - ebay was coming into its own -Alphadrome was quite a bit active - this would be a good frenzy period. 

[Hymie]

Now that's what I call a meaningful comment -- and fleshed out with real historical data. Thanks for taking the time to educate me, Steve. I only wish I had had the foresight (and the money) in those days to stop just ogling the pictures in Kitahara's coffee table book and start buying robots!

[Jonydroid]

Certain Models went sky rocket and shipping price as well so now a days ... A few days ago i was watching on eBay some robots in USA and shipping / Customs fee etc it's crazy , it's 4/5 Times then robot price and the good Ones with original box you guess it, it became a forbidden thing almost for everything sadly 

[Hymie]

And then there are those ridiculous prices many of the sellers in Japan are asking (even for the most common of robots). From what I can tell, Japan must actually be located in another universe somewhere. I'd really like to know who's paying those prices (if anybody).

[zebedee]

I started to collect in the late 90s, never seen a book on the subject or been to a toy fair or auction, I just came across one in a charity shop and that was it, found ebay and alphadrome and never looked back. Back then tinplate ruled so I went for what I could afford and liked but I was drawn to the plastic robots I saw growing up, (born in 1970 )they were still relatively cheap and abundant but now the prices are sky high, I remember buying 3 saturn robots the big ones for £10 but look at the price of those now, who knows where it will end up.......I also think that people not in the hobby come across a robot and assume they have something rare and valuable ,they've heard that some are worth a lot of money and have never heard of alphadrome or know what books to get, and if they do get a book it will be vintage toys and we all know how bad that is.....

[Russell Letson]

There was already  a pretty active market for robots and space toys by the 1980s--I'd started collecting in the late 1970s (bought a copy of Boogaert's Robot in Paris in '78). Between 1980 and 1984, Hobbies magazine published a series of features on toy robots by F. H. Griffith (who had previously covered collectible banks and iron toys), and in 1982 Crystal and Leland Payton published their illustrated history/guidebook Space Toys, along with a price guide (for an extra $3.50).

 

I was writing magazine articles about SF toys by '89 (for example, on the Dapol factory for Doctor Who Magazine). And even back then, many of the more desirable toys were commanding pretty high prices. By the 90s, several dealers had started concentrating on the market--Ray Rohr was probably the most visible, but I have catalogues and listings from several others.  Now most such stuff has moved onto the internet

 

I stopped actively accumulating when I ran out of display space--and out of patience with the  collectors'-market pricing that had made the hobby more stressful than fun. My collection is still out on the shelves and part of our interior landscape, but I'm quite disengaged from further acquisitions.

[Hymie]

Thanks for the comments, gentlemen, and for filling in some of the holes in my knowledge of the history of robot collecting. Wow, Russell, you're a true veteran of the toy robot wars. Very interesting stuff there. And Zebedee brings up another point of curiosity for me: It seems that in most corners of the toy collecting universe, collectors have always chased toys they had, or wished they had, as kids (like Zebedee's passion for the plastic robots of his childhood in the seventies). For me, born in the late fifties, it was Schwinn Sting-Rays. as I have mentioned ad nauseum on this site (String-Rays have their own very devoted collector cult, by the way). They were emblematic of my sixties childhood. But prices seem to have settled down as my sixties-childhood peers and I have begun moving beyond the "acquisition phase" of our lives. The bikes don't seem to capture the imagination of people who didn't grow up in that era. But robots seem to defy that tendency. They seem to resonate with every generation. I think it's that there's such an endless variety (mechanically and aesthetically), and that they're such an analog to the history of technology and industrial design. Or maybe I'm just thinking too hard about it!