The Vehicle Resurgence Means New Heights For TVC

First, while I have your attention, I need to run an ad. I've very excited and honored that both Bret and I have been invited to join the Middle Aged Kiwi Man Collecting Star Wars Figure's "Legends of TVC" livestream tomorrow night at 7PM ET:


I will embed the stream here on Bantha Skull, but you can also visit the MAKMCSWF YouTube page HERE. We hope you'll join us. It should be a lot of fun. Now onto your regularly scheduled content:

The other day, I was sharing my "Eeyore" side bemoaning the fact that I think the apparent mediocre performance of the Jabba's Court Denizens 4-pack likely hurts the prospects of future deep cut characters (especially human ones). Today, I'm flipping back to the positive side. I am excited for TVC's future because of vehicles. This epiphany came from my usual spot check of secondary market activity. My analysis was cutting edge. I checked sold listings for Vintage Collection on Ebay and sorted by highest price (Mr. Nomad better triple my cut of the profits here before Wall Street comes calling). I'm excluding figure lots as part of this. 2011's SDCC Death Star takes first place (but that's technically also a lot), but here are the other top value items (all links below are to our photo galleries):

• Jabba's Sail Barge - $2000+
• 2012 Millennium Falcon - $1100+
• Ghost (preorders) - $900+
• 2010 AT-AT - $900+
• 2013 AT-AT - $700+
• 2020 Millennium Falcon (Smuggler's Run) - $600+
• Razor Crest - $600+

Now, I freely admit there's a "no duh" component to this. It's no surprise that the items that cost the most when they were available on the primary market also cost the most on the secondary market. But combined with three successful HasLabs, and gangbuster sales of Mando's N1, I think this shows there is appetite in this community for the "big ticket" items, which are typically the most profitable for manufacturers. This has to be giving the Vintage Collection a bigger profile within Hasbro (beyond the brand team). Furthermore, these big items sort of create their own economies in their orbit for companion pieces.

Here's where the epiphany really hits home. I've been worried about the recent Vintage Collection pipeline reveals, as I wrote about HERE. There have been some stellar 100% newly tooled pipelines, such as Episode IV Leia and Count Dooku, but they have been far and few between. This was initially giving me trepidation about a contraction in TVC, but then it dawned on me. Perhaps the budget is being pivoted to give us some more of those bigger world building pieces we crave. I suspect it is. If I'm right, I think it's reason to be excited, but I also have a word of caution for Hasbro. In order for us to continue supporting these higher profit bigger ticket items, the figure support needs to be there. Even if the figures are only breaking even, you'll make it up for it with the bigger hunks of plastic.

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