Welcome To The First “Post-Speculation” Vintage Collection HasLab

There's an aspect of this hobby, and of most collectible hobbies, that a lot of fans don't seem to want to acknowledge or encourage. Collectible hobbies are propped up massively by speculation. For the Vintage Collection, I strongly think it is to the point of knowing that it relies massively on collectors "putting one or two away" in addition to their normal purchases. It's funny that this seems to be so frowned upon online when without it, 3.75" Star Wars would likely cease to exist. Sales are a great thing no matter what motivates them. It's also funny that every collector I meet in real life talks about figures they're stashing away because they think they will be worth big bucks down the line. I personally see nothing wrong with this, so long as it's not hoarding to the point that it impacts current day collectors.

Obviously, HasLabs are essentially made to order, so the hoarding angle doesn't come in to play. Every single sale is a blessing. If you think that there were 21,768 fans who bought a single Ghost for themselves, let me tell you about this sentient rabbit who hides hard boiled eggs in your yard every April. I'm willing to bet that more Ghosts were purchased with hopes of 4x'ing them like the Barge than were purchased by people wanting to place them in their collection. And therein lies problem. The Ghost was likely over-speculated. There are too many of them on the secondary market. After fees, sellers are taking losses on them just to move on from those massive boxes.

The fact that the Ghost is a bust on the secondary market is naturally having an affect on the "investment worthiness" of Vintage Collection HasLabs. This information wasn't in-hand for the Cantina campaign, so it would have been unaffected, but the Gunship is the first campaign that is "post-speculation". And that is why I am thus far not hitting the panic button on this campaign. This is the shape it takes when only pure collecting interests are funding it. Of course we've seen it before with the Barge, which was "pre-speculation" because no one knew these HasLabs would even be desired. I think flippers can make up their mind very quickly when deciding to back one of these projects. If they assume they're going to sell it for profit (whether that's right or wrong), the decision doesn't require much deliberation. Aside from the cash, there isn't much commitment.

For a collector, it's like adopting a pet. You're committing to giving this new acquisition a home. For some, it's not an impulsive decision. Many fence sitters will likely come close to running out the clock while they work through their decision. But I know this collector curse all too well. The pain of missing out stings like little else in the hobby. I've said this many times on this site: I have very few regret purchases in my thirty years as a modern 3.75" Star Wars collector, but there are many things I have regretted skipping. I'm confident most of the fence sitters will fall off on the "back the Gunship" side, but it's going to come late. I think this will be the most "back loaded" campaign we've seen since the Barge. It's just what the backing trajectory looks like when pure collecting reasons are what's moving the needle. Hopefully by the time you're reading this (or shortly thereafter), we're at 3,000 backers. With 33 days to go, I feel like that puts funding well within our sights.

I've been a collector of some sort since I was twelve. Every collectible gets to a speculation tipping point eventually. I watched it happen with baseball cards in the 80's and comic books in the 90's. Here's a little bit of irony when it comes to speculator markets. There's a financial axiom that is attributed to Warren Buffet. It goes:

Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

The same goes for the speculator market. You don't want to go with the masses, as the Ghost shows. This is not meant to be financial advice, but the time to speculate is when others are backing away. There was a wild comic book speculator boom in the early to mid-nineties. Then the comic market crashed. Speculators fled. Marvel almost went bankrupt. In that post-speculation era, two otherwise unremarkable Amazing Spider-Man issues (430 and 431) are worth more than all of the comics in my long boxes filled with early 90's books. Speaking just for myself, if the Gunship looks like it will be limping over the line, I'll be "putting one away for later".

Click HERE to back the Vintage Collection LAAT/i Gunship HasLab project

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