Guide For Vintage Action Figure Collectors

There are generally three main lines considered to be the sought after vintage action figure lines: Mego, G.I.Joe and Captain Action. These three line dominate the list of most valuable and sought after action figures.

So what makes an action figure valuable? A truly valuable and sought after figure needs to be two things, popular and rare. Very often rarer figures are not as valuable as popular figures, and not all popular figures will be sought after if they are easy to find. The most important aspect to making a figure truly rare is production. Very often a simple change in the production of a figure is the key factor in making one version rare and therefore valuable. This makes it so that a not-so-rare version of a valuable figure might not be that much different than the truly valuable version. Before investing money in any figure that is marked as being rare, make sure you do your research and are not getting a not so rare version.

According to the magazine Toy Fare the most valuable action figure is the Captain Action as Spider-Man figure. The captain action line was a series of figure with the character of Captain Action dressing as various other characters, including many, many well recognized figures both licensed and classic from popular culture. A few years back there was an attempt to re-release the line, but it did not go over well. The vintage figures of this line however have remained well sought after by collectors. With a good number of unique accessories for the figures, finding a figure without any missing equipment is hard to do and so it adds to the value greatly when any equipment is present.

A more well known line of figures is G.I.Joe. These figures have been made on and off for almost four decades now. The vintage 12 inch tall figures are the truly sought after figures. Once more the G.I.Joe figures came with many unique pieces of gear for the figure to use. These pieces were very often lost and with many of the G.I.Joe sharing a similar body, the pieces can very often make a big difference in the value of the figure. Without the equipment most of the figures are easy to get mixed up with one another. Now the most valuable figure in the vintage G.I.Joe line is the only female figure made for the line, G.I.Nurse. Several versions of the figure were produce and each one is highly valuable and sought after. It has long be accepted that boys do not wish to play with female action figures and so very often the female figures of a line are under produced and become highly valuable. In the case of G.I.Joe they did not make another 12 inch female figure again until the mid nineties, thirty years after G.I.Nurse was produced. This of course added to the demand for the figures by collectors who wanted a female figure in their G.I.Joe collection.

The series of eight inch figures produced by Mego in the seventies gain fame by being very possible and covering about the widest rang of character any action figure line has ever covered. Mego was able to secure licensing rights to just about everything during the company's short life. They did all the popular comics book characters, as well as some of the not so popular ones, from both the major comic book companies. Many of the seventies TV shows got made into figures by Mego as well as a good deal of noticeable movie characters. Mego just did everything in sight. Most of the Mego figures are not too rare. What makes some of the Mego valuables is the good deal of variations that came out. There were two general ways the figures were packaged, on a blister card or in a box. Normally a blister card does not hold up as well as a boxed figure, making it so that a good conditioned blister card becomes more valuable than a boxed figure. Beyond that Mego would make small chances in coloration or other such things, causing some version to become rarer than others. Such changes would be something as simple as a figure with a removable mask having the mask molded on in later releases or a noticeable change in the features or colors. Your best bet when collecting Mego is to go and learn just what the more valuable variations are before you start investing much money in them. Mego also did some smaller action figures that were not as popular, although it did include many characters that were not produced in the larger scale and never made into toys by any other company ever. While most Mego collectors go for the larger, better known line, there is still a level of demand for the smaller ones.

Beyond the three lines listed here there are many other lines of vintage figures that are collectable. When starting to collect any series of figures you need to do the research before paying top dollar for a piece. Always make sure you know what it is you are buying and before you know it you will start to build up a unique and valuable collection.