I collected these, as well. They were close enough to Mego figures for me to overlook the problems. Now, like many, I have a bunch stored away in boxes somewhere. I kind of doubt that these will become collectible. Like others have said, they were never much of a "kid line" that lots of kids bought to play with. I could be wrong, though.
The thing is, with Famous Covers and most other toy lines over the past 15 years or so, they don't stick around on shelves long enough to really gain mass appeal with kids. These days, toy lines are all about "waves." If you miss a wave, you are kind of out of luck if the wave had a character you were interested in. When we were kids back in the seventies, the exact same toy shipped again and again and again to the stores. A kid buying a Mego Batman in 1974 bought essentially the same figure as a kid in 1979 buying a Mego Batman. This kind of mass saturation of the same toy over many years and many, many kids produced a kind of shared culture experience among countless kids that grew up having memories of the exact same toy. These days, very few figures are released and re-released over long-ish periods of time. Things like the Batman Animated series figures might be an exception to this as they seemed to keep the line alive for many years and did tend to release the same figures over and over...most often as repaints.
I think any toy lines that end up being collectible to "today's" kids are going to be lines that they REALLY play with and have fond memories of when they grow up. These toys will most likely not be the ones that we adult collectors tend to go deep with. I have a feeling that the early Power Ranger toys will end up being highly collectible (if they aren't already) since they were a line that most adult collectors turned their noses up at and kids bought them in droves and played and played and played with them. Also, I'm betting that Max Steel will be sought after in about 10 years or so. Kids played with them but it wasn't something adult collectors were buying and keeping MIB. In many ways, it was like the SMDM line of the 70's with bionics and cool vehicles. There was even a guy with a mask that came off exposing him as a robot!
BTW - my favorite FC are Iron Man, Captain America (despite the face), Spidey (it's got Parker underneath, unheard of!), and Hulk.
The thing is, with Famous Covers and most other toy lines over the past 15 years or so, they don't stick around on shelves long enough to really gain mass appeal with kids. These days, toy lines are all about "waves." If you miss a wave, you are kind of out of luck if the wave had a character you were interested in. When we were kids back in the seventies, the exact same toy shipped again and again and again to the stores. A kid buying a Mego Batman in 1974 bought essentially the same figure as a kid in 1979 buying a Mego Batman. This kind of mass saturation of the same toy over many years and many, many kids produced a kind of shared culture experience among countless kids that grew up having memories of the exact same toy. These days, very few figures are released and re-released over long-ish periods of time. Things like the Batman Animated series figures might be an exception to this as they seemed to keep the line alive for many years and did tend to release the same figures over and over...most often as repaints.
I think any toy lines that end up being collectible to "today's" kids are going to be lines that they REALLY play with and have fond memories of when they grow up. These toys will most likely not be the ones that we adult collectors tend to go deep with. I have a feeling that the early Power Ranger toys will end up being highly collectible (if they aren't already) since they were a line that most adult collectors turned their noses up at and kids bought them in droves and played and played and played with them. Also, I'm betting that Max Steel will be sought after in about 10 years or so. Kids played with them but it wasn't something adult collectors were buying and keeping MIB. In many ways, it was like the SMDM line of the 70's with bionics and cool vehicles. There was even a guy with a mask that came off exposing him as a robot!
BTW - my favorite FC are Iron Man, Captain America (despite the face), Spidey (it's got Parker underneath, unheard of!), and Hulk.
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