production numbers

[goldenryan]

i always wondered how many did mego make for each character?
obiviously they made more of superman,batman,spiderman cause
they were made for close to 10 years!!
but how many did they make for conan,thor,the teen titans and some of the lesser known figures.

[Wee67]

I'm not sure any figure would be anything more than speculation. There are some here with great familiarity with the company. They might be able to make a more educated guess, but it would still be hard. I do not know if this ever came up in the interviews done for the Museum.

[kryptosmaster]

I've been wondering this too but never asked because as wee67 said, nobody probably really knows or has access to any records (if they even exist).
I think there was mention in the museum's Action Jackson section about there being around 1.5 million AJs made and that was considered a failure and AJ's were only made for a couple years, right? So Batman, et al, would have to be in the many millions each I would speculate. Especially when you see how many turn up for sale. I would think you could comparatively estimate other figures based on how long they were in production and case packings.

Rich

[kryptosmaster]

it would be hard either way. After so many years ones have been destroyed, eaten etc. so any number would be incorrect.

I don't think he was asking on the surviving percentages; rather on how many were produced for sale.
Surviving numbers would vary greatly depending on numerous factors such as who were the purchasers. Let's say a Cher figure was more collected by an adult? There would probably be a higher percentage of her left and most likely more NRFB examples than say a Spiderman figure which was most likely bought for a child and would have a high mortality rate thereby reducing the percentage of surviving copies.

Rich

[kryptosmaster]

I understood the question but would it reall matter 30+ years later what the production numbers where for back then ? If there was 100,000 Mego RC Batmans..how many would have really survived to today ? I'm sure the TV series MEGOs , like the Waltons, had less production numbers , but what does it matter either way at this late date.

I'd like to know because I'm just naturally curious. Maybe he is too?
Stuff like that is interesting to me. I've been known to sit down and read an auto shop repair manual just because I find it very interesting.
I understand your point. It doesn't matter to you so you can't understand why someone else cares. I feel the same way when others post about boooooring things to me but then I just remember that some things that I might find boring are fascinating to others.

Rich

Rich

[apes3978]

I think there was mention in the museum's Action Jackson section about there being around 1.5 million AJs made and that was considered a failure and AJ's were only made for a couple years, right?

The amount of A/Js sold (even initially) couldn't have been considered a failure... I mean they must have seen a market for 8" figures based on Action Jackson's sales and success, giving the confidence to pursue licenses to do the other 8" figures...

I think if it wasn't for the strong sales of A/J, we wouldn't have had what followed...

[kryptosmaster]

The amount of A/Js sold (even initially) couldn't have been considered a failure... I mean they must have seen a market for 8" figures based on Action Jackson's sales and success, giving the confidence to pursue licenses to do the other 8" figures...

I think if it wasn't for the strong sales of A/J, we wouldn't have had what followed...

My figures and quote were slightly off. This is lifted directly from the first page in the Action Jackson Mego Museum section:

Released in 1971, AJ sold brilliantly but not for a long time, according to Mego, the first year resulted in 2.5 million Action Jackson figures being sold but the reorders didn't pile up as hoped.

While the Action Jackson was largely considered a failure, it's signifigance is that led to the concept of using the basic body on any variety of characters. Most importantly, Mego's next 8" line the World's Greatest Superheroes, arguably the companie's greatest success and the item that sent the company into rapid growth mode. Action Jackson was all but forgotten by 1974

Rich

[starsky]

maybe some of the former mego employees still have sales reports stored away from back then...

[megoscott]

I'd recommend reading World's Greatest Toys to get some insight into this. Ben did a lot of research and applied a lot of logical analysis to the question. There is no hard and fast list somewhere, but based on the length of production of some lines you can make inferences. Titans had a very short shelf life. Green Goblin was discontinued quickly. Etc, etc.

[palitoy]

I've got sales numbers but no actual breakdowns, one could roughly extrapolate the numbers based on cost/case breakdowns I imagine. At one point I started doing this as a feature for the museum but it was so very dull.

[kryptosmaster]

I've got sales numbers but no actual breakdowns, one could roughly extrapolate the numbers based on cost/case breakdowns I imagine. At one point I started doing this as a feature for the museum but it was so very dull.

When you say "sales"; does that mean what the stores sold or what the stores purchased to stock their shelves? Wouldn't that be pretty close to production numbers? I imagine some stayed in warehouses, some went to employees, "file" pieces, overseas but I wouldn't think there'd be that many more made over actual orders, would there? I'm no business major so I have no clue how stuff like that works but I would think that if they had orders for 1,000,000 Batmans they wouldn't make 2,000,000? maybe more like 100,000 extra, if that? I'm just guessing.
Probably a little more complicated than that I'm sure.

Rich

[palitoy]

By sales, I mean the dollar amounts broken down by category that Mego sold to distributors and retailers.

Like I said, you can kind of go backwards and get a rough idea of how many were made in a year. Not an exact science by any means.