Mego AFA Grading

[livnxxxl]

Wasn't AFA Started By ToyFare ?
Anyone look at the Ebay Mego Auctions for AFA Graded Pieces ?
Would Anyone Pay those prices for those Pieces ?

I dunno... To Me,.. AFA = Heavy Over Priced Figure.

Hey J, What do you say you and I start up a grading service called H.O.P.F. I am sure that you and I can grade and charge just as much as those other guys. What do you say? You in? Anyone here need something graded? It doesn't even have to be a Mego. Hell, for the right price we will even grade your son's school work. Why not?

[palitoy]

Welcome aboard,

I think AFA works more for people dabbling in Mego that have more experience in other lines (Such as Star Wars, where it's practice is more common). Most Mego collectors I know find it a waste of money.

From my own experience, it raises the value of common/popular figures such as Spider-Man or Batman because it attracts folks who collect other things and want a few mego figures for their collection. Real rarities, like a Falcon or a Lizard probably wouldn't see a big increase as a result of being AFA graded. Just my two cents.

[megocrazy]

My experience from the sports card market. Grading seriously hurt the sports trading card market long ago. Basically the super huge card stores were having so many cards graded the "graders" would give much more favorable grades to them and joe-schmoe who paid top dollar, because you get a significant discount if you have multiple cards graded vs. having 10 or 20 done, would get a lower grade on a very similar card. And when I say similar, I mean collectors in the hobby for 20 plus years could not see a difference in the two. They say they have tests that grade the surface gloss and micro scanner measure the distances from border to card edge, etc. If I need an electron microscope to see the difference from a 85 to a 90 grading, I may as well collect dinosaur dna. A card ungraded but listed as mint is cheaper than a card graded 85 which would not be considered mint, basically because someone told you so. Yet I can hold two cards in my hand with a 10 to 15 point grading difference and not be able to find an inkling of a difference between the two with my naked eye, except the $70-$120 difference in the price. Collectors are lemmings. They always have been. It's just a different lead lemming going toward the cliff. How many paid top dollar for the POTF Princess Leia years ago that were 25 to a box 6 months later. Someone said they were gonna be rare and everyone jumped off the cliff. Thanks by the way to those that did. Got some great trades for my vintage toy collections by stumbling into ToysRus and hitting some. I should be sleeping with Beanie Babies for the deals I got from those collectors. I still bust out laughing every time I see a Princess bear sitting in the $2.00 bin at AC Moore. If I only had a time machine! If you feel the need to pay 4 to whatever times the actual value for a figure then grading definately has it's place for you, but to see someone with a BIN of $300 on a Boss Hogg AFA95 is so unbelievably hilarious to me. That figure could come to life and do my laundry and taxes and not be worth $300. But it's a 95!! Even a buyer that has been burned multiple times by getting something less than what they thought from an auction, still hasn't lost enough to say AFA was worth the investment. You can by 5 figures, flip the ones that don't meet your expectations and then have the top one graded yourself, if you really want graded figures, and still be ahead of the game financially. IMO I don't think it has become as big in the Mego market as it has in other lines like SW. It may, though I see bigger fluctuations in the price during down times like now, with the higher priced graded cards than with the cheaper non graded, probably because they're cheaper and if someone wants one they will get one some way so they settle for the cheaper price. I really don't follow the process for toys because of my experience in the card side, and I don't want to even address it, but I would expect the grading styles to be similarly based cards vs. toys.

[kryptosmaster]

Quick opinion.
To me all it does is get speculators into a hobby that they are only getting into to make a profit.
Raises prices artificially so that the average person can never afford the figure they would really like to have.
Same thing as the CGC "slabbing" comic books.
I'm against it.

Rich

[Mikey]

Let's think about this for a sec, why would somebody want to grade a Mego ? Hmmm,

Here's the way I see it, Guy sells a graded Mego 'cause he wants you to feel all warm and toasty inside

'Course it does. Why shouldn't it? Ya figure you put that little Mego under your pillow at night, the AFA Fairy might come by and leave a quarter, am I right ?

The point is, how do you know the graded Mego isn't a crazy glue sniffer? "Building model airplanes" says the AFA fairy; well, we're not buying it. He sneaks into your house once, that's all it takes. The next thing you know, there's money missing off the dresser, and your daughter's knocked up. I seen it a hundred times.

Because they know all they sold ya was a graded piece of ****. That's all it is, isn't it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it AFA graded, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your your sake, for your daughter's sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality product from any number of trusted knowledgeable people at Mego Museum.

[livnxxxl]

Quick opinion.
To me all it does is get speculators into a hobby that they are only getting into to make a profit.
Raises prices artificially so that the average person can never afford the figure they would really like to have.
Same thing as the CGC "slabbing" comic books.
I'm against it.

Rich

You make a very valid point. Remember - That it was speculators that drove the oil up not so long ago. There you have it.

[draconianguard]

Wasn't AFA Started By ToyFare ?
Anyone look at the Ebay Mego Auctions for AFA Graded Pieces ?
Would Anyone Pay those prices for those Pieces ?

I dunno... To Me,.. AFA = Heavy Over Priced Figure.

AFA was started by Tom Derby/ Cloud City. I remember years ago a guy sent in a resealed vintage Star Wars figure as a test and they never caught it was a reseal. AFA is BS in my opinion. I have seen one figure get an 85 and another get a 75 that were in the exact same condition. I've seen 90's with a huge orange TRU price tag placed badly over a logo-why wouldn't they take off points for price tags? I have a couple vintage SW figures AFA graded fairly cheap because the seller couldn't get good $ because the grades were too low (75 & 80). The moron grader actually damaged one of the cards grading it that I own by having a plastic piece to hold the figure in place go through the piece inside the hanger tab. I know of people who got graded figures sent to them through the mail with the figures head coming through the bubble. Ive seen graded GI JOE figures with the o rings dissolve and you see a broken figure in an AFA graded case. Not my thing.