1. Hey Adam. I know the complaints about character volume and choices between Black Series and TVC have been addressed many times in your space. And the explanation for the difference tends to be a version of "it costs the same to make both scales, and Hasbro gets to charge more/make more money off Black Series, so there you go."

But does this explanation square with the number of Black Series figures that go on deep discount, or end up en masse at Ross/Ollie's? Is Hasbro getting the same amount per unit from Ross/Ollie's they are from Walmart for a Black Series case? If that's true, Hasbro couldn't care less if their product fills shelves at Ross/Ollie's, because at the end of the day, it's getting its money regardless, correct? IG-12 carried a clearance price at Target almost immediately, and that's just the most recent example.

I'm just looking to blow a hole in the production cost/profit margin explanation for TBS over TVC, because given the reality and breadth of clearance prices for TBS, I just don't buy it as an end-all, be-all explanation for the disparity in the scales.
--Brad

The answer you're looking for isn't coming from the question you asked. It's a lot simpler. "Why are figures being dumped on clearance at Ross or Ollie's?" Because Hasbro made too many and because fans (and in the case of many, stores) didn't buy them.

The number of parts and pieces in TVC is very similar to The Black Series. The labor for assembly is probably identical. Obviously less plastic is used in making a smaller toy. You can fit more of them in less space when transporting them to shops. I don't know what Hasbro is being charged by their factories if the figure is shorter, but I assume a 6-inch figure with 30ish parts is going to cost at least a tiny bit more than a 3 3/-4inch figure with 30ish parts. (Now a figure with 6 parts, that's going to be cheaper.) If you really want a cheaper figure, it needs to be simpler, with fewer parts and pieces. (See also: Retro and Epic Hero.)

As to why Target has been marking stuff down so fast, the best answer I've ever been able to hear over the years was that they may have taken to long to get it/put it out and it was time to reset the peg for another product. Is this true? I can't say. But if they need that specific peg space in November, and the item arrives in October, it's going to need to go pretty quickly. I can't speak to what's going on at Target. That strikes me as odd - but my first sighting of IG-12 The Black Series was at a record shop for $10 under SRP. Which does not make any sense. A lot of items this week are half price, including The Vintage Collection Cobb Vanth for a mere $12.50. You should buy him for $12.50. Heck, I should buy another one for that.

Hasbro is not getting the same amount of money from Ross/Ollie's that Walmart would pay. They have to make money too, so if you see a $3.99 figure, they probably paid half - or less. (I do not have access to their invoices, so don't quote me on that.) Xloseouts are historically very, very cheap for the store buying them and when I'm retired from this business you should ask me more about that. I don't know if Hasbro is losing money. I can guarantee you they're making less money than if every figure sold at full price. Hasbro has to dump old stock because they can't pay to store it forever. Other toys must occupy that space.

There are many reasons why Hasbro would want to manufacture excess stock, mostly relating to the fact that you can't sell what doesn't exist. Stores need stock to sell things. If Hasbro (I'm making these numbers up) only made 10,000 of a figure, filled 100% of pre-orders, and called it a day there would be nothing on-shelf. Their quarterly earnings would be horrifying. They have to make extra units so GameStop, Target, Walmart, and other stores can have something on their shelves. Calculating exactly how many the market needs is difficult. Not all collectors will pre-order, or watch the pre-order streams, or even know what's coming out since there's no more on- or in-pack marketing of other products. (I'll keep bringing up that I think this is a mistake.)

Ad: Get New Star Wars Pre-Orders at Entertainment Earth! Get Free USA Shipping on Orders $39+

 

2. I love the Vintage Retro Collection like you do (pure nostalgia of my youth) but looking at it as an adult, I also love the Vintage Collection as well, especially on the off chance that Hasbro brings out a new figure. Do you think Hasbro would ever have the Vintage Collection be ONLY new figures and have the Retro Collection be re-hash figures that have been produced in the past?
--Jeremiah

Short answer: no. But your question gave me a few tangents that proved worth sharing.

Let me tackle that The Vintage Collection thing first. Basically it boils down to this - the number of never-before-made Kenner-style figures in The Retro Collection is tiny, but not really all that much smaller than what we've been getting in The Vintage Collection. Hasbro has been leaning hard on reissues, updates of existing figures, and repaints - I don't even know if fans realize just how few genuinely new 3 3/4-inch Episode 4, 5, and 6 new figures we've been getting. (Maybe because they're all quitting collecting.)

Now let's put that in perspective. We've seen reveals of 358-ish TVC figures since it started in 2010. Since 2018, we got #116-#358. And three of them are inarguably brand-new modern-era original trilogy debuts, and only two of them were never before made as an action figure in any form. Taym Dren-Garen and Velken Tezeri were new - no argument there. Bespin Security Guard Hector Spinoza counts as a modern-era debut. And someone may correct me if I forgot one or two somewhere, but the entirety of The Vintage Collection figures from Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, or Return of the Jedi in the past seven years of Vintage are merely new versions of old characters or straight-up reissues, perhaps with improved paint. (Hasbro has made thousands of figures, so I'm not poo-poooing them making reruns.

Vintage is giving us remakes and even remakes of remakes. Maybe I got spoiled by 2006-2008, when almost every wave had at least 50% new figures or creative spins on old figures The Return of the Jedi figures from the deleted Sandstorm Scene in 2008 was particularly clever and I wonder if they can use that as a hook to make another Slave Leia again.

What "new" or "re-hash" mean in this context seem open to interpretation.

I don't think Hasbro would ever make only new figures in The Vintage Collection. Tooling is expensive. If there's a figure from 2012 selling for $90 on eBay, Hasbro is doing everybody a favor by doing another run. But the collectors who want to someday sell their collection won't like it, and collectors who already bought it want something new - and they deserve something new! You can't expect a collector to keep buying the same toy over and over again.   I wouldn't mind it being like the 1990s, where every now and again they bring back Darth Vader or whoever makes sense.  I'd rather have a reissue of Mando than yet another figure taking up tooling allowances that could go to a droid or a new character.

I don't know what to expect from Retro beyond "more classic" - but I have made graphs of what we got so you can see trends. Anything I say here is a pipe dream, as Hasbro has not taken the "in case of emergency, break glass and sell Generation X remakes of all of its old action figures, vehicles, carry cases, and playsets" yet.

This graph tallies the figures we've gotten per year since The Retro Collection debuted in 2019.

The Retro Collection has been slow when it comes to putting new figures in circulation.
2019: 6 basic figures + 1 game figure + 1 prototype figure (8)
2020: 6 basic figures + 2 game figures (8)
2021: 7 basic figures + 2 prototype figures (9)
2022: 12 basic figures + 2 figure 2-packs (-1 Amazon reissue of 2020 Boba Fett) + 2 prototype figure (17)
2023: 2 figure 6-packs + 1 figure 2-pack + 21 basic figures + 1 prototype figure (36)
2024: 3 figure 6-packs (18)

So for the above, that's the entire line.  Below, let's talk reissues of 20th century toys only.


This graph tallies the 1978-1985 remakes per year since The Retro Collection debuted in 2019, assuming Walrus Man is a reissue in 2025.

"What can we expect from Hasbro?" seems to be "an average of 5 remake figures per year" and "probably not more than 18 figure in 2025," if trends continue. 35 of the 96 non-prototype figures were 1970s or 1980s molds. It seems as if they're going to shift gears more to cover "classic" characters - new and old molds - but our sample size for 2025 is presently 6 character names.

At this time the line has to be new molds, mostly because variants are limited.  Steve Evans posted some marvelous Marvel comic deco figures that I hope he makes a reality - but it's a safe bet Retro (thanks to it being cheap) may have more new "classic" molds than The Vintage Collection, especially given the past few years.

And I'll just say again that while Hasbro seems averse to $10 products, I assume fans would buy a $50 Cantina Adventure Set remake with 4 or 5 carded figures in the box, and a cardboard playset. There's a lot of money to get from us - more still, if they reissue the original Millennium Falcon for $100-$150 or whatever it would be today.

Become a Patron!

Special thanks to our generous Patreon patrons, especially: JT, Jared, Bobb, Christopher, Daniel, Dan, Tim, Jayson, Matthew, Michael, Robert, Stephen, Todd DrReiCow, Eddie, Jeremy, Mario, and Todd! Thanks for helping us keep the servers on!

FIN

Skeleton Crew and Gift the Galaxy both continue, leaving not much of a mark either way. Hasbro Pulse put up new Vintage Heir to the Empire and Black Series Shadows of the Empire sets, and that's good! No new Retro, and each set has a "just different enough to make you mad (or not different at all" release to complicate your feelings. Boushh is still showing up at Ross from last time, asking fans to buy her again seems cruel.

Skeleton Crew offered up some more aliens and exposition, plus a pretty neat nod to the excellent Greatest Generation podcast in the form of a character named Benjar Pranic, who I hope gets a figure. If you don't know the podcast, that's OK, it's all about Star Trek and it's the best thing you'll spend 800 hours of your life listening to. The show itself is getting a lot of praise, but I'm still sort of holding my breath for the payoff. I don't know if we're being set up for cameos by Mando or Boba, or some sort of Krikkitmen-style threat, or what. Just please, don't let it be a cliffhanger, these kids are already at least two years older and maybe three or four before a second season starts shooting.

If that weren't enough, art of Atha Prime fighting Yoda from an upcoming Marvel Star Wars comic is making the rounds. Those who know are aware that Atha Prime is a 1980s Kenner concept that would've kept the toys going without movies - the design was later repurposed as an Imperial Sentinel in 1991's Dark Empire comic series which saw plastic in the 1998 Kenner action figure line. The selfish person in me wants to start harassing Hasbro to actually make the lost 1986 line-up as toys. Technically we got Grand Moff Tarkin and a new Jedi Luke already. Wouldn't it be a trip to actually go down this rabbit hole with new playsets, vehicles, and figures? And a Bantha? And a Landspeeder reissue? And...

--Adam Pawlus

Got questions? Email me with Q&A in the subject line now! I'll answer your questions as soon as time (or facts) permit.

Social media? Sure. Bluesky | Threads | Twitter | X | Fediverse | Mastodon | Tumblr | Instagram

I'm on Instagram! All Pictures from a GameBoy Camera.