Restoration Question

[swgeek77]

Not sure if this is the right forum for this or not, but here goes.

I recently decided to pull my collection out of storage and put it up for sale. I used to work for a major retailer and snagged some figure cases to store all of my figures in when I had put them away. It appears that over the last 6 years sitting in storage the cards have taken on slight bends.

I was wondering if anyone might have any ideas on a way to straighten these out. I was thinking of sandwiching the offending areas between a pair of books with some additional weight on top, to flatten the card back out. Does anyone know if this will work, or have a better idea?

The other question is: Are the old figures from about '95-'98 really declining a lot in value? I picked up a copy of Lee's and noticed that nearly my entire collection is selling on the after market for about 4 dollars or less per figure, and this is if they are on Mint cards. I remember the Theater Edition Jedi Luke going for $100 plus, now he's worth $30 or less. Is there a better place to look for pricing my figures. I'm not looking for top dollar, but they are in pretty good condition, with a few minor exceptions, and I would hope they could fetch a decent price.

Thanks in advance for any input.

swgeek77 in San Diego, CA

[CaptainSolo1138]

I would pack them in a box "case style" (flipping the cards so the bubbles are always next to each other) and then stand the box on end so they receive the weight of the other figures. That way you're not putting a lot of direct force on them (which might fix this problem but may cause more).

I can't give you an "official" answer (just what I notice when I browse a Brian's Toys catalog), but outside of select figures (i.e. Sio Bibble, Swimming Jar Jar) and exclusives, the after market for many figures is relatively low, especially the ones in the dates you've given. A lot of this has to do with a thousand repacks of each of those figures, a "better" sculpt being made available or one of a million other reasons.

[swgeek77]

Yeah, I was kind of getting the same impression on the figures value. As the new and better sculpts have been coming out I can see the older sculpts dropping in value. Its just kinda depressing to see what used to be a collection that might have been worth a grand or two turn into about a 400-600 dollar collection, especially considering the amount spent to build the collection.

I have the figures bubble to bubble in the box, the way that Hasbro shipped them in the case. However, Hasbro never intended the figures to stay in the case for years on end, so it is not the best idea for longterm storage.

I guess Hindsight is 20/20 is the operative saying here.

[CaptainSolo1138]

However, Hasbro never intended the figures to stay in the case for years on end, so it is not the best idea for longterm storage.
I was just talking about short-term, corrective storage. If that's how you already have them, then I guess that idea can be scratched.

[swgeek77]

gotcha. yeah, I'm hoping a little corrective short term storage will work.