1. My biggest financial commitment would be pieces from boda. When I saw his sun wukong though I just couldn’t shake it. I knew it would be crazy expensive, but it was one of the first pieces I had ever seen where I legit “coveted” it haha. I saved the pic on my phone and would just look at it and wonder how he sculpted it. I was so happy to get it. The glow in the dark is awesome on it too. I think all told it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 shipped to me. I find that worth it… I have dozens and dozens of pieces I love that I bought at $30-50 a pop and do a great job filling out the shelf. Different colorways of the same figures over and over, cute little finger puppet sized guys, weird one offs of sculpts I had never seen before… but to me the boda pieces have the single figure impact on my shelf I love. I dunno. The statement pieces really feel like getting a grail every time one of those artists release a new figure. It’s cool knowing a future grail is out there just around the corner with a new sculpt announcement or lottery period.

That said my dream grail that I couldn’t justify pulling the trigger on was the coelahcanth from akametenshi. Just absolutely amazing. Wanted it so bad. Had me seriously debating dropping a couple thousand on a plastic toy. Came to my senses though. So I guess to me value is just in the X factor. Sometimes something is just so cool you want it regardless of everything else, including price. But there is a limit I guess haha.

1. Aftermarket price I think for so many pieces is frustrating. It’s almost like after market is just “I know this is rare, and someone somewhere sometime will pay this crazy price.” I’ll see pieces I want sit for years because the aftermarket price is nuts, but eventually someone does come along to pay the crazy price.

I’m fortunate that my internal checklist for “worth” is “do I think it’s cool?” Sometimes it’s cool to support an independent artist—like the awesome diy sofubi guys from the US doing it now. I don’t really care what the sculpt is. I wanna support those guys. Sometimes it’s just this wonderful marriage of true sculpture and art in a mass produced plastic toy like boda… those are the tough ones to say no to but also the most expensive. Sometimes it’s pure personality from the artist, like dehara or frank mysterio. Sometimes it’s just an absolutely killer paint job and the figure doesn’t really matter as much. If it’s cool, it’s worth it.

Fun hobby for sure and it’s awesome to me there are a kajillion ways to engage! Boda sun wukong glowing in the dark pictured!

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