Recently my wife and I have started to collect McFarlane Sports Figures <link>. Personally, what brought me back into the hobby, the game used and autographs is turning me off again. I am sure that I will always collect cards, but the glut of autoraphed cards and worthless game used cards are really starting to grind on my nerves. The designs,in my opinion have gone down hill and are no longer creative. Anyone with Photoshop and someimagination can do better. I mean I read Mario’s post <link>about the upcoming Goudy release and I’mjust left wondering, how long can they milk that cow? I guess I’m just bored,it just seems to be the same designs reused, year after year and set after set (especially Upper Deck).
So while looking for Carey Price cards (who is mywife’s favorite player), we stumbled across a pre-order for his McFarlane action picture (pictured below). I guess I have always been a fan of his work, but had never picked up any of his figures. So we went to Toys R Us and picked up a few hockey players (Alex Kovelev, Ryan Smyth, and Jason Blake). We were blown away with the details of each of these figures. So I started to do some research. For roughly $10 – $15 you can get almost every player released. They put out 4 – 5 sets a year each set has anywhere from 6 – 8 players.
As you can see, the detail is very good. When you think about how much a set would cost, it’s about as much as a new box of wax. So with somany people becoming disillusioned with baseball and sports cards lately, how long will it be until they turn to something different. I mean a card is 2D, the figureis 3D. You can get both items signed, so that’s a wash, a typical packof cards is running from $5 – $10, these are running from$10 – $15. The cards are stored in boxes and binders, these can be displayed on your desk, shelves, man room, wherever. Here is a look at the newest set coming out for baseball.
(Carlos Zambrano, Miguel Cabrera, and Chipper Jones)
(Jorge Posada, Dustin Pedroia, and Justin Upton)
You have to admit, these look very great. You know what? You can get any one you like too? You don’t have to buy packs and hope to get the one you want. I’mprobably off, but I think at some point other people are going to start looking at this the same way. When it comes to sports cards I will always collect certain players and teams and even some sets. However I am going to start collecting these as well. How doother bloggers / collectors feel about these figures?
Note – All photos are from the Spawn website.
I personally really like them. I have both an Andruw Jones mini and a Hank Aaron regular sized on my desk. Just like cards, these you have to narrow your focus. They produce so many variants of the figures that can cost a lot of money for the rare ones. They’ve been producing these series for awhile now, so it’ll be hard to find the older ones. Also, if you think pack searchers are bad, the people who line up at Toys R Us or Wal-Mart the day shipments of toys come in are worse. Here, they know the ratio of figures per case and which are one per case and are the rare ones and variants. They will often either be standing at the door as soon as the stores open or make friends with the workers who will stash some of a certain toy away for them. I worked at TRU, I know how this goes. This makes finding these figures harder and possibly worse than pack searching as the dealer or whoever is getting these toys know exactly what they’re getting. Pack searchers still don’t always have a 100% hit ratio and they might get a star or might get a scrub. This here is money in the bank for the figure dealer. But that’s neither here nor there. I love these figures.
What are your thoughts on taking them out of the package? I know they lose about 90% of their collectible value but they look so much cooler raw and posed properly?
My wife, she won’t take the hockey ones out of the package. I have the Aaron one and I took it out. I just had to, the loss of collectible value be damned!
I can take them or leave them. A few things to remember:
1) Once a player gets a McFarlane figure, he usually doesn’t get another one until he moves to a new team.
2) If you’re not a fan of a popular team, you probably won’t have anybody McFarlane figures to buy.
3) In theory, you can get whoever you want. In practice, the locally popular players are frequently tough to find.
I really like them, and I take them all out of the packaging to display them.
One problem is that they take up a lot of space. I can fit thousands of cards on one shelf, but only about 4 McFarlanes.
You have to check out the new Gehrig one coming out in February…looks awesome! The Williams and DiMaggio from a few years ago looks great. I’ve never seen a good looking Mantle though for some reason. New Ruth’s coming out in February as well- it’s of him throwing though instead of in a batting position.
The Gehrig one is a must pick up for me, also I’ve seen the new Ruth as a pitcher one as well which looks interesting. The one I really want though has got to be the Nolan Ryan with the bloody nose / jersey.
I have debated about picking these up. I know that has a lot to do with the fact that I don’t even know if they ever made a triber. For me, I’d be one of those “hey, if someone sends me one, or I get one for b-day or christmas, that’s cool” kinda collectors…
They will never replace trading cards. Not everyone has space to display them, for one. It’s kind of like Transformers and Transformers PVC figures. They look nice but nothing like owning the actual toys.
I can’t get into stuff like this. To me, these come under the heading of “knick-knack,” which also means, “house-clutter.” Just another thing to dust. And I really need the photograph of the actual player to make it a worthwhile collectible.
There is nothing like a 2 1/2-by-3 1/2 piece of cardboard with a photograph of a ballplayer and stats on the back. Nothing will top it.
I like what I’ve seen from McFarlane too. I only own one – a Don Mattingly that was exclusive to the All Star Game Fan Fest in 2008. Your post inspired me to check eBay and I found that there was only one Rays figure ever made – Scott Kazmir. I’m going to try to acquire one.
I love McFarlane’s Sports Figures. I used to collect Starting Line-Up as a kid but once McFarlane’s came around and made Starting Line Up obsolete my attention quickly shifted in that direction. I’m definately pumped about the Gherig and Nolan Ryan coming out in Feb.
Toys ‘R Us online is a great source of picking up the McFarlane’s you can’t find in stores, and if you shop at the right time you can get them at a discounted price and a pretty good deal on shipping.
The only downside to McFarlane’s vs. Starting Line Up is that McFarlane doesn’t cover every team. I’m pretty sure there is at least 4 Jeter editions have been made over the years and that is at least the 2nd Posada edition to be made. Sometimes an edition of McFarlanes will be made that leaves you wanting more from the checklist. But overall it’s an excellent product.
I can definately agree with your sentiments on card designs. I stopped collecting in the early 90′s partly b/c of the cost, partly becuase I had lost interest and partly because there were many lines with little originality. That Donruss set with hundreds of errors (obviously intentional) pretty much did me in.
Since then, I’ve started taking my own photos and getting autos on those. It takes time to develop and return for the sigs, but at least they are original and unique.
As far as the McFarland figures, definately not a replacement, but a nice compelment. What I think is interesting about them too are the folks who buy the figures and turn them into other players for custom designs. Never tried it myself, but have thought about it many times.
[...] Bad Wax has become a McFarlane sports figurine collector. [...]
Your wife has great taste in hockey players… Carey Price is Right
If you really like McFarlane figures, you have to check out this one website. This guy I know who does football and basketball customs does a phenomenal job of recreating custom figures. I have several of his redskins players.
http://www.sportscustomsonline.com
The guy who owns the website, his name is Patrick Winter.
He is a great guy and the best customizer there is.
You can also check out this website.
http://www.rlcustoms.com
He doesn’t do customs anymore, but he did a lot of mine before I started going to Patrick. Really a great guy and does an outstanding job as well.
These custom figures are so cool.
Ho my! If that guy could make a custom with Campbell’s jersey being torn while making that run I would be in Heaven.
I’m a huge fan of mcfarlane . . . I used to collect baseball cards, but for me I don’t get as much out of them anymore. I have every cooperstown series mlb figure. I narrowed down what I would collect to that of the cooperstown figures because I figure there won’t be any guys switching teams at this point
I’ve yet to take them out of the package, but I have a feeling that one day once I buy a nice display case (with glass) I’ll take them out (too much dusting/clutter otherwise). It can be expensive, but in my case I’m only buying the new cooperstown series that come out each year so it’s like $80/year . . not too bad.
I’ve very recently taken to collecting McFarlane figures. I got a new job that has a very liberal policy on decorating office/desk space and knowing this, my wife bought me the BC Sports exclusive Cole Hamels figure for my birthday. It looked nice enough on my office book shelf that I went back to BC Sports and picked up a few more. The BC Sports exclusive Ryan Howard, the Cooperstown Series 5 Mike Schmidt and the 3″ mini Ryan Howard. They were 50% off so all 3 cost me the grand sum of $17.
It really is quite addicting though, just a few hours ago I snagged the Cooperstown Steve Carlton off ebay. Gotta love the baby blue uni
Yes, be careful . . . it is very addicting. As a Red’s fan I’d love to see a Pete Rose one (with maybe a Phillies variant) . . . but probably not likely given his “non cooperstown” status
I agree with Jason regarding the Mantle McFarlane figures.The series 3 gray and the one that is in a nice swinging door package (very nice display) don’t look anything like Mickey.The picture on the “door package” makes him look Japanese.
Could anyone tell me, do wax packs from the 80′s on lose value now when you open them ? I know that sounds like a stupid question, but I wondered since the value of cards have fallen so far that the mystery of sealed packs might be worth more than open packs with Steve Balboni, Ken Brett and Russ Davis ?
I am getting sick of the constant repaints. As a huge Yankee fan, I am not going to continue buying repaints of figures I already have JUST because they are of Yankees. Same goes for the ridiculous collectors editions and two packs.
I love the hockey mcfarlanes, big fan of goalies so I get them and I like getting the variant first and then if I really like the team player both, but I am a Devils and Habs fan at heart. I have all the Brodeurs made to this point and alot of the habs as well. The devils only have had 2 players Brodeur and Scotty Stevens. The goalie detail is awsome and I want to have all the goalies at some point. Some of theser are harder to come by and cost a guy more than 15.00 for sure! Like the patrick roy 3rd jersey variant very limited run will cost you above 800.00.
They are fun to collect and some day they will be my sons.