Action Figures

Six-inch lines, Japanese imports and sixth-scale Hot Toys:

most of what changes hands in Costa Rica falls into one of three scales. The six-inch lines are the common currency: Hasbro’s Marvel Legends and Star Wars Black Series, plus McFarlane’s DC Multiverse, which runs to seven inches and looks a touch big beside them. Bandai’s S.H.Figuarts, Max Factory’s figma and Medicom’s Mafex are the same size but cost more for finer joints, extra hands and cleaner paint. Hot Toys works at 1:6, around 30 cm tall, with fabric costumes and realistic head sculpts. Two things get listed as figures that do not pose. Resin statues and garage kits, the “GK” pieces anime shops sell, are display sculptures that can cost ten times what a six-inch figure does. Funko Pop vinyls have no articulation at all. If cards are part of your collection too, they have their own place under trading cards, and boxed toys from the seventies and eighties overlap with antiques.

Choosing a line by scale and Build-A-Figure parts:

pick one scale and stay with it, because a seven-inch McFarlane beside six-inch Legends looks out of proportion to most collectors. Many Marvel Legends waves include one piece of a Build-A-Figure, a larger character you only finish by collecting the whole wave, so a figure sold without its piece is worth noticeably less to a completist. The Japanese lines reward careful posing, but their small hand pegs and ratchet joints are also the first things to break.

A six-inch figure on the shelf against an opened one:

new single Marvel Legends and Black Series figures sit around ₡22,000 to ₡30,000 on a Costa Rican shelf, and an S.H.Figuarts runs to roughly ₡60,000 to ₡70,000. An opened figure from a line still in production has to come in well below that, because the buyer can walk into a shop and get it sealed. The gap closes, or reverses, for retired figures, convention exclusives and anything complete with its Build-A-Figure piece, which collectors pay up for once the shops run out.

Loose joints, tacky plastic and bootleg boxes on a used figure:

ask for a photo of the figure standing in a pose without support. Hips and ankles loosen first. Look for white stress marks where the plastic has been bent, cracked hand pegs and thumbs, and paint rubbed off knuckles, helmet edges and shoulder pads. In damp places such as the Caribbean coast or San Carlos, boxes kept in a closet warp, spot with mould and lose the crisp corners a sealed-box buyer is paying for, so ask where the collection was stored. Older Hot Toys with seamless rubber bodies can turn tacky or split at the joints. Bootlegs aim mostly at the Japanese lines. Genuine S.H.Figuarts boxes, apart from some early releases, carry the Tamashii Nations holographic sticker, and recent figma boxes carry a Good Smile Company authenticity sticker. Blurry printing, odd wording, joints that are seized or floppy straight out of the box and a price far below the shop rate all point to a copy. On any brand, look for the copyright stamp moulded into the figure, usually under a foot or across the back.

Listing a figure, a wave or a whole shelf:

name the line, the character and the exact version, since Marvel Legends alone has released dozens of Spider-Man variants. Say whether the box has been opened and photograph it on every side. Lay out every accessory, spare hand and Build-A-Figure piece in one shot, then add close-ups of the face paint and any loose joint. If the figures stood near a window, say so. Sell the valuable pieces singly and the common ones as a lot: a dozen loose Legends without accessories moves faster as one listing than as twelve. A buyer driving in from Alajuela or Cartago will want to pose the figure before paying, so keep its accessories bagged and ready beside it.