Saturday, August 23, 2008

Toy Collection of the Week - Revisiting the "Million Dollar Transformers Collection"


Perhaps you remember this story from last summer: A woman from Escondido, California was auctioning off her late husband's G1 Transformers collection. The collection contained over 275 original Transformers from the 1980s, most in their original unopened boxes. She put it on Ebay with a Buy-It-Now price of one million dollars. And someone actually bought it. Newspapers around the world ran stories about the "Million Dollar Transformers Collection" and many were shocked, since even using generous pricing the collection wasn't worth 7 digits. Well, she never got the money. Turns out it was a 5 year old kid messing with her, so she relisted it. This time, she got bids of over $90,000 but she had set a reserve price above that amount, so the collection didn't sell again. Finally, she listed it a third time on Ebay, and it sold for $50,000, her minimum bid. That price works out to about $180 for each Transformer, certainly a somewhat more reasonable price.
Who bought this collection and what happened to it? I am unable to find any answers to those questions, as the buyer was kept secret and they never came forward. My best guess is that an investor bought the collection and then resold them all one-by-one on Ebay over the last year.
(For more pictures of the collection, visit this link.)