For the seller

Selling a Bearbrick, KAWS or art figure collection

Designer figures on a shelf

Bearbrick, KAWS and art figures are collected as editions, like prints. What a piece is worth depends on the release, how many were made, whether the box is there and whether it is genuine. Two figures can look almost the same and be entirely different things. The difference is in the details: size, collaboration, colorway and year.

These collections are usually built one deliberate piece at a time, over years of drops, lines and resales. That makes them the kind of collection we like most: chosen, remembered by their owner, and worth passing on whole with that story.

Bearbrick

Medicom has released Bearbrick since 2001 in fixed sizes, named by percentage: 100%, 400% and 1000%, with sets and series in between. The interest is in the collaborations and the scarce releases: artist series, brand collaborations, and pieces made for one exhibition or one store. The size is printed on the foot. The print and the box identify the release, and the box belongs with the figure.

Is Bearbrick a good investment? The answer is the same for every edition-based collectible. Some releases became sought after, many did not, and nobody can reliably say in advance which will. Collect what you love; that is also what tends to be loved later.

KAWS

KAWS figures, above all the Companions, are editions by a living artist, and they are among the most copied objects in the field. What matters: the release and colorway, the condition, the box, and whether it is genuine. Genuine pieces have consistent markings and finish. Keep the box, card and receipt from the original sale with the figure, always. A collection with its paperwork is taken far more seriously than a shelf without it.

Art figures and sofubi

Around the famous names is a wider field: sofubi from small Japanese makers, small-run resin and vinyl from independent artists, convention exclusives and hand-painted pieces. Editions are tiny and records are thin. What the collector knows, what was bought where, when and from whom, is part of the collection. Write it down, or tell us and we record it.

Before you sell

  • Keep every box, card and receipt. In this field the box is part of the object.
  • Dust figures dry, nothing more, and keep them out of the sun. Vinyl fades and turns yellow.
  • Keep sets together, and keep the collection together. The scarce pieces are what make the everyday ones a collection.
  • Say where each piece came from. If you bought something outside official channels, tell us. It saves time, and it is no scandal: good copies fool careful people.

How we buy art figure collections

We buy them whole: the grails, the everyday releases and the sofubi nobody else can identify, together. One person looks at the whole collection, from your photos and in person when it is worth the journey, anywhere in the world. Before anything is sold, we record how the collection was built. That story stays with every figure, with the collector's first name if they want it there. Everything is sold as a collector's object.

Art figures next to cameras, watches or records from the same house are not a complication. That mixed collection is the one we like best. Pass it on explains how it works, and where to sell a collection compares the routes.

Short answers

Are Bearbricks worth anything?

Collaborations and scarce releases are collected seriously; common releases much less. Size, release and box decide it. The print on the foot tells you what you have.

How do I know if a KAWS figure is genuine?

By the markings, the finish and the paperwork. Keep the box, card and receipt with the figure. A collection with its provenance gets far more attention.

Do you buy single figures?

No, only collections: roughly twenty objects and up, or fewer if they are exceptional.

Why we keep the story

A collection is not a pile of objects.

It is years of somebody deciding what was worth keeping, and sold off piece by piece that is the first thing to go. So before anything is sold, we sit down with you and record it: how it started, what the best of it was, the piece that got away. That story stays on every object with the collector's name, and goes with it to whoever keeps it next. You get a page where you can see where each piece ended up.

Three ways the story gets recorded

On camera, where it lives. We travel to the collection and film it properly: you talking about how it started, the room and the shelves as they are, the objects in your hands. Wherever in the world the collection happens to be.

On a call. If the collection is sent to us rather than collected, we have the same conversation over a video call and write it up, with one photograph of the shelf as it stood.

In writing. If you would rather not talk at all, answer a handful of questions in your own time and in your own words. It goes on the objects exactly as you wrote it.

It never changes anything else, and you can always say no to it. Some conversations run ten minutes, some an afternoon. Read the collections we have taken on

If it is a whole collection

We buy whole collections, not single pieces: one person takes all of it, and the story is kept with every object. Tell us what you have and a person replies within two days.

How passing it on works, in full

1The collection
What is in it
Pick everything that applies. Something else opens a line to tell us.
Roughly how many pieces
A guess is fine. Nobody has counted.
How would you describe it
There is no wrong answer here, and a lot of ordinary is a normal collection.
One or two sentences. This is the question we care about most.
2Where it is, and how it could reach us
Town and country is enough.
How could it reach us
Unseend is in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Sending and bringing are as welcome as a visit; if it is sent, we pay the freight and insure it.
When does it need to be gone
No hurry is a good answer. It lets us plan a visit properly.
3Condition and photographs
In your own words. Broken, incomplete or untested is fine and is normal; it only needs saying.
Photographs
Three to ten photographs The room and the shelves as they stand. Phone photographs are fine, and a slow walk round on video says more than any of them.Send them to hello@unseend.com
Or attach them to the reply that comes back within two days. Any of them works, and nothing is looked at until a person reads it. Do not clean up first — the shelves as they stand tell us more than a tidy arrangement.
4The number, and the story
A number or a range, whatever you have in mind. You will get an honest answer either way.
Would you tell the story of it
Filmed at the collection wherever it is, on a video call, or written in your own time. It never changes the price.
5How to reach you
The reply comes here, from a person, within two days.
Only if you would rather be called.

Answered within two days, by the person who would come, and by email at every step after that. Nothing you send is shared with anyone, and your photographs are deleted if we do not go ahead.

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