For the seller

Should you sell your action figure collection?

Sell an action figure collection when it has stopped being looked at and started being stored. What makes figures sought after is whether they are boxed or loose, whether they are complete with their accessories, and which line and year they come from. Loose figures with their weapons and parts still matter; the same figures without them are a different thing.

Figure collections are personal in a way few collections are: they are usually a childhood, kept. That is exactly why they are worth passing on properly, as one collection with its story, rather than sold off a figure at a time until only the common ones are left.

What makes figures collectable

Boxed, carded or loose. A figure still sealed on its card or in its box is a category of its own. Boxed but opened comes next, and loose figures follow — but loose is not worthless, especially complete and clean.

Completeness. The small accessories make the figure: the weapons, capes, helmets and stands that went missing first. A bag of loose parts somewhere in the house can matter more than it looks.

The line and the year. Within one franchise, early lines and short-lived characters are what collectors hunt. The markings under the foot or on the back usually tell you the maker and year.

Condition. Sun-faded plastic, sticky decay, chewed hands and paint wear all count. A figure that lived in a display case shows it.

Before you sell

  • Do not open anything sealed, and do not take carded figures off their cards.
  • Do not wash or retouch figures. Paint wear is honest; retouching is not, and it shows.
  • Keep the parts bag. Every loose weapon, stand and accessory belongs with the collection, even unsorted.
  • Keep the paperwork. Catalogues, order forms and shop receipts from the time are part of the story, and collectors love them.
  • Photograph the display as it stands before anything is packed.

The ways a figure collection can go

Selling figure by figure is slow and endless: identifying each one, matching accessories, photographing, listing, packing. The rare ones go, the common ones stay, and the collection ends as a box of leftovers.

A toy fair or shop takes what walks off a table this month.

One buyer for all of it is what we do. We take the whole collection, sealed, boxed, loose and incomplete, and the story of who built it goes with every figure to its next owner, with the collector's name on it. At Unseend, figures are sold as the collector's pieces they are, never as toys.

Wherever the collection is

We are based in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and buy collections anywhere in the world. Smaller collections can be sent, insured and arranged by us; for a collection worth the journey we come to it and pack it ourselves.

Short answers

Are old action figures worth anything?

Many are sought after, and a few seriously. Line, year, completeness and condition decide it; the markings under the foot are the place to start.

Are loose figures worth selling?

Yes, especially complete with their accessories. Loose is normal; most figures were played with, and collectors know it.

Do you buy single figures?

No, only collections: roughly twenty objects and up, or fewer if they are exceptional. Figures alongside consoles, Lego or cameras from the same house is exactly what we like.

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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