New to Mystery Minis - My Tales & Questions

[Oblong]

I'm new here and will warn this may be a bit long read, it won't be the norm...I just have so many questions about Mystery Mini's that I found out about less than a month ago. I've read many posts here trying to educate myself and thank all who have unknowingly contributed to bringing me up to speed.

I came across my 1st MM by chance looking for some Fallout items on Bethesda's store. Saw they were selling these miniature figures of the Fallout series so I looked them up on Amazon and saw more than just Fallout figures. My son happens to work at GameStop so I asked him to bring me home a box to open. He brought me a Sci-Fi box cause it was the cheapest ones they sold and upon opening there was the Alien from the so-named movie.

Boom. Hooked. I couldn't help but absolutely marvel at the sculpting detail for such a small affordable action figure. I knew immediately I had to have more...and so it began.

Fast forward to today 30 days after that momentous 1st opening and I am staring at about 250 Mystery Minis. I bought full boxes at GameStop, sets from Amazon and Ebay, and thanks to here found Gemini, BigBadToyStore, and Entertainment Earth. The UPS guy has been wearing a path to my door, .

I now have mostly complete sets (minus some chase figs) of Sci-Fi, Fallout, Marvel, TMNT, Garbage Pail, DC, MineCraft (oops?), and my 2 favorite Horror and Heroes of the Storm (such beatiful sculpts). And of course a few doubles along the way.

So now that I've introduced myself I am finding I still have much to learn and have already made a few mistakes. I am just going to throw out a few questions here and appreciate anyone who can help educate me.

- So far I have been buying everything either from the online sites I mentioned above or locally at Gamestop. I know there is Hot Topic and I think I have seen Target and Walmart mentioned. Are there other "go-to" places to find them either online or locally?

- Is this the main forum out there for MM collectors? Is trading/selling/buying allowed here?

- Why are some figures scarcities numbered 1/12 and others 2/24? Isn't that the same ratio?

- One of the reasons I love collecting these is because they take up so little space. Also that they beg to be opened instead of sealed in packages like other collectibles. But I can't seem to throw away the boxes, old habit from collecting I guess. Now the boxes ARE starting to take up space. Is there any value to saving the boxes? The value is in the figures, right?

- I bought a full box of Garbage Pail Kids thinking I should get a full set (btw-they are HUGE!). I ended up with 3 doubles and missing 3. Have I been hoodwinked? My TMNT box and HotS box both had 1 of each.

- I bought sets of the MineCraft figures thinking they were MM's, but they are REALLY small and no where near the quality IMHO. But they were advertised as such and got fooled. Is there a place where I can print a checklist of the official sets out there so I can make sure I buy the real deal? And have a nice way to track what I need.

- I got a little carried away and bought some prototypes online. I see them still available so I am guessing these are not 1-of-a-kind, right? Any idea how rare they are?

I have more questions but I think it's best I cut it off here for now. I look forward to joining in the discussions and love to give more than I receive, though I am starting off asking for quite a bit! Thanks to all my fellow MM fans for your help.

Just call me Obs

[RogueSolo]

Welcome to the joy of Mytery Minis! I would love to help answer some of your questions, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow

I am curious though, who's the manufacturer of the Minecraft figures? I can tell you they're not Funko, and from being in Hot Topic a lot, I can't think of anything near the same box size.

[Squird]

Boxes for Mystery Minis don't add to the value since you have to rip them apart to get to the toy. They're easier to open now, but stil...unless you have a place to store them, don't worry too much about them.

1/12 and 2/24 is the same mathematically, but if the whole set has more than twelve pieces you can get into some weird ratios with the rare and chase pieces. 1/72, 1/36. I look at it as another way to say 'common'.

Depending on where you bought the 'protos', you might have bought fakes. So far, the only pieces to come straight from Funko have been TMNT, Horror 2, WWE, and the new Anime releases. Anything sold from China has been a regular mini stripped of paint. There are multiple protos of each piece, don't know how many. Best guess is 3-6 protos. I picked up my first mini protos last week and love them.

[ShyGuyPal]

- So far I have been buying everything either from the online sites I mentioned above or locally at Gamestop. I know there is Hot Topic and I think I have seen Target and Walmart mentioned. Are there other "go-to" places to find them either online or locally?

Locally, you hit the go-to places in my opinion. Local comic shops will probably sell them (albeit for a mark-up most of the time). Walgreens also sells them, but I've never seen a full case there before. Just 3-4 singles of a wave. Quite a few online places sell them, but none come to mind that I'd suggest. Watch out for mark-ups, since some websites like to do that. Hot Topic.com sometimes has deals where they are going for cheap, but I don't know how often that happens. I took advantage of it awhile ago when it lasted for a few weeks.

- Is this the main forum out there for MM collectors? Is trading/selling/buying allowed here?

Honestly, this is the only one I know of. I believe it's the closest to an official, main forum for Mystery Minis out there. Facebook also has a pages dedicated to Funko/Mystery Minis. I'm sure there are others out there as well. This forum, here, seems to be the most active though.

- Why are some figures scarcities numbered 1/12 and others 2/24? Isn't that the same ratio?

Yeah it is. They have a weird way of listing figures sometimes. It's usually based on the case (like a case = 12 figures, or sometimes 24 figures). Usually it's based on a ratio out of 12.

- One of the reasons I love collecting these is because they take up so little space. Also that they beg to be opened instead of sealed in packages like other collectibles. But I can't seem to throw away the boxes, old habit from collecting I guess. Now the boxes ARE starting to take up space. Is there any value to saving the boxes? The value is in the figures, right?

I don't think so. Some people like to save the boxes, but the grand majority just care about the figures. I have a few boxes I saved just to see the case layout.

- I bought a full box of Garbage Pail Kids thinking I should get a full set (btw-they are HUGE!). I ended up with 3 doubles and missing 3. Have I been hoodwinked? My TMNT box and HotS box both had 1 of each.

Not sure, but I know they aren't always guaranteed a full case of 12 per box. TmnT and HotS are, but ones like Disney Heroes vs Villains have repeats per box even if there are only 12 figures. I don't know about the Garbage Pail Kids, but they could be same way. Either way, hoodwinking people on that sucks and is something to be weary about. Stores sometimes mix cases together so that makes it even harder to know what you'll get.

- I bought sets of the MineCraft figures thinking they were MM's, but they are REALLY small and no where near the quality IMHO. But they were advertised as such and got fooled. Is there a place where I can print a checklist of the official sets out there so I can make sure I buy the real deal? And have a nice way to track what I need.

Yeah there are a ton of blind box figures out there, which I account towards the success of Lego's Minifigure series early on. There was a huge jump from Lego's Series 1 Minifigures to now in terms of choices of blind box figures. There were some, but now it's a bit out of hand.

I'd try: http://funko.com/collections/mystery-minis in terms of available series, but they don't list the full case sometimes or store exclusives. Still pretty definitive. I wish there was a site that kept track of it, like a wiki or something but none that I know of. If someone here knows of one, I'd love to know about it too. You can ask people around here in the threads and they'll help you out.

- I got a little carried away and bought some prototypes online. I see them still available so I am guessing these are not 1-of-a-kind, right? Any idea how rare they are?

No idea with this one, but they are pretty rare from what I've seen. I think it varies in terms of how many prototypes they make. Someone who collects those would be more knowledgeable.

And welcome! I got into the Funko MM from the Horror Classics line. I then got into the Science Fiction figures, and a bit of the Disney figures. I've only been here for maybe a few months now? Time flies by quick. I've been collecting since the Horror Classics were out though.

There are some great users here that really have a kind heart, like misterjstewart.
If you want to trade though, be cautious because not everyone is trustworthy... I've ran into a user that didn't fulfill their part of the bargain *cough*Pooly_69*cough*. Overall the community here is great though and very helpful!

Either way, welcome again! I hope you have a good time!

[hawkswin2008]

There is in fact a website that allows you to trade/track/buy all sorts of mystery minis. Simply google pop price guide, I love using this site. I haven't really used it for selling/trading but I know it is an option. It shows all exclusive (hot topic/gamestop) and "special" (wal mart blu ray bundle) mystery minis in a set. It compiles sales data for most figures from Ebay so you can get an idea of what each figure in a set is worth and tracks the value of your collections (Which i think is neat). Find the guide here, http://www.poppriceguide.com/guide/, and I only use it for mystery minis so I cannot vouch for other content as these are the only figures I like to collect.

A tip I always like to give people is to weigh the boxes before and after you open them (get packaging / figure weights) and tabulate them in spreadsheet form. Using this technique you can identify the figures before you buy them--as long as you can stand some strange looks from people in the stores. If some figures are close in range this doesn't work as packaging weight seems to fluctuate from box to box (i use an avg value of all the boxes ive weighed to try to be more accurate). It does however easily distinguish most figures from one another and I have saved quite a bit of money doing this (be careful with the walking dead chase figures as they are exact same except with blood). So getting similar figures that are painted differently can be aggravating.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Welcome to the addicting world of mystery minis.

[misterjstewart]

These things are like potato chips, you think a few will do the trick. Next thing you know you've eaten the whole bag and are looking for more in the pantry

Some good solid advice above but, if you haven't found it yet, the checklist that Supercel maintains here is pretty complete, or was last time I checked. There are quite a few Facebook groups for Minis, both Funko and others but I find them more tedious than helpful mostly. Stick around here for awhile, participate and you'll eventually meet the criteria for the collector sales and trades area of the board. Better yet, make a few friends, have some good conversations and maybe the pieces you're looking for will find you.

Do be careful buying photos from eBay. Like Squird said, they are usually fakes (inis that have had the paint stripped off) or scrappers (factory rejects) and not worth what you might pay for them. Gemini has the real deal but they don't come up very often and there aren't many to go around.

Looking forward to seeing pics of your collection soon

[Oblong]

Wow, awesome responses everyone! Going to start working on my 2nd round of questions, .

To answer a couple things that ya'll have mentioned:

- I checked the Minecraft figures I purchased and they are made by Mattel. Amazon lists them as "Mystery Mini" figures so I thought they would be of the same size/quality and brand for that matter. My bad for not looking more careful. They are cute, but just not the Funko style I love.

- The protos I bought were from the Gemini website so I think I am good. Haven't got them yet but will post when I do.

- Thanks again everyone for your kind welcome. I will try to get a pic or 2 up soon so you can see the tear I've been on the past 30 days.

[RogueSolo]

The owner of Gemini has a line directly from Funko, so anything you purchase from them will be legit. Can't wait to see your collection!

[treswright]

Wow, you have put together a massive collection in a very short amount of time!

Yes the protos from Gemini are totally legit, so no problem there! Make sure you keep the receipt, if you ever decide to sell them in the future the receipt will increase the value because it is your provenance that they are the real deal and not Chinese knockoffs.

Regarding your case question, make sure when you're buying cases of figures that you are buying SEALED cases from a legitimate seller. You should get whatever commons/ rarity mix is stated on the box, but every once in a while someone posts that they bought a case that didn't have the right mix (of course the rarities are missing, and there are too many extras of commons). When asked they usually disclose it's off of eBay, or was an open box they bought off a store shelf. The problem there is a lot of eBay sellers are trying to dump extras and throw them together to make it APPEAR it's a case, and a lot of stores will combine multiple loose boxes into a case to free up shelf space. In the latter case it's legit, they're used to selling single boxes and aren't intentionally trying to rip off a case buyer. But in the case of eBay sellers, some of them know exactly what they're doing. As has been mentioned you can weigh boxes with some series to pick out the exclusives, so then a seller can throw all the leftover commons in and advertise it as a "complete" case. Buyer beware!

[Oblong]

Got my first proto in the mail from Gemini and thought I would post. My camera on my phone is not focusing proper so I will replace this with a better one as soon as I can. Really stoked about it just the same, The Crow movie had an amazing soundtrack that I wore out back in the day.

[RogueSolo]

Congrats!

[Oblong]

So continuing my adventures into this new hobby of MM's...this week I decided to see what the scene is like locally for me rather than just the online shopping I have been doing.

My son works at Gamestop so I do have an "in" there for anything new arriving. They don't have anything I need after I picked up Fallout and HotS figures to complete my sets. They also have Marvel figures but I have that set completed.

I went to my WalMart this morning and couldn't find any. I only looked in the toy section, not sure if I didn't search the right area?

I have been to 2 different Walgreens and seen a box or 2 of Walking Dead series 3, MLP (black box), Garbage Pail Kids, and GotG. They were priced at $5.99 except the GPK which were like $12 each. I passed not knowning how bad they may have been picked over. At least I have a possible local source.

I have a Hot Topic about 15 miles away yet to check and a Target I am hitting this afternoon. Not sure if anyone has had success at K-Mart, Big Lots, or Bargain Hunt but I will be checking those out soon too.

It is looking like I will be getting the brunt of mine online as it doesn't appear I live in a hot bed area for these things.

[RogueSolo]

I went to my WalMart this morning and couldn't find any. I only looked in the toy section, not sure if I didn't search the right area?

They usually stock Funko items up front near the cash registers, by the trading cards/card supplies.

I have been to 2 different Walgreens and seen a box or 2 of Walking Dead series 3, MLP (black box), Garbage Pail Kids, and GotG. They were priced at $5.99 except the GPK which were like $12 each. I passed not knowning how bad they may have been picked over. At least I have a possible local source.

Walgreens is hit-and-miss. I don't think I've ever seen a full display case out on the shelf.

I have a Hot Topic about 15 miles away yet to check and a Target I am hitting this afternoon. Not sure if anyone has had success at K-Mart, Big Lots, or Bargain Hunt but I will be checking those out soon too.

Hot Topic should have a decent selection, depending on how popular the mall/store location is. Target seems to only get a case or so in at a time, and then never re-orders them once gone. Can't speak to the other three stores.

It is looking like I will be getting the brunt of mine online as it doesn't appear I live in a hot bed area for these things.

I live in a relatively small town, so I basically just shop at Hot Topic for mine. Walmart gets them in, but they ordered about five cases in a row of the Walking Dead: Series 3 figures, so that's all that's sitting there on the shelves now.