Canadian Transformers News and Discussion Forum

[79transam]

Buying, selling and trading toys is a big part of the toy hobby for many collectors. It's as fun, arguably, as retail toy hunts.

I have been buying, selling and trading collectibles since my photography evolved into toy photography and opened up my desire to collect again as an adult.

My first few trades were Marvel Legends and older G1 Transformers. I went into it with the mindset of an adolescent and just assumed people were honest and for a good run of about 2 years, I was right. It was a great experience each time. Shipping is usually a tough pill to swallow, but Canada Post is a whole other story.

Eventually though, I did experience the darker side of trading online. A recent example is a trade I got involved in where I had a box full of BAF parts and a guy offered me 3 Legends and duplicate BAF figure in trade. We agreed to both send in the morning and by about noon he had a pic of the reciept and tracking # in his DM from me on IG. Later that day he messaged me and said something came up and it would be sent out the next day. That's fine. I said no rush. It'll get here when it gets here.

A month later, several changing reasons and a life story about addiction and job losses later I finally posted a thread about my experience warning the community this guy shouldn't be traded with. It was what it took for this guy to come to terms with how rediculous it was not to spend the 17 dollars to ship my stuff. He eventually just gave me 5 bucks per BAF piece and I washed my hands of it.

Let me tell you though, I had several great trades before that guy. And I only let go of stuff I'm not attached to. So really, even if he never came through, I was never going to build those BAFs. This one bad apple isn't going to stop me from enjoying apples.

Statistically, the trading is a really excellent part if the hobby for me, and I'm not going to be apprehensive of paranoid about it. That's a toxic way to think imo, so I choose to carry on the way I enjoy it.

Now the climate of this part of the hobby, of buy/sell/trade, is not how it was when I began. It's a climate of distrust, protectionism. I never even considered a few years ago that trading used plastic toys would resemble isolationist fear based foreign policy of regressive world powers. How sad is it that trading plastic toys has evolved into a bitter side glance of every individual, because 1 in 20 (estimate based on my personal experiece) screw it up or scam the other person.

So my statement is this- I am questioning who is actually responsible for the negative climate of the buy/sell/trade part of the collecting community. Is it the 1 in 20 scammer? Or is it the people who treat the 19 in 20 like the scammer?

Food for thought.