Just where do MOCs come from??

As I have now officially been bitten by the MOC collecting bug (kickstarted at Celebration last year) and have added some nice pieces this year, I was just wondering something. Just where do MOCs come from? I mean, are they left over shop stock (which I know has happened), visionary collectors/investors who foresaw demand 30-40 years later, kids who wanted to look at them rather than play with them?

Especially Star Wars cards, which are now close to 40 years old - how did they survive? When they were purely viewed as toys and not collectables or investments - just who was keeping them unopened? As I search eBay, Facebook etc, obviously MOCs are "rare" to a point - but there are still plenty out there (even though some go for huge sums).

Just interested in people's views on why so many have survived intact, when mine lasted about 30 seconds on the card before being ripped open and the card and bubble dumped in the nearest bin :shock:

In my opinion the majority of carded figures still in circulation are unsold overstock. They were leftover when the line ran out of steam, and were sold off cheap to dealers or wholesalers. This is where they were then picked up by resellers. This explains why there are huge quantities of some combinations of cardbacks/figures in mint condition, they never went near a shop.

The exception of course are figures with price stickers, they must have either been bought by people individually and stored, or in some cases sent back to Kenner/Palitoy etc unsold so again would be classed as overstock.

SW was recognised as a cultural phenomenon even quite early on. Many more people (particularly adults) than you would imagine kept figures on cardseven back in 78/79. There was a collectors market for the earliest cards while Jedi and later where still on the shelves. Suppliment that with parents storing cards away for kids future birthdays/xmas's and a little bit of speculation here and there and you have the makings of a significant amount of carded figures that survived.

Add to that the thousands of unopened shipping cases that have turned up over the years from shop storerooms, warehouses, etc and it's not surprising so many exist today.

alot old time collectors jason joiner, jim stevens.
toy toni hoovered up.alot of old dead stock in the late 80s early 90s from ex cat shops. independant toy shops news agentd et ..ehich was brought into the collector circles.

The reason we still have so many carded figures is simply numbers. The huge numbers that were originally produced, the accepted figure seems to be 300,000,000.

If only 1% of figures survived as carded that would still give us a staggering 3 million MOCs.

I suspect that is still way too many, so let's reduce the percentage down to just 0.2% of total produced figures surviving on cards. That gives us 600,000.

Still too many. So, we have a hobby where likely less than 0.1 percent of total produced MOCs survived.

Every MOC you have is not quite the proverbial 'one in a million' but certainly a 1 in a 1000 unlikely survivor. Don't U grade them!!

Many I've bought off eBay have tended to be forgotten or unwanted presents that have been stuck at the top of a wardrobe or loft for 30 years. I've done the same for my kids, where I've purchased toys during the year in the sale and forgotten about them, only to discover them years later when they aren't age appropriate any more.

Agree with all of the above - I think that there are many reasons that so many MOCs have survived

1. Over stock - the line died around 85/86 - that is why Kenner never took the 2nd wave of Ewoks or the rest of the POTF carded figures any further - this meant stores had masses amount of over stock that was either sold off cheap or stuck away in storage bin
2. Dealers - a lot of the old school dealers when around buying up this stock in copious amounts - certainly in the UK this was at a time when most toy shops were independent so there weren't any 'stock return' policies - they wanted rid and the dealers took it away from them
3. Shrewd collectors - people were collecting these MOC even back in the 80s - and when they could buy them down at the shops for 1.00 each then it was a pretty no brainer that they kept them MOC - I also know a lot of these guys bought them and opened them to get mint versions of figures as well - but why wouldn't you at that price
4. Warehouse finds - the stock that didn't make it to the shops had to be stored somewhere and eventually that was sold off at auction (see TT) - at this point there was no point in taking them off the card so again they stayed MOC
5. Healthy collectors market - these carded figures have been highly collectable for years now - so they have been treasured and well looked after. I am sure that I have seen cards that I sold on here move round 4 or 5 collectors in the past 6-7 years so it might seem that their are lots available but in some cases it is just the same card moving about - I also think that this has slowed down a bit now as people are 'scared to sell' and this, together with increased demand has created the price rises we are currently seeing
6. Way that they were made - toys today are made as cheaply as possible using cheap material & cheap packaging. My little one gets loads of toys each year and half of them break or damage - Kenner spend a lot of time and money getting their packing right and in doing so created a product that lasted - I also think that back in the day, toys were a luxury not a necessity (which they seem to be if you listen to my little girl) and therefore greater care was taken
7. Storage - I think this is more relevant to the US market as out here people have plenty of storage space - bigger houses, barns, cellars, lock-ups etc and this can be put away fro years without people realising - however, like Andy I can remember plenty of purchases from people in the UK whose parents or grand parents just put them away and forgot about the - 6k Palitoy Chewie anyone ?

Some really interesting perspectives - thanks for sharing

Interesting that there were shrewd collectors/investors back in the 80s who took a (albeit small) gamble that these things that nobody at the time wanted, would be worth money in the future.

Unlike those who kept Phantom Menace figures on cards hoping to make a killing later on :lol:

I used to have a school teacher who used to go around old toy shops in early to mid-ninties.

Although I never saw his collection he reckoned he had every figure on every card back. SW ESB ROTJ.

He couldn't have been the only person doing this and there were a lot more small toy shops back then.

And I've bought over a dozen job lots of childhood collections, a number of which contained carded figures. Guessing the kids bored of Star Wars and they just got tossed in a loft and stored with the rest of the collections.

Guessing adult toy collectors got them back then and kept them MIB.

Although millions of units were sold they just couldn't get shut of them all. As lines changed to Empire, then to ROTJ, and then to last 17 stuff thousands were left over. They either got left on shelves to eventually be collected up or passed on to dealers or stored out of the way somewhere.

I remember dealers with boxes full of them on markets in the mid 80's, and toy shops with MOCs and boxes still on the shelves in the mid 90's.

We know there were guys collecting while the rest of us were getting Star Wars toys for Christmas but this must have been a fairly small club world wide.

It's mainly old stock that's changed hands a lot over the years, and there was tons of it. Good for us

Definitely heard from Star Wars fans who were in their teens when the first came out, so would have bought but not played with them. Recently found out a guy in my gym in his 50s has 20 odd MOCs he bought from bargain basket in a local shop. He said not in great condition, but all sealed. I of course will see if I can wear him down to sell them to me

When a daddy MOC and a mommy MOC love each other very much....

Richard_H said:

When a daddy MOC and a mommy MOC love each other very much....

Click to expand...

:lol:

Last year I talked with a girl who found 7 moc in the basement in Denmark, I was lucky to buy 2 of them

So some people did not open them all, I remember a tv program with some toy hunters from usa where a family had a lot of moc. They told the hunters that they bought 2 of all for the kids so they could get new figures if the first figures broke. But they never broke and then they never needed to open the other moc.

I also think most of us remember the story about the old store in uk with star wars toy that was never sold in the store and then came for sale on vectis

I remember when I was collecting in the early 90's and had almost completed my first loose kenner set an old guy and I would run into each other quite often at toy stores and such . he used to tell me he had every figure on every card with multiple copies of each . I remember saying to him you should collect a loose set as well to which he replied "i would never open them , theyre going to be worth a fortune " . I thougt this guy is out of his mind they are toys and should be enjoyed . maybe they'll be worth 30 or 40 bucks each TOPS . open and enjoy . I was ****ing wrong

I originally got into collecting MOCs in the mid 90s when I was 17. Bought around 45. Only collected for about a year or so. I had a decent summer and weekend job before going to college. They remained boxed safely until 2015 when I got back into collecting. No idea why I thought to do that, but probably the same thing happened to teens when Star Wars came out.

http://forum.rebelscum.com/showthread.php?t=1066420&page=2

This is fascinating - massive amounts of figures dumped in Australia from HK factories and could explain where a lot of the Mocs come from. 150,000 from one source!

I can still remember 3 of my local news agents down the road and all they ever had on the racks was klaatus and weequays.

the summer sun yellowed all the bubbles and they ended up being very dusty

they probably got binned in the end

if only I'd taken them in at the time at 99p each

Is it true that there are a shitload of POTF mocs buried in a landfill in Kent somewhere?