Thanks for visiting Wheeljack’s Lab. Here we can help you decide where to sell your ThunderCats toys for cash. We have been in the toy business for more than 20 years, so we have experience with all kinds of vintage toys, and we know all about the many ways people sell their collections. We are familiar with everything from vintage Star Wars toys to Transformers, ThunderCats, GI Joe, and much more.
No matter what your collection looks like, we can help you figure out the best way to sell your toys. If you want to sell a collection of old and used ThunderCats toys for cash, you have come to the right place. Read on to learn more.
Preparing to sell your ThunderCats Toys
Before you can decide where to sell your vintage toys, you will need to go through a few steps to prepare your collection. If you do not take some time to organize and value your ThunderCats collection, you will not be able to get the best value for them. A little time spent first will help you understand how much your collection may be worth and help you decide how to sell them.
What’s Your Collection’s History?
You will find that all the following steps will be much easier if you are the original owner of your toys. With larger collections, it can be difficult to figure out what toy line each one belongs to, especially if you have acquired the collection from someone else. Matching up all the separate small parts and accessories can be even more difficult. If you are not familiar with the product lines in your collection because you got it secondhand, you would be best off simply emailing us so that we can help you make sense of everything.
Identify Each Toy’s Brand and Line
Here’s where specific knowledge about the toys in your collection is important. To find what your ThunderCats toy collection is worth, you will need to organize them by brand and line. Be careful as you look for identification, as old plastic toys can be fragile, especially if they have been in a poor storage location. When you are ready to sort into separate toy lines, size is an effective way to start, and 4, 5, or 12 inches are all standard sizes for a line.
Determine Your Toys’ Values
Once you have sorted your collection, you can start figuring out what they are worth. You will want to know an approximate value before you decide where to sell your vintage ThunderCats toys. This is easiest if you have their original packaging or are their original owner since you will need to know what to search for so you can find that specific model. The best place to search is eBay. Limit your search to sold listings, since active ones only show you what the seller hopes to get, not what buyers are willing to pay.
How Condition Affects Value
You will find a wide range of prices for any given toy. The same Battle-Matic Lion-O could have wildly varying prices. That is based on condition, so let us look at what makes a toy’s value decrease. There are four main categories:
- New in sealed box
- Opened, with original packaging.
- Complete, without original packaging
- Incomplete or broken.
Within each of these categories, the condition of the toy can still vary. Damaged boxes will not sell for as much as ones in great shape. Dirty, dusty toys will not get as much either. While it may be difficult to get an exact value for the toys in your collection, you can use these categories and their overall condition to get an estimate based on the selling prices you find online.
More About Condition
If your toys have been sitting on open shelves or in an unsealed box in an attic or basement, they are looking a bit worse for wear with a generous coating of dust and grime. If they have suffered exposure to cigarette smoke or direct sunlight, they are yellowed. We have a how-to guide about reducing yellowing, so check that out if you have the time to clean up your toys to try to get a better price. High heat can make some kinds of plastics and types of vinyl brittle or sticky, and low humidity can also cause these kinds of issues, and there is less that you can do in this case. Finally, damage caused by pests can reduce the value of a collection or even make it worthless.
Where to sell Collectible ThunderCats Toys
Once you have gone through your collection, organizing and cleaning it up as much as possible given your time and ability, and determined an approximate value, it is time to decide where to sell your ThunderCats vintage toy collection. There are a lot of options out there, so we will look at each of them and explain the pros and cons. It comes down to asking yourself two questions:
- How fast do I want to get cash for these toys?
- How much work am I willing to put in?
As you may be able to guess, you can get more money if you are willing to put in a lot of work, but if you want cash fast, there are still some options available for you. Let us run down each of them.
Local Auction Service
- Pros:
- It is easy to use a local auction service to sell your vintage toys: simply drop them off.
- Going with a local service means you do not have to deal with shipping.
- Cons:
- The turnaround time with an auction house is typically terribly slow.
- You will pay fees to the auction house, which can be quite high.
- The sales price can vary depending on who shows up for the auction.
- You do not get the best prices since you will not have the benefit of a toy expert to set starting bids.
Pawnshop
- Pros:
- Bringing your ThunderCats toys to a pawnshop is fast and easy. You will receive your payment right away.
- Again, you are dealing with a local business, so you do not have to deal with packing and shipping your collection.
- Cons:
- You will not get as much for your collection because the pawnshop is looking to make a profit.
- They only offer measly percentages of the value estimation because they know you are a captive audience looking for payment right away.
- Since they are not experts, their overall valuation tends to be on the low end so they can be sure they will not lose.
Local Toy Dealer
- Pros:
- Taking your toys to a local dealer is fast and low effort.
- They will quickly pay for your ThunderCats toys since they are experts at evaluating and selling toys.
- You can check them out through the Better Business Bureau.
- You will not pay any added fees and you do not have to box and ship your collection.
- Cons:
- As a dealer, they are looking to make a profit, so you will not get the full value of the toys. Also, a local dealer has significant overhead to consider, so they will only offer a small percentage.
- If you have an ample collection, these dealers will reduce your offered payment since they will have to do all the work of packing everything back up once you leave.
Online Auction Sites (eBay)
- Pros:
- Major sites like eBay offer a large client base, giving you more opportunities to find a buyer.
- Since you are often selling to a collector rather than a reseller, you can get decent prices.
- Cons:
- It takes a lot of time to set up listings for individual toys if you have a vast collection since you will get more money selling them individually rather than in a batch.
- You will pay high fees to the auction site for each listing.
- Despite your preparation, you cannot be sure how the bidding will go for any given item. So, you may end up with lower prices than you would prefer.
- You will have to package and ship your toys individually, and the terms of service will require that you accept returns.
Online Swap Pages (Facebook and Craigslist)
- Pros:
- Like auction sites, you can reach more people with online postings.
- Again, when you are selling to collectors, you can usually get more value out of your collection.
- You do not have to pay the same high fees when you use these swap pages instead of an auction site.
- These sites are quite easy to use.
- Cons:
- It is very time-consuming to set up listings, especially for an enormous collection, and it can take a long time to get sales.
- These sites can have a big problem with fraud, and they do not have the customer support in place to deal with these issues.
- There can be privacy and safety concerns with communication and meeting with buyers.
Online Toy Dealer
- Pros:
- Minimal time investment, as you can pack and ship your toys in one batch.
- Online toy dealers will pay you quickly. For instance, we complete purchases within a week.
- You can confirm that you are working with a reliable business through the Better Business Bureau.
- You will not pay any fees. Even better, we will pay your shipping costs!
- Cons:
- You will not get the full value of your collection.
Wheeljack’s Lab Buys Toys for Cash
If this is your first time trying to organize and sell a toy collection, you have undoubtedly realized that it is quite a time-consuming endeavor. If you want to get as much money as possible, you can do it all yourself, but you must tackle organizing and cleaning your whole collection, spending time searching online to find prices, and then creating all your listings. Considering the time that it takes, you may find the potential for getting higher prices may not be worth the time investment.
If you are looking to sell a collection of old and used ThunderCats toys, give us a call at 888-946-2895 or send a message and we will take care of everything for you. We are a well-known buyer and seller of vintage toys, in business for over 20 years, and with family ties in the area, we are not going anywhere. When you sell your toys to us online, we will get back to you with a quote the same day, pay you quickly, and even cover shipping. In some cases, we will even pick up your collection. You can feel assured that your toys will find their way to new homes with new owners who will treasure them as much as you have.
Do you have old and used ThunderCats toys?
If you have a collection of old and used toys, you can turn those toys into cash. There is no reason to let those old toys collect dust. Contact us today to sell your ThunderCats toy collection.
Our professional, friendly, and expert staff have decades of experience as collectible toy buyers. If you are ready to sell your collection today, fill out the form below or call us at 888-946-2895.
About the author
Author: Chris Ingledue
Contact: email
Bio: I am the founder and owner of Wheeljack’s Lab pop Culture and Toy Shop. My vision has always been to reunite customers with their favorite childhood toys and pop culture, triggering fond memories, and reigniting their imaginations. Every day, I work in the “lab” where it’s Christmas 365 days a year. I scour the internet, like when we had the Sears Catalog of yesteryear, for the next great treasure. Then, I await the arrival of the postman as if he were Santa Claus himself and helping collectors worldwide with their own versions of Christmas. Every day as a vintage toy buyer is an absolute joy!
Ready to sell your ThunderCats toys for cash?
If you still are not convinced that Wheeljack’s Lab is the best way to sell your old and used toys, just look at a small sampling of the ThunderCats toys that have been sold and bought through our services:
This week, while having a little browse through eBay a late night pastime to help my insomnia , I came across a seller who had a carded Stinger figure for sale. This figure was being sold under the listing: Vintage 1987 LJN Thundercats The Stinger Ram-pagers Figure MOC Rare. I go to a lot of toy fairs and conventions and have simply not come across one.