Funko Pops
By: Kamran Ali
Remember how in my previous post I said I love to collect Pokémon cards? I also like to burn my wallet with Funko Pop!
If you don’t know what Funko Pops are, they’re small (or big) bobblehead figures from TV shows, movies, games, music, and other forms of entertainment. You can buy Funkos anywhere, Target, Walmart, Barnes and Noble, or any comic book store. Normally, the retail prices will be around $11–24 depending on the size or series. So, if you become interested in wanting to buy one after reading my post… just don’t get addicted.
Currently, at the time of this blog release, I should have 75 pops in total, I have an app to keep track! I may regret one or two pops just because I don’t feel excited when seeing them, but in general, I love all my pops! I live in New York and my living situation isn’t the best, I don’t have a lot of room to display them all because the rooms are like closets here. I make do with what I have. That being said, regardless of running out of room in my room, I will not stop collecting Funkos anytime soon. Hey, that rhymed. Anyways.
Funko Pops are so fun to collect but it’s also a pain in the ass! There are so many of them, and so many of the same ones with small differences so they can be exclusives in different stores. For example, let’s look at the Moon Knight line.
You can see here that the common Moon Knight figure is in a standing pose while the Hot Topic exclusive figure is in a fighting pose, and it glows in the dark. Excuse me one second.
Goes on the Hot Topic website and add the pop to the cart.
All jokes aside, given the choice in front of anyone, why wouldn’t you take the glow-in-the-dark figure? Maybe some don’t like glow in the dark, so they buy the common one instead? Or they don’t have a Hot Topic anywhere near them? But that’s what the website is for. The simple answer is value. Like any collectibles, Funko Pop has values that go up and go down. Of course, the common Moon Knight figure will be less than the glow-in-the-dark one in the coming future. If Hot Topic exclusive figure values become $50 in the future, then the common one will be under $10, depending on how much people want the common one.
Personally, I’m not the type of person to collect everything for the sake of value. I buy it because I like the figure and it looks nice. If it becomes valuable in the future then that’s a bonus for me, maybe it’ll help me out in difficult times.
The way I got into collecting Funko’s was out of nowhere, to be honest. I was with friends, and I was talking to them about collectibles. I recently got off playing Yu-Gi-Oh! And wanted to see if there was anything else that I could collect without having to spend a lot, hence I was a broke college kid. To be fair, I started collecting more when I got a better job and during the Pandemic, but at that time it did kick start my interests. We went into our local comic book store and on the shelves, there were tons of Funkos all stacked together. There were ones from Marvel, DC, different tv shows, and movies. After staring at them for about 30 minutes I decided on my very first pop. Gandalf the Grey from The Hobbit.
That was the first one I picked up, back in 2014. Throughout the years I picked up a few here and there but never overdid it because of my financial situation.
Just a side note, if you are struggling with payments for anything, please make sure you have your priority straight. Do not waste your money on these things until after you are certain that you can afford them.
During the pandemic, I had plenty of money saved up where I can justify my spending. Especially right now with the job I have but even then, I like to restrict myself to 5 pops a month. That’s still too much you say. Well, I didn’t ask for your opinion now did I, ya stupid wan-
Anyways… my current favorites are anything that glows in the dark and blacklights, I find them cool especially in the dark with special lighting. I was going to show you guys my collection but sadly there were some errors.
At the end of the day, these Funko Pops are a fun way to collect things from my favorite series and to show off my geeky side. What do you guys collect? Would love to hear them.
