The Yak Shack Forum

Hi
I am going to the UK's Collectormania 7 at the end of this month.  As a keen collector of LOTR figures and autographs I am looking for some advice  :)
I have a rare red box helms deep Gimli figure by toy biz which I may get signed by JOHN RHYS DAVIES.  

The question is are RARE action figures more valuable left as they are OR signed by the actor themselves.  I have never had merchandise signed before only photos.

Can anyone help with this ???

Well, you will be happy to hear JRD is the sort of jovial fellow who will do his best to sign anything in a good way for you, and indeed puts up with many difficult requests.

It's hard to know if it will increase the value of your item more than the £20 it will cost to get him to sign, but I am assuming this is for your collection so basically value is not the biggest issue.

I know with Sideshow figures people love signed bases of statues and that sort of thing, and I do know a lot of collectors of Toybiz who have got the boxes signed, but it's all been for personal collections as far as I know.

A signed figure usually loses a lot of points if you were to decide to send it to AFA to be graded(decreasing its value to serious action figure collectors unless they were certain that the signature was indeed genuine and the card and figure still scored highly),but it could certainly feature better in your collection signed if you have no plans to sell it. :)

I believe the rare boxed action figures keep their value better unsigned because of the difficulites of authenticating the autograph should you wish to sell it later.
On the upside ... JRD used to have a lovely bold sig (don't know that he still does though), so at least it ought to be fairly easy for it to be recognised as genuine at some future date.

I suppose the thing you have to ask yourself is ... 'will I be selling this?' ... and then do an eBay search for similar cast-signed items to get some idea on how much they've sold for recently.

Roz raised a very good point too ... the cost to have JDR sign it in the first instance ... twenty quid is twenty quid and if him autographing the figure detracts from it's value then I certainly wouldn't do it.

Does it have to be this particular figure he signs or have you another less-rare one which you could have signed instead?

I don't know how many people from the UK send stuff to the AFA to be authenticated Rabb ... I for one would be absolutely loathe to send anything out of the UK for this to be done ... assuming I were lucky enough to own something of value which needed this service to start with! ::)

I think the general feeling so far is have him sign it if you don't plan on selling it, but if you do want to sell it then leave it untouched. :)

Do the searches and see what's sold ... ;)

I woul dpersonally much rather pick up a nice poster or 8x10 or litho and have him sign it, frame it and stick it on a wall. :) and leave your figure how it is, wont lose value and the 8x10 will look sweet :)

ya thats the owrst thing about getting things like that signed its hard to present them .i say go for the 8x10.

Yes, the recent lithos are very nice and I'm sure he would oblige by personalising it with something witty (or rude even if you asked him to!) ::) ;)
10" x 8" glossy prints are easier to frame and store and would be my preferance to have signed. :)

If you are going to keep the figure for yourself then have it signed otherwise do not do it for the reasons others have already sited here.

Goofy has the right idea - have a picture or poster signed by him and enjoy displaying it on your wall.  As you know these figures take up quite a bit of room in the boxes they come in.  All of mine are packed away in storage boxes so I do not even get to see or display them as they take up too much room.  

How many of the figures do you have and do you display them and if so how?

you can even start trying to get everyone to sign it, Sean will be there also no? so there is a start!

Hi
And thanks to everybody for giving their advice.  At present the Gimli figure will always be in my collection :D, but regarding the future I don't know I may sell it??? especially if I get ripped off again on another FOTR Merry auto (which I doubt) >:(

I think I will leave the figure as it is and just go for the signed picture (maybe treebeard this time)

Thanks again