The collector’s jargon

As we go deeper into the world of collecting, little by little we find new words that are not usually used outside this context;

Knowing the meaning of these words can be very useful to know what we are talking about and to understand other collectors or sellers.

I am going to list a few words that I think may be useful to any collector.

Collector’s Dictionary:

Bootleg: Bootleg figures are those that try to imitate figures of characters from a successful franchise, but their creators do not have any kind of license. Also known as pirate figures, these figures usually have a much lower quality than the originals and are made to deceive a buyer or to try to reach a market of people who can not afford to pay the prices of the originals.
With the passage of time there are some bootleg figures that have been revalued, although most of them are usually priced much lower than the originals.

Graded: Translated from “Graduated”, graduated figures are those that have been sent to specialized companies to confirm their authenticity, assess their condition and encapsulate them in an acrylic box to prevent deterioration. This service has a cost, and obviously any graduated figure will be more expensive than the same without graduating, the price of this is also greatly affected depending on the score that the company has put to the figure.

Holy Grail: Holy grail” pieces are those that are considered the rarest and most difficult to obtain in a collection, a real challenge for a collector, they are usually also the most expensive pieces in the collection, although often the problem to get them is not the price, but the fact that it costs a lot to find any for sale.

Knock-off: We know as Knock-off those collections that try to imitate successful franchises, creating different characters, but making very similar figures, in this case can not be considered piracy, since the characters are others, and so the manufacturer can skip the license.

MOC: It comes from the English acronym “Mint on Card” which translated into English would be something like “New in its package”, the MOC figures are those that have never been removed from its box or blister pack and are still as they were sold at the time, obviously all the MOC figures are sold much more expensive than the loose figures. Although in this case, the condition of the box, card or blister can also greatly affect its value.

SOFUBI: this term comes from Japanese, and refers to all those figures made of blown soft vinyl, there are many collections of figures that use this technique, such as for example the Super Collection – Dragon Ball and especially most of the Kaiyus figures.

Wave: Obviously, not all the pieces go on sale at the same time, the toy companies usually release small waves of figures and depending on the success of these they decide whether to continue with the line or cancel it, it can happen that in the same year the same toy company releases several waves of new figures from the same collection. As a curious fact, the pieces of the last waves are usually the most expensive, even being the least old, and this is usually due to the fact that before canceling a collection, many times they choose to reduce the run of pieces.