Toy and model car manufacturers spend a lot of money to target collectors. They spend millions of dollars designing their items around the latest trends and consumer preferences. For collectors this is both good and bad news.
Being a prime demographic is good news in that there are dozens of manufacturers created products specifically to support your interests. For example, NASCAR fans are inundated with merchandise from the Dale Earnhardt Intimidator Express Train Collection to NASCAR remote control cars. With thousands of new and classic collectible merchandise to choose between, you are never at a loss for things to buy for gifts and to enhance your own collection.
On the negative side of this coin is victimization of collectors. There are a lot of manufacturers who produce shoddy products that are related to a popular theme. They then escalate the price and market the product to collectors. This is why reputable organizations, like NASCAR have their own official line of merchandise. This gives them control over the quality of the merchandise that carriers their logo.
Another scam that is pulled on collectors is knock offs being sold as authentic collectibles. In this scenario a valuable collectible is replicated and sold as a real collectable. The knockoff can be the entire product or just an autograph.
Do you have a scam to report for RC collectibles? Post your warnings below.
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Sometimes it is very hard to tell a real collectible from a knock off. It really does cast a shadow on the entire business. Thanks for the heads up on this subject.