Recently, I was rewatching an old video by RolloutReviews where he builds Toa Mata Nui. Right at the top, he mentions how he only got the set for about a hundred bucks, and that got me thinking about how much more expensive bionicle is in the modern day. The golden Ignika alone is about 300 dollars now. As someone who only really dug into bionicle after even G2 was off shelves, I have only seen aftermarket prices go up. But I wonder, will those prices ever go back down? The increase is a natural effect from people who grew up on bionicle becoming adults with disposable income, but have things like that ever been known to decrease?
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Bionicle in general used to be less expensive before the 2020 pandemic, but then people started getting back into hobbies too.
With all that in mind I don’t think prices will ever “come back down.” They may stagnate for a bit in the distant future (think 10 ish years down the line when Bionicle fans are having kids and families of their own who want different toys/have priorities more important than hobbies) but they’ll never come back down fully.
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Adding to this, one of the reasons for the price increase is that Bionicle sets are currently only available from resellers, so the total supply can’t really increase (unless someone starts doing really good 3rd-party set copies at a high rate of production).
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…which is likely never going to happen. Bionicle is a niche hobby - a large one for sure, but still too small for a production like this to be viable. You’d need to get new fans and (most importantly) kids interested in Bionicle, which requires proper marketing at a very large scale, not feasible for a smaller company. Plus, all of this is legally impossible because Lego owns the IP.
We do already have high quality reproduced parts. Both specialized masks and custom pieces, or general constraction pieces you can buy in bulk (like Gobricks). Those won’t change anything about original Bionicle prices, though.
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aliexpress? not great quality, but supply is going up in that sense. i’ve heard they are doing g1 bootlegs now as well
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From what I know those where just some old leftover stock that a seller found and sold off, they’re not going to be readily available in the long run. G1 bootlegs are certainly still being made, but they’re not sold everywhere (they do seem to be pretty common in Russia).
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At the end of the day, these sorts of things are only worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them, like any other collectable.
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sterling silver krana can be melted down and sold, any bionicle item that has actual value outside of being a collectible
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Only 100 of those exist worldwide, so they would be valuable for their rarity. No need to melt them down.
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Additionally, I can’t think of anywhere that would take those without doing a bit of research on them. Chances are they’d be resold, as I’m willing to bet they’re not worth that much when melted down. Bionicle fans would probably pay more than jewelers or silversmiths or whoever takes those things.
Like Mr. Farshtey said, the toys are only worth how much you pay for them. If someone is trying to overcharge for a set, its price is only set that high if someone actually buys it.
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Honestly, if you wanted one badly enough, you can just buy the raw metal and have a jeweler/metal smith forge one for you (it would still be expensive, but then you could have a 99.9% pure silver Kanohi as sterling silver isn’t pure silver, rather being an alloy that tarnishes less).
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^ This 100%. I know someone who made molds of the 2001 Kanohi and cast them in copper and silver, the price for a full set (especially if you provide the scrap silver to work with) is really not that bad all things considered. Something like $30 a mask if I remember correctly.
If I wasn’t flat broke I might consider it 
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