We’re excited to introduce our new global PPG Ambassador program, led by the amazing PPG Squad member Gil Dagon, aka MR.splinter.

Ambassador roles will positively promote Pop Price Guide across all platforms in their home countries. MR.splinter, for example, is now our PPG Ambassador in Israel and deserves not only credit for the idea, but for being a rock star Squad member and owner of an eye-popping 47 Showcase Badges!

Gil – who considers Freddy Funko as Freddy Krueger (LE 48) his prized Pop! – has added close to 5,500 items to the PPG / hobbyDB database, along with 11,300 price points, 9,200 images and almost 32,000 item ratings! Give his Showcase a look here on PPG and make sure to check out some great images below.

He tells us a little about collecting Funko in Israel, says Gil –

“The Funko community is very big. The main Funko collectors group has over 7,000 collectors. It’s easy to find Pop!s because we are a big group and collectors add many items for sale every day. But it’s harder to find the rare Pop!s here. In Israel, autographed Pop!s are very popular right now.

In Israel, I see a lot of collectors. People here are collecting Pokémon cards, model cars, sneakers and more.”

Thank you, Gil! Coming up next…the Netherlands!

Would you like to represent PPG & hobbyDB in your country as part of our Ambassador program? Check out Gil’s PPG Showcase Badge in the image above.

To be eligible, you must be a long-term Pop Price Guide Squad Member. If interested, message us and we’ll get you started!

Check out the MR.splinter collection!!

The post Pop Price Guide & hobbyDB Ambassador Program Debuts in Israel appeared first on Pop Price Guide.

A lover of pop culture, with a particular eye on Funko and beyond, hptoolhead – who asked to remain anonymous – has reached an impressive hobbyDB / Pop Price Guide milestone.

With several recent additions, she now has more than 4,200 items in her collection with an eye-popping estimated hobbyDB value of $92,083!

Need to see for yourself? Click on the hptoolhead avatar to see it!

Where hptoolhead is truly invaluable, however, is as a super-duper, mega-awesome member of the hobbyDB Squad. (Click the link to see how you can join!)

Her many Squad roles and accomplishments include Champion, Curator and Creator badges, as well as serving as a member of the Flag Squad and “The Untouchables,” our group dedicated to spotting and documenting fake items.

The real question is, which Squad badges hasn’t she earned? And her Squad stats are equally as impressive as her collection.

As if 2,754 items verified, 2,139 database items added and 1,480 subjects verified wasn’t already tremendous, she’s also assigned more than 61,000 price points.

Everyone say thank you, hptoolhead!

We could go on for hours, but we’d prefer to have her take you through her journey into collecting.

Over to you, hptoolhead!

The first Funkos I bought were the Mini Wacky Wobblers that were mash-ups of Star Wars and Universal Monsters that I got from Toys ‘R’ Us in 2015.

Next came a gift from my roommate of an Alex DeLarge Pop! for my birthday since he knew of my love for “A Clockwork Orange.” Not too long after that came the Tim the Enchanter and Gogo Yubari Pop!s that I found in my favorite neighborhood convenience store and things kinda blew up from there.

The Pop Price Guide database shows I’ve been a member since Sept. 2017 but that was the date of my first purchase through the database. Started using PPG for about a year and a half before that because it was easier using PPG than the spreadsheets that I initially set up to keep up with my collection.

I’ve been a collector of assorted things for most of my life. Things I have that aren’t yet entered into hobbyDB:

• Over 3,000 vinyl and shellac records dating from the 1930s to current
• McFarlane Spawn figures series 1-16 and a mixture of other McFarlane figures
• Series 1-6 Garbage Pail Kids stickers
• Tokidoki Unicorno and Mermicorno figures
• Living Dead Dolls mini figures with one full size LDD
• Variety of art including pieces by Csaba Markus, Josephine Wall, Billy Butcher, Norman Rockwell and others
• Hundreds of DVDs and CDs

I’m now a hobbyDB coordinator, an Untouchable who’s on the team that Verifies Transactions, and have been resolving flags long enough that I’ve gotten through over 9,000 of them.

My Faves

My fave Funkos are probably the ones I have custom painted. All started when I would be on the hunt for new Funkos and I would see something and think it would look so much better if it glowed in the dark or was metallic or (gasp!) both.

Sometimes a piece is released as a glow in the dark but it just needs so much more glow. I can do that! Even got myself some glow in the dark stickers to use as needed.

The banner on my showcase shows some of the first I painted. As time passed, I ended up with enough custom painted pieces to fill a shelf, so I did. This was my first custom shelf and everything there has some degree of personalization.

The one I’m working on now – D&D Vecna with metallic eyes and robe and the eyes will soon glow red too.

Grails!

As far as a grail, here’s something that meets my definition as well as stays with The Grail theme.

Last year, I had the opportunity to see Neil Gaiman (one of my absolute favorite living authors) speak. What made it so amazing for me, besides being in the same space with someone I have admired for so long, was one of the readings of his works he did that night was of my absolute favorite short story of his – Chivalry.

While there was the option to purchase autographed books at the show (I got Art Matters, Anansi Boys, Trigger Warning, and Good Omens before running out of money), they didn’t have (and I didn’t even know it existed at that time) a copy of Chivalry. Cut to a few months later and the tiny book store in Woodstock, NY near where Gaiman has a house offered autographed books.

That’s when I found and purchased what is pictured below – a hardback copy of my favorite short story, autographed by my favorite author.

 

 

It’s certainly not my most valuable piece, but is definitely one of my most loved.

 

Thank you, hptoolhead!! Check out this amazing collage of her collection!!

 

The post Pop Price Guide Collector Showcase: The Impressive Funko Collection of hptoolhead! appeared first on Pop Price Guide.

That’s just some of the perks! Check out all of the details and just how easy it is to become a PPG owner by following this link.

There is lots to be excited about here at Pop Price Guide and hobbyDB these days! With your help and fandom, we have experienced our best month yet! So we decided to share some recent highlights with you, including how you can get involved as our latest round of crowdfunding draws to a close in six days!

Check out some highlights from March at Pop Price Guide!

March Visits Up 24 Percent!

More visits to the site, means a stronger community and more revenue opportunities.

March Revenues Up By 50 Percent!

By introducing new income streams and optimizing current ones, revenue was our best yet in March.

Members Grew to 617,146

Our community is now at a massive 617,246 members, and continues to grow!

App Downloads Flew Past 250,000

With 21,000 downloads in March alone, we had our best App download month ever.

Huge Performance Improvements

We made a ton of infrastructure updates that made the site much more stable and also faster (especially for mobile users, shaving an average of 2 sec per page!). More to come in the next few weeks!

New Partnerships & Exclusives Launched

Collectors of Starbucks Mugs, Tech Deck (announcement to come), and ancient coins, get ready to see all of your favorites in the database! We also launched our exclusive Larry Wood Trading Cards that depict never-before-seen Hot Wheels designs, and a few days ago we launched our first Handmade by Robots Exclusive. Stay tuned, we’re excited to announce another rare exclusive with our friends at Brooklin Models later this month!

Round 4 Closing on April 30

With 120 investors in this round (joining more than 1,300 from our earlier rounds), we’re proud to say that we’re owned and powered by our community. We aim to double this number to 250 by our close date on April 30th.

We will continue to work hard for you to make sure Pop Price Guide is a success. Click below for complete details!

Thank you for believing in us and feel free to message us at support@hobbydb.com if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it!

~ Alexandra, Chris, Christian, Isaac, Timo & Zack

The post Pop Price Guide Update: March Was Our Best Month! Ever! appeared first on Pop Price Guide.

Unfortunately, there will always be bad reporting or even bad actors out there to keep us on our toes and on the lookout for bugs or scams. This can create “Outliers”, here is how they are defined:

After some recent situations that we think were outliers, we talked to a number of experts and then sat down to devise a method to better safeguard against wayward and fraudulent price points.

All in the last three months:

• eBay Australia reported a sale for $3,200, while in fact, it was an accepted Best Offer for $62 (so a technical problem)
• A PSA Graded 10 Pop! of Ms. Marvel sold for $320 when it had a PPG value of $20 (a change in market perspective)
• A buyer with a compromised credit card well overpaid for a few Funko Pop!s in the last few months (just fraud and as it was not his money he did not care)

Outliers are a mathematical concept and can be complicated:

We did not want that. Instead, we tried to create a process that is easy to understand, makes sense for our Members (also the ones without a Ph.D. in Statistics), and is easy to apply.

Under our new system, the Squad can better combat suspicious Price Points or other Outliers by using a three-step practice we’re calling the 2 / 2 / 200 Rule.

When we find what looks like an Outlier Price Point, we’ll now use these steps to determine if a sale needs to be excluded from the Price Guide:

• The sale is over $200 (easy)
• The sale is at least two times the Database Item’s current Estimated Value (should be easy )
• And there are at least two other examples of the same item available for purchase on the same marketplace (eBay, Mercari, etc.) that are in similar or better condition and being offered at around the current Estimated Value (easy)

Here is an example:

And here is the new Help page that explains it.

We will review this rule the same we review all of the Price Guide operations on an ongoing basis and if you have comments or questions there is space for those below!

The post Pop Price Guide’s New 2-2-200 Rule to Combat Outlier Price Points appeared first on Pop Price Guide.

Known as the Squad, our team recently reached a pair of milestones that will not only benefit PPG users, but those who collect outside of Funko, as well.

The best part is, your Pop Price Guide username and password also grants you free access to hobbyDB. There you can manage and view, not just your Funko valuables, but whatever else fuels your collecting passion.

On hobbyDB, you’ll find more than 27,000 Funko items in addition to more than 535,000 items from Hot Wheels, Lego and much, much more. 

Thank you, Squad!

A few of their recent accomplishments – 

100K UPCs!

Fans of the hobbyDB / Pop Price Guide App you’ll now find more than 100,000 UPC codes on database items.

The app is a scanner tool designed to simplify in-store research and to make adding items to your collection easier.

Download the Android or iPhone version here!

150K Prices!

What’s a price guide without prices? Our Squad recently hit the 150,000 mark for collectibles that have been assigned price points in the database. That means more items with prices and more accurate estimated values on your favorite collectibles. 

Join the Squad!

Would you like to become a member of the Pop Price Guide Volunteer Squad? Our team consists of curators and contributors who add items and prices to the PPG and hobbyDB databases. The Squad also ensures the accuracy of items, subjects and more.

Each week, the Squad also takes part in our Quest Challenge program to edit and add items to the database. In return, members earn shiny new badges for their PPG and hobbyDB Showcases.

If this sounds like a good fit for you, let us know by messaging us at support@hobbydb.com!

The post Pop Price Guide / hobbyDB Volunteer Squad Reaches Several Milestones appeared first on Pop Price Guide.