I recently went to Florida for 2 weeks and had the luxury of finding Vinylmations everywhere I went. In our resort shop, the parks, Downtown Disney, the outlet shops….$12.95 each single figure, no postage. We spent around $400 on Vinylmations and got as many as we could, while we could. If you live in the US, you get a larger selection online at the Disneystore, but unless you’re a cast member or live near Downtown Disney, D-Street or the parks you’ll be doing most of your buying, selling and trading online. For collectors in the UK, there’s even less choice – and higher P&P charges….not to mention import duties! So, what are your best options outside of being able to happily shop your pennies away when on holiday?
You can sometimes grab a genuine bargain on eBay, and if you’re UK based there’s a lot of sellers in the US who will ship internationally. There are some good buy it now deals, but I’ve also got lucky in the past with some good auctions. It’s pot luck when it comes to how much you’ll pay in an auction, but most of the time you can find what you want at a decent price. If you’re worried about import costs, there’s this handy tool which will help you to calculate if there are going to be any additional charges. You simply enter the eBay item number, where you’re importing to and the calculator does the rest. One Vinylmation at around $17 won’t incur any charges, for example. Good to know!
There’s a really decent selection of Vinylmations to be found on Amazon and listings sometimes have other buying options (see below). People might not think to look on Amazon, but you can sometimes still find hard to get Vinyls here at regular, non-inflated prices.
A great site where you can buy blind boxes that are no longer available, although they have opened figures too. Prices vary but really aren’t too bad at all. How does $9.99 sound for a blindbox of park 3? Or $60 for the Scrooge/Jiminy chaser from A Christmas Carol? There’s lots to choose from and bargains to be had at this site. We definitely recommend bookmarking this one! A small selection is shown below.
Other sites
Prices and selection vary but you just might be able to find what you’re looking for at these sites:
Fishpond.co.uk – Prices from £12.97. This company sell the Protech display cases too.
Bonanza – Prices from £6.26 plus shipping. You’ll have to wade through the page as Vinylmations are in with trading pins, but there’s some good stuff here.
xxl sale – This site does the searching for you and pulls information from multiple websites to deliver shopping results.
Etsy – Beautifully customized one off creations. From around £16 and up. Find gorgeous Vinylmations like these:
Facebook Groups
There are lots of really great Vinylmation Facebook groups. Expect to be able to buy and sell without pesky eBay fees (although there might be some minimal Paypal fees involved). There are thousands of trades to be had, and you can always find what you’re looking for. There are also Facebook Groups that have super kind members who make lists of people wanting specific Vinylmations and then go out and buy them! These acts of kindness are called pick-ups. You’ll pay the cost of the Vinyl, some shipping and maybe a few dollars or euros extra (sometimes more) to cover time, expenses, packing supplies etc. The wonderful members of these groups are usually well known and will announce what they will be willing to collect and when. Then you just have to get your name on that list! For example:
Here are some of the groups – a lot of these are closed, so you will need to join to gain access.
Vinylmation Exchange
Disney Vinylmation UK
UK Pin & Vinylmation Sales
Disney Vinylmation Tradin’ Post
And finally – keep track of your collection, find auctions and information and create your want list over at Chasing Vinylmation.
Did we miss anything? Have you got a useful link or resource to add? If so, please let us know so that we can update this article and make it as comprehensive as possible.