Everything You Need to Know About Vaulted Pop! Vinyls: Your Cheat Sheet for #ThrowbackThursday

There’s nothing like a super rare Funko release of yesteryear for #ThrowbackThursday.

The Funko vault is a thing of great hype and mystique in the collectables world. If you’re just starting out, you’re probably still just as overwhelmed as I was. If you’re not following the Funko blog it can be hard to tell the difference between new releases and what has recently been taken off the shelf for good. There are just so many darn Pop!s nowadays!

Once an item has been taken from production for good, this is referred to as a ‘vaulted’ item. It retires with all of its friends in the mystical Funko vault. Different from just selling out, this means that they will never make it again, meaning it suddenly becomes very popular with collectors. If you managed to snag one of these before it left the shelves, you’re lucky. But does this actually increase its value?

The short answer: yes. Like anything, Funko Pop! Vinyls go up in value when their availability becomes scant. Unlike other exclusives and ‘limited pieces’ Funko releases, vaulted items are done for good: this means that whatever number of them exists in the world currently, this amount will never increase.

Their price can double, triple, or skyrocket overnight, with private sellers on Ebay and the likes pushing their vaulted finds as a treasure in rarity and exclusivity. It can be daunting as a new collector to know where to look and how to find a fair price. Pop Price Guide is a good resource, and there are plenty of retailers out there who specialise in stocking these hard-to-find goods.

Vaulted items can range across every genre, and generally speaking the longer they have been vaulted, the higher in value they will be. For example, The Walking Dead’s Prison Glenn Pop! Vinyl was recently vaulted, but it is still selling at retail. It isn’t quite rare or hard to find yet! This stands out in stark contrast to items which have been vaulted for longer, such as SDCC Exclusive Metallic Genie, which was released in 2013 and currently listed on Pop Price Guide for an average of USD$750!

This one is likely more popular due to its limited number of pieces, as a convention release, in the first place. Now that Funko has stopped producing it for good, officially moving it to the ‘vault’, collectors everywhere are scrambling to get their hands on it. It just goes to show that a hunch and a good find can go a long way in increasing the value of your collection. So where to go from here?

Sites like Ozzie Collectables cater specifically to in-box collectors looking to increase the range and value of their collections. There’s a massive range in the vaulted collection, with favourites from the much-beloved vaulted Slave Leia Pop! to the variety of hard-to-find zombies from the Walking Dead.

The hardest part of collecting from the vault is actually finding the item, and then finding a decent price for it. Retailers can do all the heavy lifting for you, sending scouts to scour the globe for the rarest items and bring them back to you for a fair price. Definitely worth a look if you’re into that sort of thing.

What’s your favourite vaulted item? Do you think that vaulting an item really increases its value to a collection? Let us know in the comments!

Happy collecting, everyone.