MPC Monsters Appreciation Thread

[horrorhunter]

I'm sure you would have had more competition if they had been original MPC toys. 

Yes, for sure. People are always scrambling to buy original Pop-Tops cheap. Sometimes those Mexican repops sell for a lot because many collectors don't know how to identify the real ones from the '60s just by the look and color of the plastic in the pics, especially with some pics being misleading and poorly shot. Not as many collectors are after these weird looking bootlegs, which is great for me and my wallet. 

[horrorhunter]

This auction for five metal MPC Weird Monsters copies ended pretty high.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/116361786235



Someone is paying around $150 plus tax for the privilege of ownership. I bid what I thought was substantial, but it was less than half what they went for. I checked around prior, and these are not unique. A few years ago at least one person made multiples of these as well as metal Pop-Tops, Palmers, and probably other toy monster figures. They don't turn up much these days but I doubt if they qualify as "rare"...I'm not talking eBay Seller "Rare", I'm referring to legit rare. Scarce maybe. Anyway, they're cool display items for MPC Monster collectors at the right price. What they sold for isn't my "right price". Maybe one day more will pop up for sale at a more attractive price. They're just copies after all. Being patient saves a lot of money, especially with the prices things sometimes go for these days.

[horrorhunter]

Here's an eBay listing for a Pop-Top Witch in unusual packaging. 

Pop Top Horror Witch Tote's Big Boy Premium Multiple Toys Saunders Cleveland OH | eBay





The header card is advertising on one side and generic Christmas on the other. Really cool piece but $666 is a bit ridiculous. I might give $150 but that's about it. It's not like it's in original MPC packaging.

I avoid posting active auctions, but I don't see any harm in posting BINs as long as they're correctly listed so as not to be a "hidden" listing. These stratospheric prices seem to be common these days on anything remotely considered "rare" and desirable. Mostly they languish for months or years but occasionally someone actually buys them for the lofty price (Clinton Plastics Frank Bucket recently sold for $2K?!).

[Hepcat]

Wow! I see no indication of year of issue though.

 

[horrorhunter]

Another eBay listing for the MPC King Kong Jungle Set: https://www.ebay.com/itm/276822842912



$899 or Best Offer. Missing the 4 character figures, instruction sheet, hut walls, most of the 14 jungle animals, all of the natives, canoe figurehead, and tree cross-sections. Most of the pieces that are included have damage. The pictures are so poor I can't tell what condition the Kong figure is in. The bridge rope handles are broken (which is common) but even one of the rock arches is broken in half (someone had to try hard to do that). Also, a tree is split, and the box is pretty rough.

Probably 10 years ago I bought my KK Jungle Set for around $500, and it was complete and everything in excellent condition. Maybe after a decade a nice example of this playset would have FMV of around $1K but if that is true then this listing of incomplete damaged junk should sell for no more than $300-$400. As usual BUYER BEWARE.

Another aggravating thing about this listing is the "READ!!" in the title. I don't understand why sellers want to put that in listing titles, it's just rude and overbearing. Of course people interested in the item are going to read the description without beating them over the head with it. I don't understand the brain function of some of these sellers.

 

[John Pertwee]

Putting things like that is the title is great because it tells me to move along and buy from someone else. I get the frustration some sellers have with buyers, but being preemptively rude isn't a good look for a seller asking hundreds of dollars for something. It isn't like the title was too long to put please in there before read.

As for the item, saying the rock was brittle and broke, and other things might be brittle too? Saying as is and no refunds means nothing to ebay. If someone wants to return something, ebay will let them.

[horrorhunter]

Putting things like that is the title is great because it tells me to move along and buy from someone else. I get the frustration some sellers have with buyers, but being preemptively rude isn't a good look for a seller asking hundreds of dollars for something. It isn't like the title was too long to put please in there before read.

Yeah, putting something in caps with 2 exclamation points is like screaming at someone. I'm a lot less likely to deal with someone if they scream at me. Bad form for sellers or anyone for that matter.

I forgot the set is also missing the cage and 2 canoe paddles. And, true to form for someone listing a playset they know nothing about a couple of wrong pieces are thrown in- 2 Indians from a Western playset. Yeah, I want 2 American Indians in my tropical jungle playset. This thing is a mess.

Btw, the eBay Buyer Protection usually only extends as far as if the item is misrepresented, but you never know for sure how things will go if you enter a dispute. I've never had any trouble as a seller because I make a simple honest listing, and I don't "scream" at prospective buyers. Another annoying thing some clueless sellers do is muddy up the listing with a bunch of unnecessary rules and threats. Leave that crap out and just list what people want to know about the item.

[horrorhunter]

Looks like a nice set of MPC Weird Monsters sold for a total of around $150 (w/shipping and tax) in an eBay auction.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/196952768460



It seems that the Weird Monsters are pretty much solidly FMV of around $20 each these days. A few years ago nice examples commonly sold for around $10-$15 each at toy shows and other outlets but time and inflation has driven them up just like almost everything else. MPC made a lot of them back in the day and even though they are still common the demand has driven up the price. The only premium figures in this line are the red ones from the MPC Monsters Checker Set from the '60s, which are fairly scarce and probably sell for around $50-$75 each these days. The black ones were also sold in the checkers set but black is a common color for them so they sell for the same as the regular black ones and are the same as the regular black ones. The glow ones from the '80s sold in the Dragon Crest playset seem to sell for a little less than the normal ones, as well as the green recasts from the '80s/'90s do (maybe $10-$15 each).

As far as I know the molds are unaccounted for on these Weird Monsters. If they ended up south of the border like the Pop-Top molds did then we would probably see repops galore from Mexico which doesn't seem to be the case.

There is big demand and almost no supply for MPC Monsters playsets like the Haunted Hulk, Horror House Target Set, MPC Monsters Checkers Set, and carded Weird Monsters and Pop-Top Horrors. Prices on some of these can get crazy when they finally enter the marketplace. Most collectors just grab what they can in the way of loose Weirds and Pop-Tops, and the prices on even those continue to rise with increasing demand compared to lesser supply. You see a lot of damaged Weirds and Pop-Tops in eBay listing with bats and hands broken off among other problems, and many sellers seem to price the damaged ones at close to full FMV for excellent condition ones, which is ridiculous imo. I've seen damaged Weirds and Pop-Tops that I wouldn't pay anything for listed for high prices. The whole point of owning them is to put them on a shelf and admire them bringing back great childhood memories, and broken ones make poor displays.

[horrorhunter]

Another MPC King Kong Jungle Set sells at eBay auction this time for around $640-$650 total ($571 + $15.84 shipping + tax) with 11 bids.





This one appears to be complete which is unusual. It has some condition issues but is in a lot better condition than most of the ones that become available. It looks like FMV for one of these playsets complete and in excellent condition is probably around $800-$1K these days, if you could even find one to buy in that condition which would be a challenge.

The MPC King Kong Window Box Set is a whole different animal, being very rare. I would put the value of the KK Window Box Set at around $3K at least complete and in good condition due to the rarity of it. I doubt if any examples of the KK Window Box Set even exist with a high-grade box. I've only ever seen two examples of the Window Box  Set and I've been following this stuff for many years.

[horrorhunter]

One of the paper inserts for the Fritos Mini-Monsters promotions sold at eBay auction for $225.50 + $6.30 shipping + tax, so $250+ with 15 bids.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256921601702



I checked around from various sources and nobody I could find mentioned the actual year(s) when this Fritos promotion ran. The eBay listings mentioning it always just list "1960s". I remember getting a few MPC Weird Monsters (Fritos Mini-Monsters) in boxes of six small bags of Fritos covered with cellophane and including the little yellow insert paper sold in the eBay listing mentioned above, but I can't remember the exact year. I think it was 1969 or close to it. I still have a couple of those Mini-Monsters that I got from Fritos.

I wasn't too impressed by the Fritos MPCs because I still had dozens of the original MPC Weird Monsters from around 1964/1965 when the carded sets were commonly available, and the Fritos Mini-Monsters were the same as the original MPC Weird Monsters albeit with the silly names given to them by the promotion. Sadly, I threw away all of the promotional papers included in the boxes of Fritos bags and don't have one in my collection now. I was surprised when the one listed above sold for so much. They are pretty scarce now but there's no way I would pay that much for one.

[horrorhunter]

I was doing searches on UMA for Fritos Mini-Monsters and ran across this:

https://www.universalmonsterarmy.com/forum/index.php?msg=516253

Here's a pic of a flat Fritos box which contained the six small bags of Fritos and one of the Mini-Monsters and paper insert.



And here's a pic of the way the MPC Weird Monsters were originally sold starting in 1964.



I still couldn't find any mention of what year(s) the Fritos Mini-Monsters promotion ran. As I stated before I think it was around 1969 but we're talking kid-memory here so that could well be off by a year or two.

[Hepcat]

I still couldn't find any mention of what year(s) the Fritos Mini-Monsters promotion ran. As I stated before I think it was around 1969 but we're talking kid-memory here so that could well be off by a year or two.

Close enough!

 

[horrorhunter]

Here's a repro box MPC Horror House Target Set that ended up selling for around $275-$280 total w/sh & tax.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/257063156599



It included a set of 8 original Weird Monsters which usually sell for around $20 each these days and 1 rare original ball to fire in the gun which originally came with the set. The buyer ended up with a good buy here since the monster figures alone would cost around $160+ and the ball would be nearly impossible to find at any price. The repro box is exact, and the original packaging is probably the best (and hardest-to-find) part of any MPC Monsters item, so a good repro is the best most of us can do these days.

I wish someone would make good repros of the packaging for the MPC Monster items and sell them at a reasonable price. Original packaging for the Haunted Hulk, Horror House Target Set, Monster Checkers Set, Weird Monsters Blister Card, Pop-Top Horrors 8-pack Blister Card, and Pop-Top Horrors 2-Packs w/Header Cards, are very difficult to find now and some of this stuff is legit rare only showing up on eBay every few years. If someone made good repros at reasonable prices they could probably sell several since MPC Monsters still have a pretty good fan-base. I know I would buy them since the only original packaging I own of them is the 4 Pop-Top 2-Packs. I guess for the blister cards they would just repop the backer cards since it would be hard to do the plastic bubbles but I could work with that. I devised a way to use Mylar bags, fishing line and clear tape to mimic the blister cards if you have the backer. I used it for some MPC Dinosaur Blister Carded Sets and it actually looks pretty good and doesn't damage the backer cards.

[horrorhunter]

Looks like another Haunted Hulk finally came up for sale on eBay. $1,600 min. bid, $2,400 BIN, $25 shipping.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/406167573257?mkevt=1&mkpid=0&emsid=e11021.m164380.l178263&mkcid=7&ch=osgood&euid=8ddc9629753d4d34a8cd9d422b18fa7d&bu=43126234745&ut=RU&exe=0&ext=0&osub=-1%7E1&crd=20250828040613&segname=11021&recoId=406167573257&recoPos=1

This one was ended by the seller "because the item is no longer available". The last one that came up in 2020 was ended the same way. Funny how these rare expensive collectibles become "no longer available" after getting advertised on eBay.







Looks like it included all 8 Weird Monsters. It's missing the green wheel. Stickers are rough. Some issue on the bottom of the hull. Still, it's a Haunted Hulk.

[darkmonkeygod]

This one was ended by the seller "because the item is no longer available". The last one that came up in 2020 was ended the same way. Funny how these rare expensive collectibles become "no longer available" after getting advertised on eBay.

He advertised it in multiple venues.