The Transformers – more demand than meets the eye…
Sorry, couldn’t help myself with that semi-retro riff.
Remember that IDW supply and demand carousel that I was kind of ranting about earlier in the year? (If you don’t you can check out my post about the IDW graphic novels) Well it looks like the music has started up again and the colourful horses are starting to turn again.
Earlier in the year, prices on various IDW Transformers books were starting to settle down and return to normal: we had prices on both editions of the Transformers: The All-Spark Almanac returning to retail (and even below retail on amazon.com) as fresh supply of the book showed up on shelves, and a similar downward move on the prices of the first two volumes of the Transformers: IDW Collection Hardcovers as they, too, showed up on shelves at both comicbook stores and bookstores. But wait! What was that I just said about the carousel?
That’s right, the IDW supply and demand parade has started again: the prices on many of those Transformers books have started to rise again – and rise pretty high. That all-Spark Almanac book? The All-Spark books have gone from being below cover on Amazon (from between say $15 and $18) to anywhere between $50 and $100+ for either book! And yes, before you point out that Amazon claims to have stock available and will ship it in a few weeks, I already know that, and I also know that when amazon says this, it is effectively saying that they don’t really have any product to ship to you. (Hey, like many other Amazon shoppers in the past, I have ordered stuff that ended up ultimately not being available [Ugh]) As for the IDW Collection books, both volume 1 and 2 have shot right back up, fetching easily triple the $50 suggested retail price (SRP) for the first book and double retail for the second volume. Even the third book is looking like it might soon ‘pop’. (so buy it now if you want it but don’t yet own a copy!) Something else to keep in mind is that with Christmas around the corner, the odds are that there will likely be a spike in demand for most if not all of these books from people wanting to buy them as gifts. Yep, this carousel could be offering people rides for quite a while.