How much value does a toy lose when it's opened?

I have this 1977 vintage chewbacca toy that I want to sell. I looked on eBay to see how much it could be worth by other people selling it. I saw that the unopened one runs up from 500-700 dollars but the ones that are opened are only worth 10-20 dollars. I found this extremely odd.|||well for a pure collector an open one is worth very little, so that doesn't seem too odd, but as things get rarer its less important to have sealed merchandise|||The answer is rarity..





Back in 1977, people were buying that toy for kids. A few collectors probably bought some and a few adults that weren't really collectors and just wanted to display them also bought some..





Fast-forward over 30 years.. If no one had thrown out their kids old toys, opened ones probably wouldn't even be worth a dollar. Few in relation to those sold were bought by collectors because it wasn't certain how popular the franchise would be in the future. Now, those few still in box are worth money just because of how few of them there are in comparison to the much more common opened/played with ones.





On the other side of the spectrum, look at TY beanie babies. Most of them aren't worth .50 cents. Why is that? They were a fad, MOST people bought them to collect and relatively few people bought them for children by comparison. Most of the ones found at thrift stores still have all their little tags in plastic. There are plenty that are glued into those plastic display boxes.


What that means is that there are tons of them available at any time. Few of them were damaged in play.





What makes something valuable is scarcity. There can be a poor condition teddy bear, but if ten people are looking for it and it's the only one it will be worth a lot more then perfect condition teddy bears that there are plenty of.|||Well since its dollars and stuff just sell it on Ebay.co.uk and not the american one , or you can simply sell it on amazon.com or play.com.....One of those websites should do.





Good luck mate.|||Because of the fingerprints, scratches, it can get dirty, and dust that get on it.