A convention built on GI Joe in Augusta, Georgia

Fox54-WFXG gives a report about a comics convention in Augusta, Georgia built primarily on GI Joe fandom:

One of the biggest comic book conventions in the country came to Augusta this past weekend.

Joefest came back to Augusta for the ninth consecutive year. The convention is one of the biggest G.I. Joe conventions in the world and included a number of collector’s items, celebrity voice actors and comic book artists.

“This is my second year here, and we're having a blast with it,” vendor Jeff Mercado said. “I’m a big G.I. Joe fan anyway, so it made it easy to come. I have my own collection, so finding rare pieces that I want for my own collection, selling off some of my older stuff that I had from when I was a child, and then, I started getting into a lot of the other things. I try to just hit all the markets, you know, what everybody's into collecting, so I have a wide variety of stuff that we like to sell.”

Having a convention built on the Joes is great. But the trouble is, this is the kind of convention where collectibles are sold at huge prices:

The event included over 200 vendors serving over 15,000 people over three days. Vendor Jeff Mercado says that the collector’s items at the convention are worth thousands of dollars.

“I mean, we've got stuff here that's five bucks, 10 bucks, all the way up to a couple $1000 for a piece,” Mercado said. “I got some airplanes that go for 2,000 bucks. We got some tanks in here that range in the 100s, 200s. We cover a broad spectrum. There's all different kinds of collectors, so we try to have everything for every price point.”

Oh good grief. This sounds like another convention focused on selling to speculators, and that could even include those who buy toys for archiving in the vault. Indeed, what's the use of having old toys around if they're not going to be donated to museums anny more than old pamphlets are?

I think it's wonderful to establish a convention built around GI Joe as much as various other entertainment franchises. But that doesn't mean the speculator market should be mixed in with it, based on how high some of this stuff can sell, yet it's entirely possible it won't be played with or read, and end up locked in vaults till sold again at auctions. Indeed, toys can wind up being sold on auctions as much as Superman's most expensive back issues. And that makes the whole purpose of the toy industry look like a joke too.