I just started collecting a few weeks ago, and i have about 35 peices right now from energon. However this week ill be receiving a settlement check from a car accident for around 3,000$. needless to say, a portion of that will be dedicated to transformers. i plan on picking up God Ginrai reissue, predaking reissue, nemesis prime, galaxy convoy, and the 4 pack of black OP, black beast OP,black beast Meg, and black starscream, and whatever i come across that screams "BUY ME!!" Now heres my question... Id like to take them out of the box for display, and was wondering how badly this would decrease the value of them down the road, should i decide to sell my collection?

You really shouldn't sell your collection. It may decrease their value by a bit but if your just goiung to keep them in display, it really shouldn't harm their price if you plan on selling them.

I'm putting mine on display once I get my bookshelf converted into a display case. But I too plan to buy the God Ginrai reissue. I have MP Prime, which I consider G1, because it is, but the God Ginrai is the American PM Prime w/ Apex Armor. So I need that, and the three primals for my PRIME SHELF.

Rapid, id like to hold on to anything i buy, but i mean in a worst case scenerio... I end up moving somewhere and dont have the room for them, or i need to pay for rehab for a transformers addiction.

if you open them, save all of the packaging down to the last twisty tie, if you need t sell them all of the orriginal packageing should help retain mt of the value. so, when do we get to see pics of your fledgling collection?

ill deffinately take some pics once i place a few orders and get them in, im sure people are all set with seeing an energon collection right now.

at my house NO Transformer stays in the box for long

If you want to keep the value up, don't buy Transformers, just save the money and don't even start with TF's. Transformers as an investment are stupid.

Exactly. Transformers are supposed to be freed from their plastic prisons, not left in there to be sold one day.

collect transformers for the love of the genre, collect transformers for the appreciation of the figure and the engineering and imagination foresight that goes into designing them. the sentimental value always overrides the monetary value any day. so therefore-take them out of the box and appreciate what great pieces of art they are.

...with all of the above!

Have a look on eBay to get a rough idea of prices. As long as an old TF is complete and unbroken, it'll go for a good price. If I had the money, I'd buy 2 of each limited edition or "short run" TF's as they'll be worth bucks in the future. But you MUST free them from their packaging/prisons. On blister-packs, you could remove the plastic bubble with a Stanley knife, but I'm always far too eager to open them!

P.S. Welcome Dude!!!

*edit* You need to get Alternators or Binaltechs. Some good sellers (IMO) on eBay are: toyspark and vince.carter15

wow you are nicely spending those 3000 bucks. I am guessing you are spending between 500 and 1000 dollars on transformers. Cool......set a limit though.