The short version
- Typical range: £5 – £80 — see the full action figures value guide
- What decides your price: condition, and how well you evidence it in photographs
- Cost to sell here: nothing, at any price
- Category: Toys & Games
Before you photograph it
Ten minutes here is worth more than anything else you will do. Buyers are deciding between your listing and someone else’s, and preparation is what visibly separates the two.
- Lay out every figure with its accessories and work out which pieces are missing. Say so; collectors always find out.
- Check the joints. Loose or floppy limbs are a genuine defect on articulated figures and buyers ask specifically.
- Clean gently with a dry brush. Do not scrub painted detail, and never use solvent on printed faces.
The photographs that sell action figures
Four photographs do almost all the work. Shoot in daylight, near a window, with the item against something plain — and do not use the flash, which flattens texture and hides exactly what buyers are trying to see.
- The whole lot laid out together on a plain surface, so the buyer can count them
- Individual shots of the more valuable figures, front and back
- All accessories arranged next to the figures they belong to
- Any packaging, card back or box, including its corners and creases
Photograph the flaws too. It feels counterproductive, but a listing that shows the worst of an item gets fewer questions, fewer withdrawn offers and fewer arguments at handover. Buyers who can see the damage stop imagining something worse.
Writing the title and description
Name the line, the character and the era: “Star Wars Kenner Vintage Luke Skywalker, 1978, Complete” or “Marvel Legends Bundle, 6 Figures, Loose”. Collectors search by line and character, never by the phrase action figure, and the words loose, complete and boxed are all filters they actually use.
Then state these in the description, because a buyer who has to ask is a buyer who might not bother:
- The line or franchise, and the character names
- Whether each figure is complete with its accessories, or loose and partial
- The condition of any packaging, described separately from the figure
- Joint condition — tight, loose or broken — and any paint wear
What buyers will actually ask
You will receive the same three messages about action figures. Answering them in the listing itself removes the back-and-forth, and answering them well when they do arrive is what turns an enquiry into a sale.
This is the whole question for collectors. List exactly what is included and what is not, and photograph the accessories, because completeness is what they are paying for.
Say so and photograph the card back and corners. On vintage figures, packaging condition can be worth more than the figure inside it.
Stand the figure up and try it. Floppy hips are a known failure on certain lines and a collector will assume the worst if you do not address it.
Pricing it so it actually sells
Start from the honest condition grade rather than the price you hope for. WishThrift listings use five grades — New with Tags, Like New, Good, Fair and For Parts — and what each grade means is worth reading before you choose, because grading up is the most expensive mistake sellers make. It does not raise the price; it produces a buyer who arrives expecting something else.
The action figures value guide prices all five grades for this item. Pick your grade, take the figure, and if you sit between two grades price toward the lower one. Items priced honestly sell faster than items priced hopefully, and on a free platform there is no fee eating the difference anyway.
What you keep, compared
On a £42 sale — roughly the middle of the range for action figures — here is what the commission-charging platforms would take, and what you would keep on each:
| Where you sell it | Fee | You keep |
|---|---|---|
| WishThrift | £0 | £42 |
| Poshmark | −£8 | £34 |
| eBay | −£6 | £36 |
| Mercari | −£4 | £38 |
| Etsy | −£3 | £39 |
Seller-side rates verified 26 Jul 2026 — Poshmark: 20% commission on sales of $15 and above; eBay: 13.6% final value fee, plus a per-order fee; Mercari: flat 10% selling fee; Etsy: 6.5% transaction fee, plus a listing fee and payment processing. Percentages are applied to the sterling figure above; the fixed per-order and processing charges those platforms add are quoted in their own currency and are not included here, so the real deductions are slightly larger. Full breakdown: marketplace selling fees compared.
Timing and getting it to the buyer
Steady all year with a clear lift before Christmas. Sought-after lines sell within days when priced against recent completed sales; generic bundles take longer and do better as job lots.
Small and light, so posting is easy and widens your audience enormously. Wrap each figure separately and box rather than bag anything with fragile accessories or original packaging.
WishThrift does not process payments or arrange delivery — you and the buyer agree both directly — so confirm payment has cleared before the item leaves your hands, and keep the conversation on the site so there is a record of what was agreed.
Ready to list it? It takes about two minutes, costs nothing, and there is no commission when it sells — create a free account or see how selling works.
Frequently asked questions
What are used action figures worth?
Anything from £5 for a loose common figure to £80 and far beyond for complete vintage pieces. The action figures value guide sets out how condition changes it.
Should I sell figures individually or as a bundle?
Sell anything genuinely collectable on its own, and bundle the rest. One valuable figure buried in a job lot will be spotted by a reseller and you will have sold it for the bundle price.
Does removing a figure from its packaging destroy the value?
For modern figures the effect is modest. For vintage carded pieces it is dramatic — a sealed card can be worth many times the loose figure, so never open one to photograph it better.
See also: what a used action figures is worth · browse live toys & games listings · condition grades explained.