Do all Vinyl collectibles from Funko have a poor quality?

[TwinkleEye]

Thank you all for the great feedback with personal assessments. It seems to be very complex and time consuming to get one in a good condition. In Germany I know only Toys r us who sell these but they had only one charakter.   

And yes the poses are very great done...but my claims are simply too high.
If I need a second charakter in future I will ask here, if anyone is so friendly to check some figures in stores for me. 

Kind regards TE

[Skeen]

If you are a serious enough collector it's not that hard to get ones in great shape!

You clearly don't live in a country that doesn't sell Funko ponies in stores. Not to mention that import costs and shipping makes them a lot more expensive. At that point you can't blaim people for wondering if these things are really worth it.
Personally, i only still get the characters i really like.

Additionally, not everyone has the time/money/desire to buy dozens of each character just to find one with fewer flaws than the others. 

Yea, not everyone has a store near them that sells certain products, it's not fair to blame the collector for a companies bad quality controls.

Maybe funko should be a serious enough seller that they're items are not so sloppy.

Blaming the collector for bad production, that's a big fat excuse to the company IMO.

Right should have said if you live near walmart, hot topic, toysrus, barnes, comic stores than its not that hard. I wasn't thinking international. However I see tons of the ponies when they are released and rarely do I see some with really bad flaws.

You missed the part about time/desire.

There are a lot of people living in the USA who don't even live close to all these stores. They may not have the TIME to waste gas and drive from store to store looking for a decent figure.

And then there are people who DO live by all these stores, but have a busy life due to work/family. They can't even drop all of those stores to find the one with the least flaws.

AND the part about money.  Not everyone can buy multiple cases of ponies so they can pick through to get the best one.  Some people are lucky to get a single one. 

[prancingstag]

I know here in Australia, the effort required to get a flaw-free figure is just not worth it (IMO).

Spoiler

They're not stocked in any department stores - in fact I've only seen them in one independent book store, two comic book stores, I think maybe the ABC shop, and in a chain of tobacco stores that also stock nerdy anime merchandise and figures, including various Funkos. You have to go to a large central shopping centre to find one of the niche stores they're stocked in, and then, the store is only going to have 1-2 at most of a character on shelf. Out of those, finding one without misapplied paint, scratches, smears, factory dirt, mold lines parting (especially weird neck seams are common), bent wings/tail/etc. is pretty much impossible.

To round it off, the vinyl pony figures are about $25-30 and the POPs are $20. I've seen mystery minis but neglected to price check them for lack of interest. For comparison, a single brushable is $10, a 'deluxe' brushable like a snowglobe or big wing design roughly $12-15, a princess pack maybe $15-18 at most, or a fashion style pony is $20, a basic EQG/MH doll also $20, a deluxe EQG/MH doll roughly $30.

For a single static hunk of plastic with no rooted hair, no articulation, no accessories, the most basic box possible, and so many possible quality flaws - $25? No thank you. Even the simplest little POP figure suffers from bad QC. I saw a Dr. Whooves POP all of once on a store shelf and was going to buy him, but his tie paint was printed a full half-centimetre off the mold line. It's literally the only extra design on him apart from eyes and hair, and it was still flawed.

You could take out the complaint about availability as there are a lot of them on eBay, but the QC still stands because most sellers use stock photos and there's no way to choose what you receive, and also the price, because as soon as you add $8-10 shipping on it's not worth it. The cheapest figure on eBay AU right now is $20 incl. shipping for a mystery mini Pinkie Pie that clearly has body marks/scratches and smears of black paint on the hair.

I got off the Funko hype train just after Pinkie and Lyra were released and I opened my eyes to the huge amount of money/time/effort I would have to funnel in to have a complete collection where I was happy with the level of quality, and I honestly feel a little sorry for those who are still interested and struggling with all their might to find good quality regular figures, let alone the glitter variants.

It's a bit ridiculous when I know that I can walk into any regular store with a toy aisle (Woolworths, Coles, Big W, Kmart, Target, Myer, David Jones, Toy World, TRU) and find a whole stack of regular brushables that I can sift through for a decent paint app and then pay pocket change for. I can get a pony for ten bucks while I do my grocery shopping, not even having to go out of my way because they're stocked next to the canned fruit, and then go home and play with its hair and accessories. Funko holds little to no appeal for me compared to the convenience of faithful old Hasbro.

Whew... I think that's all my rant power used up for the rest of the month. Anyone wanna buy some Funkos? I've been meaning to get rid of the few that I did collect in the beginning, they're just boxes stacked in a corner of the spare room untouched and unloved at this point.

[alkevin]

The only way I have to buy funko´s figures are online. I bought Lyra and her face has glue all over it. If the mini funkos do have better quality, as someone said, I would buy them, but they are black and few of them are colored.

[DazzleKitty]

Sadly, most of mine are full of flaws.

[Iris Patch]

That's why I like glitters- not nearly as much paint to bungle, and the horrible mold seams are less noticeable. The Funko Mystery Minis are actually higher quality, good vinyl instead of cheap plastic, usually better painting. Though I will say I got a Discord missing a horn. >:/
It's irritating, I only try to pick up Funkos of my absolute favorites for that reason and also the reason of them being very large and heavy.