Dollar Tree Finds

Cheap Thrills, Cheap Collectables

Dollar Tree is well known for their one buck (now a buck twenty-five) toys that will appease kids for a few minutes, but do they have anything worth nabbing for collectors? On a recent trip to one of my local Dollar Tree stores I managed to find quite a few cool mini figures to add to my collection. They are far from perfect, but they are the perfect way to express your fandom without breaking the bank.

There are a ton of mini figures available at Dollar Tree and the lineup is constantly changing. When I visited, I found figures from Masters of the Universe, Justice League, Nickelodeon, Jurassic Park, Disney, and Transformers. The Nickelodeon figures were a range of classic characters such as Ren and Stimpy and Spongebob Squarepants. The Disney figures were from The Incredibles, Disney Princesses, Monsters, Inc., and classic Disney characters such as Mickey and Minnie. The Justice League figures were all based on characters from the recent DC films. The MOTU figures were based on the classic figure designs in classic packaging but featured a base with the new Netflix Kevin Smith series logo on it. The Transformers figures were all backpack clips with the clip attached to the top of their heads. I decided to snag all of the Transformers and all of the MOTU figures.

None of the figures in either line that I purchased had perfect paint applications. I didn’t expect them to be perfect. That being said, the primary reason that I didn’t buy any of the Justice League figures was because the paint apps were terrible. Of all of the lines available, only Disney seemed to have their stuff completely together. The Transformer toys were very good (but even they had issues), and the MOTU figures were hit and miss. I had to pick through them to get the best ones.

Of the two lines that I purchased, the Transformers are definitely my favorites. They aren’t to scale and I had to dig quite a while before finding a Soundwave figure who didn’t have a broken shoulder cannon, but overall they are brightly colored, remind me of the classic TV series, and look great on display. If you’re a fan of the classic Transformers line, grab one or two of these figures to clip to your backpack or hang from your rearview mirror.

Of the figures that I purchased, Orko is easily the best one. Again, these figures aren’t to scale, so Orko is a giant compared to He-Man and the rest of the gang. Orko’s paint apps are amazing and he looks really great on my shelf. Mer-Man and Skeletor both had pretty bad paint apps, but poor Man-At-Arms looked like a porn movie reject with his pencil thin, lopsided moustache.

Are they worth collecting? Not really. It would be cool to have the entire line on card (which is pretty easy to do at only $1.25 each), but I seriously doubt that they will increase in value. If you’re the type of collector who opens up items like I do, then these are definitely worth grabbing. It won’t hurt to tear these toys open and display them and you probably won’t mind if your Optimus Prime bag clip goes missing at a convention because he was cheap. Just be sure to keep quality control in mind with these figures and go through the entire rack before deciding on which ones to buy. The paint apps are hit and miss and many of the figures are broken. Kids will like these for a little while but will probably end up burning them, tossing them, or putting them in the microwave to see what happens.

Thanks for checking out this quick review. I found a few other interesting things at Dollar Tree that I may have to review in the future. I have something special coming up for Throwback Thursday this week and I hope you join me for that upcoming post!