I was at SDCC this year and I was amazed at how many booths had Funko pops, which was about 20-30% of the booths and there was a line for the Funko area, jam packed with people. I over heard people saying they found some rare ones or newly released that were hard to find.
A few years ago someone bought me a Squirtle Funko Pop, since Squirtle is the best, and I opened it and took it out of the box. They proceeded to freak out that I ruined is value by taking it out of the box…
It doesn’t feel the same as the beanie babies did.
I’ve never heard anyone in real life talk about collecting them as if they would be worth anything. Most people just wind up with them.
It’s just a normal collecting sub-culture. The vast majority of people that have them have a handful, but of course you’re going to have people that want to have complete sets.