Preparing to move our stuff to the new house, I just found out that the packing box containing my Yamato Macross 1/48 Low-Visibility VF-1A Valkyrie was partially eaten by termites. The front of the box of the low-viz valk was a flip-up front lid and it was eaten away. Luckily, the termites weren't able to eat deeper into the box because of the plastic display window behind the flip top front lid of the box. They couldn't eat their way through plastic.
My wife and children lived with me for more than 4 years in a room of my parents' house (around 3m x 14m, about 42 sqm). Before that we lived in a smaller room, also in my parents' house, for almost 4 years (around 3m x 7m, about 21 sqm). As a result, we had a lot of stuff we just had to squeeze into our small space, so we had to pack them into a corner where it wasn't easy to access all of the boxes.
Since we couldn't access the packing boxes easily, we couldn't check on their condition regularly. We were only able to check the boxes recently because we were moving to a new house and this was only after a long time, possibly more than a year.
When we finally did get to the packing box next to the wall, which contained the low-viz valk, we discovered that there were termites on the wall and they had eaten through one side of the packing box. They had eaten through the packing box and through the front lid of the box of the low-viz valk.
The fortunate thing was that the box of all 1/48 Yamato Macross toys have a plastic display window behind the front lid that had been eaten through. The plastic stopped the advance of the termites and limited their damage to the packing box, the box of the 1/48 low-viz valk, and the rest of the toys inside the packing box were left unscathed.
I own several toys. My prized possessions among my toys were the Yamato and Bandai Macross Valkyries. I had a few 1/55 Bandai Valkyries and several 1/60 Yamato Valkyries. The most prized and most expensive among my Valkyries was the sole 1/48 Yamato VF-1A that I owned, the relatively rare Low Visibility valk. In fact, it's one of the two toys in my collection in the running for the title of 'Most Pricey Toy I Own'.
Definitely, the resale value of my low-viz valk took a big hit because of the significant damage to the box. The maximum price that a collectible toy can fetch will depend on the quality of not only the toy but also everything that came with it when it was bought.
The closer the toy, the box, and all it's accessories and manuals, are to the condition of when it was brand new, the higher the price. If the box is damaged, it will bring down the price close to the selling price of a 'loose' toy. Loose toys are sold without their boxes and can fetch only up to a maximum of half the price when it was new.
Despite this, I still have to thank God for three reasons. The first reason is that the low-viz Valkyrie itself, together with all the accessories and manuals, weren't damaged. The second reason is that none of the other toys and their boxes were affected. The plastic display window of the 1/48 Valkyrie box effectively stopped the march of the termites.
The third reason is, that was the only loss or damage to my toys that I've experienced in the decade that I've been collecting toys. I've heard of other people who lost their whole toy collection to the floods that typhoon Ondoy brought in 2009. Many of these toy collections were worth several times more than my own collection.
Still, it's very disappointing for me that this happened. Instead of the value of the toy appreciating, it has lost value. I'm just glad that I'm the type of toy collector who plays with his toys instead of just keeping them kept in pristine condition and locked up in a sterile air-tight container.
The only reason why I had my toys stored away was because of our lack of space. Hopefully, with the new house and more space, I can start playing with my toys again.
I think I'll have to clean up the box of my low-viz valk and make sure that there are no termites left so I can still make use of it. I guess I can start with a healthy dose of alcohol.
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