Bludgeon effect

Pleased to present for your consideration a portrait of a Transformers fan: you. Age: youthful. Income: slim. Your tastes lean towards toy robots, animation for children, and comic books. It is the latter that captures you now. You find yourself charmed by one of its dramatis personae: a modern reinvention and reinvigoration of a character given little to do in the past. Inspired, you feverishly search online auction houses and dealer halls, but you find that the toy that no-one batted an eyelid at during its original shelf life has now risen in demand–and price–beyond your wildest imagination.

You have just encountered the Bludgeon Effect.

Ahem. Put simply, we define the "Bludgeon effect" as being when the aftermarket prices of an inconsequential character's toy(s) skyrocket after said character gets an important, memorable, or sympathetic appearance in fiction. This differs from the usual toy-shilling methods in that, more often than not, there isn't a concurrently available toy... though sometimes, it can lead to new toy releases later down the road.

In some circles, this phenomenon used to be known as the Furman effect, dating from a time when Simon Furman-penned fiction was the only game in town.