It's been two years since the VOTC figures came out, and as everyone knows, they've gone mostly without reprint; C3PO in the ROTJ commemorative DVD collection (which ironically, as a set, cost just as much as he did alone), R2D2 reprinted without his accessories and with a glued-on hatch, the Stormtrooper partially used then completely reprinted with modifications as the Evolutions and TSC Sandtroopers respectively, parts of Han reused/retooled for the VTSC Trenchcoat Han, and Luke's ugly head reused on the VTSC X-Wing Pilot Luke.
That said, people hoard these. Madly. Many people love to army-build with the VOTC Stormtroopers and it seems to be common that each one now costs $30, even loose- a 300% price increase over the original.
Looking around on ebay, as I have in the past, I find the prices to be consistantly high. VOTC Chewbacca is, at cheapest, $15- more commonly $20. Han, Leia, Obi wan, and Luke seem to start out at some nice price like $7 and usually hike up to $15 (or more) by auction's end. R2D2 and mysteriously C3PO seem to hold similar prices to Chewbacca; high. Lando is usually about $12-$20, and he's supposedly still pegwarming (not anywhere that I've ever found, though sadly). Anything with Vader's name on it on eBay has an automatic excuse to charge $10 over anything that could ever sort of be reasonable. These are just my observations looking around in the past and recently.
So my question is, what should someone usually expect to pay? eBay is awful for ridiculously high prices- I see the DVD commemorative collections being sold for $30, POTF2s individually going for $15-$30 for stuff like a loose Jedi Luke- prices that are, frankly, ridiculous. Is there a better way or place to buy the VOTC figures? What's a good deal on any of these?
I bring this up because I'm contemplating buying a Chewbacca soon (as in possibly tonight/tommorrow, maybe) for $15.50 counting shipping- on "buy it now," at that. It's the best deal I've managed to find on eBay. I'm just curious to see if those who have more experience have any insights about buying these at this point in time, in general.