Allow me a little copy/pasta from another thread:
I'm sorry to say but I find this (buying expensive toys sealed and perfectly mint just to keep them sealed and sending them to AFA getting them graded and sealed again in a bullet-proof plexiglass box) completely ridiculous. Not only you are not going to enjoy these toys, you are sealing them away forever! Because you certailny wont be displaying the AFA boxes to protect them from any light. Not counting the fortune it will cost each time you are AFAing.
Hoh well, like we say, your stuff, your money.
I, too, am guilty of keeping part of my collection sealed in packaging. However, they are at 98% doubles of Transformers I already own. This way, if something happen to one of my peice, I have a spare to replace it. Also, yeah, speculation. Still, everybody keep toys sealed nowadays so a sealed toy from today will be worth way less than the good old vintage. Offers/demands.
Anyway, what I mean is please AFA to your heart's content. BUT if you have the money to buy the rare and expensive peices and paying the expensive AFAing, you do have the money to get the reisue and enjoy the toy.
That feel when you remove it from packaging. The pleasure to apply stickers. The fun to transform them back and forth, posing them, and making dioramas! These toys are meant to be played with. Dont deny yourself that, even if your double is in a different color.
For example, SDCC Bruticus is worth AFAing, but you can get the G2 color or the retail version as your double to enjoy the mold.
I have a collection of carded Transformers. The goal is a little speculation, maybe, but it's mostly to have ONE example of every kind of packagings possible. I usually buy the cheap and unpopular ones so that it's not too expensive, or if it's on sale in store. The "double rule" still stand. I enjoyed my Animated Oilslick so much that I bought it again brand new so that HE would be Animated's representative on my wall. For room reasons, I'm going to sell the other doubles of the same collection, like the other Animated, and I'm selling the few TF mint in sealed boxes that I own.
As for doubles, for me, a recolor of the same mold count. I have a pretty big Starscream collection, but the other two Thundercracker I have (one is Generations, the other is DotM) are kept sealed because I already have a classic Starscream and a DotM one.
Anyway, tl;dr, what's the point of buying a toy if you are not going to enjoy it one way or another and you'll just hide it away from sight?