This Week In Your Plastic Crack, Action Figures and Toy Collection 26 26

[STORMSHADOW_80]

9 hours ago, bane said:

For all you He-Man fans out there, there is a great documentary on Netflix called “The Power of Grayskull”, charting the history of the toy line, cartoons and movie.

Sweet! Thanks for the heads up!

[STORMSHADOW_80]

Picked up a piece of my childhood. G.I. Joe Warthog 

[Buzzetta]

5 hours ago, STORMSHADOW_80 said:

Picked up a piece of my childhood. G.I. Joe Warthog 

I always liked this vehicle since it was one of the few troop carriers.  They have not made a troop carrier in almost ten years. 

[comicwiz]

I purchased an original owner collection of Star Wars, from roughly the ESB wave to the POTF2 and later mid-90's toys. All in all, the collection had 200+ pieces. The person originally contacted me in the first week of June, and I had very little in the way of details to work from, but this belonged to his mother, who had passed away. Not wanting to pressure the person (and being quite busy myself) I didn't hear back until earlier this week. When I arrived, I was a bit bummed to find it was mostly POTF2 era pieces, but then I was thrilled enough to see a Vader carrying case filled with toys and all their weapons. The figures were in incredible condition. As I was going through a few of the boxes, I began finding cardbacks in polybags and their original figure inside. As I began going through them, I noticed they were mostly Canadian bilingual cardbacks, with a gorgeous transition Bespin Han, and many of the store price stickers I grew up with as a kid. I couldn't resist buying it all. The later stuff isn't usually my thing, but these being all Canadian release really piqued my interest above the normative "only vintage" rule.

ESB transition ROTJ Han Solo, with the figure inside a clamshell blister

Then as I began going through some of the later period stuff, I began noticing some unusual things. There were 4 Leia's so I will need to see if the person was collecting variations, and a few of the flagship characters had multiples. The pic below is what appears to be a Yoda in a Toyr R Us "Security Bag" - the bag itself is from one of the Canadian stores as indicated by the bilingual text. The bag is heat sealed at the top, and has a tamper evident tape that seals the bottom, with the words "Security Bag Do Not Reopen" at the bottom in English and in French. This is a first for me - never saw anything like it - wondered if anyone here has ever seen anything like this before on any Toys R Us toy:

As I began going through some of the Deluxe sets, and trying to do comparables research, I immediately noticed something. For instance the 2-pack Fett and IG-88 had easily 50 comparables of the US English only version, but I couldn't find more than one (and the one I did find was from icollector) of the Canadian/bilingual version. Now normally, I would agree that these were heavily produced and were kept closed for the most part, but that kind of ratio is unusual even if you apply the 1/10th rule of US production.As I spend more time going though this collection, I'm not sure the Canadian release are anywhere as plentiful as US production:

Edited August 30, 2018 by comicwiz

[STORMSHADOW_80]

4 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

I always liked this vehicle since it was one of the few troop carriers.  They have not made a troop carrier in almost ten years. 

You're right it has been a long time since they made a troop carrier. I also love the APC. I'm hoping we get some cool new stuff when the Snake Eyes movie gets close to release.

[oldmilwaukee6er]

Snootchie bootchies! A few more to add to the collection

 

[followtheleader]

11 hours ago, STORMSHADOW_80 said:

You're right it has been a long time since they made a troop carrier. I also love the APC. I'm hoping we get some cool new stuff when the Snake Eyes movie gets close to release.

Yeah, the Night Force version of the APC is super awesome. 

One of two Night Force vehicles that I really want. 

Patrick

[Buzzetta]

22 hours ago, STORMSHADOW_80 said:

You're right it has been a long time since they made a troop carrier. I also love the APC. I'm hoping we get some cool new stuff when the Snake Eyes movie gets close to release.

The greatest one (at least in my opinion) is the RHINO that came out on the DTC and then reissued in blue for the first movie.   That thing was truly a beast.  I had two of them at one point but had to sell them a couple of years ago.  Sometimes I think about buying one again. 

 

[Cat]

On 8/24/2018 at 12:38 PM, scumdolly said:

@comicwiz The CEO is Todd DeMartino. The guy took pre-orders for a book he was writing--in 2006--and probably still hasn't finished it/ refunded several people their money. He has the time to start a sub-par grading company, but not the time to finish his already-funded book?

DeMartino also attempted to auction off fake prototypes. He assembles unused flats and gave the strong impression that you were buying an actual preproduction complete ROTJ X-Wing (I think it was an X-Wing, it may have been an ATST, this was many years ago). The Kenner Employee who sold DeMartino the flat protested, and was ignored until he started a public thread on it. Incredibly shady, and since that incident I'd never trust DeMartino whatsoever. 

[comicwiz]

5 hours ago, Mecha_Fantastic said:

DeMartino also attempted to auction off fake prototypes. He assembles unused flats and gave the strong impression that you were buying an actual preproduction complete ROTJ X-Wing (I think it was an X-Wing, it may have been an ATST, this was many years ago). The Kenner Employee who sold DeMartino the flat protested, and was ignored until he started a public thread on it. Incredibly shady, and since that incident I'd never trust DeMartino whatsoever. 

Yes, this is one of the issues raised in the very first post of that CAS thread, but here is a direct link to the very thread Tom N started exposing the issue you describe.

Edited September 1, 2018 by comicwiz

[Yorick]

I'm going to send these MOC rarities to CAS

[followtheleader]

4 hours ago, Yorick said:

I'm going to send these MOC rarities to CAS

Uhm, what are these? 

Patrick

[Yorick]

7 minutes ago, followtheleader said:

Uhm, what are these? 

Patrick

I found a couple slide-back blisters that fit my figures perfectly, so naturally I decided to photoshop and print some cardbacks to slide in.  Due to the blister size, they match the current figure cardback sizing so I decided to base the layout on the newest figure cardbacks.  It's fun because I can slide just about any figure into these, and printing a new back only cost about 60 cents (the time consuming portion is hunting for cool character images to use on the card).

[PKJ]

I asked earlier but think either no one cares  or no one has found them.

Anyone found the Transformers G1 releases in Wal Mart?

[Buzzetta]

6 hours ago, PKJ said:

I asked earlier but think either no one cares  or no one has found them.

Anyone found the Transformers G1 releases in Wal Mart?

I have not seen them... but to be fair I have not really been checking.  For those that do not know what he is talking about, Hasbro and Takara decided to reissue several of the G1 Transformers as a Walmart Exclusive and in some cases with newer or updated parts to the mold.  For example, the Bumblebee figure has a cartoon version head rather than the original masked head.  Several minibots were reissued but also some of the larger ones like Starscream and Hot Rod. 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers-Vintage-G1-Legion-Class-Bumblebee/545504397


 

[PKJ]

Thanks, I am mostly interested in the Devastator set. Have the TRU re issues from 2001 and a few originals but never found a good boxed set of the Constructicons.

[F For Fake]

On 9/3/2018 at 12:16 AM, Buzzetta said:

I have not seen them... but to be fair I have not really been checking.  For those that do not know what he is talking about, Hasbro and Takara decided to reissue several of the G1 Transformers as a Walmart Exclusive and in some cases with newer or updated parts to the mold.  For example, the Bumblebee figure has a cartoon version head rather than the original masked head.  Several minibots were reissued but also some of the larger ones like Starscream and Hot Rod. 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers-Vintage-G1-Legion-Class-Bumblebee/545504397


 

Hmm, that's interesting! I am planning on picking up a large G1 collection from a friend of mine (he asked me for help eBaying them, I told him I'd just buy them from him directly, but now we have to price it all out.) I haven't kept up with Transformers prices, but have reissues like these and the TRU commemoratives affected authentic G1 values at all?

[PKJ]

7 hours ago, F For Fake said:

Hmm, that's interesting! I am planning on picking up a large G1 collection from a friend of mine (he asked me for help eBaying them, I told him I'd just buy them from him directly, but now we have to price it all out.) I haven't kept up with Transformers prices, but have reissues like these and the TRU commemoratives affected authentic G1 values at all?

Not that I have noticed, there are enough differences that anyone wanting real G1 stuff will still pony up for it. I always viewed it as a cheaper way to introduce others into the line with the originals. I did flip some of the TRU Optimus Primes when they came out but I think they have settled back down a lot.

[comicwiz]

47 minutes ago, PKJ said:

I always viewed it as a cheaper way to introduce others into the line with the originals.

That pretty much answers whether it will have an impact on vintage. I think the G1 Transformers have sort of been through this once before, and the prevailing sentiment is why buy a G1 for hundreds more than a reissue? There will always be a hardline contingent of collectors who won't see this as having a positive effect on values in the short term, but once the reissues are out, and can be distinguished from the originals, the market should start to settle down.

I'm not a fan of reissues, and would rather these toy companies leave the past and well enough alone.

[Buzzetta]

6 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

That pretty much answers whether it will have an impact on vintage. I think the G1 Transformers have sort of been through this once before, and the prevailing sentiment is why buy a G1 for hundreds more than a reissue? There will always be a hardline contingent of collectors who won't see this as having a positive effect on values in the short term, but once the reissues are out, and can be distinguished from the originals, the market should start to settle down.

I'm not a fan of reissues, and would rather these toy companies leave the past and well enough alone.

I would say that thanks to the Asian market there are more Transformers bootlegs floating about than Star Wars bootlegs. With Star Wars there is an abundance of figures that are being recarded.   With Transformers there are factories STILL pumping out near exact G1 copies of authentic vintage Transformers... it was just a couple of years ago that someone in Asia was manufacturing "original" Dinobots. They weren't just carding or modifying original figures.  They were casting original transformers.  In fact, it's not limited to vintage, as we are seeing wave after wave of KO Masterpiece Transformers.  
 

It's hard to complain about all of it though as sometimes the KO Manufacturers have been known to address Hasbro and Takara design flaws and in some rare cases making a better Masterpiece Transformer. 

http://highendtfs.com/?q=node/17