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

[fantastic_four]

On 1/29/2019 at 10:45 AM, Buzzetta said:

As of now I am keeping it but not taking it out of the box.  I will buy a long shelf and place the board across the top of a wide cabinet in my office and then put the box on top of that.  That way it will be out of the way. If I see people start paying ridiculous prices for them then I would be a fool NOT to sell it.  I saw one guy was offering a presale for it on eBay for around $1200. 

Do we know how many barges they're going to make?  The web site says they got around 8,800 people who paid the $500 for the fundraiser, but will they make more like 10,000 to 15,000 and sell them openly for a limited time like they do all of their other figures?

If they do make something like double the fundraiser sales then your best bet would be to sell yours now and re-buy it once they make it available for open sale.  If there is no guarantee of open sale then I suppose holding onto it and selling it later is your best bet.

Edited January 30, 2019 by fantastic_four

[Stillirize85]

[PKJ]

On 1/29/2019 at 10:45 AM, Buzzetta said:

As of now I am keeping it but not taking it out of the box.  I will buy a long shelf and place the board across the top of a wide cabinet in my office and then put the box on top of that.  That way it will be out of the way. If I see people start paying ridiculous prices for them then I would be a fool NOT to sell it.  I saw one guy was offering a presale for it on eBay for around $1200. 

As far as what I think the next Haslab project will be?

I want to say the GI Joe Flagg but there is currently no longer any GI Joe presence at retail.  Years ago, Hasbro showed the prototype of an updated version of the ship so the design is already there.  This may change in 2020 with the release of the Snake Eyes movie though. So if they announce next month that it is the Flagg, it would ship probably in the second quarter in time for the movie. 

I would like to see something other than a Star Wars set because I want it to be Haslab and not StarWarsLab... however... Star Wars fans have got the cash to spend if they were to give it a go for the Death Star playset or a Bespin playset. 

 

There are some who have presold for 1500 and the Yak Face for 350, In the old days I paid 450 for my Original POTF yak that graded a 85..times have changed.

[Buzzetta]

 

8 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

Do we know how many barges they're going to make?  The web site says they got around 8,800 people who paid the $500 for the fundraiser, but will they make more like 10,000 to 15,000 and sell them openly for a limited time like they do all of their other figures?

If they do make something like double the fundraiser sales then your best bet would be to sell yours now and re-buy it once they make it available for open sale.  If there is no guarantee of open sale then I suppose holding onto it and selling it later is your best bet.

I was reluctant to answer this question because I don't want to be 'that guy' that hypes something in advance of something he might sell. However, after seeing PKJ's post I can respond based on an already (so far) established market. 

I am only throwing out a guess here. I believe that the overproduction run would be around 5+%.  I am sure there are people at Hasbro that will get a complimentary one. I am sure that they will make extras to replace lost parcels or damages. At $500 if your package arrives crushed by UPS, Hasbro doesn't want to tell anyone that they are out of luck. 

However, I do not see a massive overrun.  Do you want to know why? Because of the Rogue One Hovertank.  That was originally released at a price point for $75.  I bought two of them this Christmas for less than $40 each as Amazon was clearancing them out.  I bought one at $45 I think then another at $37.99.  Many (not all) Star Wars collectors have become conditioned to wait for the vehicles to hit discount prices before they buy them.  Hasbro once remarked as such in the old Q&A's as Fan Support at retail is what sometimes holds back the release of certain items.  This was back when collectors were clamoring for something like MattyCollector which is what Haslab is a version of. 

I really do not see a large overrun of this and could see the price actually increasing. 

 

[Buzzetta]

4 hours ago, PKJ said:

There are some who have presold for 1500 and the Yak Face for 350, In the old days I paid 450 for my Original POTF yak that graded a 85..times have changed.

That is crazy and definitely gives me pause.  I checked out the going rates on eBay and people are actually paying almost $400 for Yak Face alone on a POTF card regardless of the fact that a regular version without the coin will be released in the main line. 

Here is what I do not understand though.  Why didn't these people pre-order the whole thing at $500 shipped? They didn't have $500 last February but all of a sudden have 4x that amount to spend a year later during the same after Christmas time period?  

After seeing that I am leaning toward sell sell sell...

However, I do not do pre-orders. I want the item to be physically in hand so I can inspect the box and all before I offer it up for sale... IF I sell it. 

[fantastic_four]

6 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

Why didn't these people pre-order the whole thing at $500 shipped? They didn't have $500 last February but all of a sudden have 4x that amount to spend a year later during the same after Christmas time period? 

I'm sure most of them either learned that it existed long after that or took a while to decide it was something they wanted.  I know I've had dozens of comics and figures I had absolutely no interest in until suddenly one day I really, really wanted them.  Yesterday was a day like that for me...I had seen that Marvel Legends Hulk/Hulkbuster set for months and had zero interest, and then suddenly yesterday I just had to have it.  The list of characters I want keeps dwindling, so a Hulk and Hulkbuster rose close enough to the top to pull the trigger.

Edited January 31, 2019 by fantastic_four

[fantastic_four]

6 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

I am only throwing out a guess here. I believe that the overproduction run would be around 5+%.  I am sure there are people at Hasbro that will get a complimentary one. I am sure that they will make extras to replace lost parcels or damages. At $500 if your package arrives crushed by UPS, Hasbro doesn't want to tell anyone that they are out of luck. 

However, I do not see a massive overrun.  Do you want to know why? Because of the Rogue One Hovertank.  That was originally released at a price point for $75.  I bought two of them this Christmas for less than $40 each as Amazon was clearancing them out.  I bought one at $45 I think then another at $37.99.  Many (not all) Star Wars collectors have become conditioned to wait for the vehicles to hit discount prices before they buy them.  Hasbro once remarked as such in the old Q&A's as Fan Support at retail is what sometimes holds back the release of certain items.  This was back when collectors were clamoring for something like MattyCollector which is what Haslab is a version of. 

Yea that all makes sense, you're probably right.  I wish we knew something about the number of these toys that Hasbro makes.  Has anyone heard estimates or rough numbers of that either past or present?  It'd be really useful to know how many Rogue One Hovertanks were made, or original 1980 Yodas, or the latest waves of figures.  Clearly Hasbro has figured out that less is more with their premium stuff and just keeps tweaking their production run numbers.

Has Hot Toys ever said how many they produce of their models?  The statue guys usually put it right in the advertising and sometimes right on the statues, i.e. this is statue 1678 of 3000, so I could see Hot Toys doing that since their market is one of the tinier ones in all of toys.

Edited January 31, 2019 by fantastic_four

[fantastic_four]

Ah, love an evening of posing new figures.    The Wal-Mart exclusive Thanos came in the mail in addition to the Hulk/Hulkbuster I bought yesterday.  I was surprised that Hulk's joints were so strong that he could carry Juggernaut on his shoulders like I was able to achieve, but it worked out.  Hulkbuster's articulation is fantastic, he looks like he'd be stiff but he isn't yet he stands up easily in multiple positions.

    

    

Edited January 31, 2019 by fantastic_four

[Stillirize85]

1 hour ago, fantastic_four said:

Ah, love an evening of posing new figures.    The Wal-Mart exclusive Thanos came in the mail in addition to the Hulk/Hulkbuster I bought yesterday.  I was surprised that Hulk's joints were so strong that he could carry Juggernaut on his shoulders like I was able to achieve, but it worked out.  Hulkbuster's articulation is fantastic, he looks like he'd be stiff but he isn't yet he stands up easily in multiple positions.

    

    

Thats sick!

[PKJ]

9 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

That is crazy and definitely gives me pause.  I checked out the going rates on eBay and people are actually paying almost $400 for Yak Face alone on a POTF card regardless of the fact that a regular version without the coin will be released in the main line. 

Here is what I do not understand though.  Why didn't these people pre-order the whole thing at $500 shipped? They didn't have $500 last February but all of a sudden have 4x that amount to spend a year later during the same after Christmas time period?  

After seeing that I am leaning toward sell sell sell...

However, I do not do pre-orders. I want the item to be physically in hand so I can inspect the box and all before I offer it up for sale... IF I sell it. 

I assume like others they did not know. Seems you and I were watching and until it hit some mass media it was barely moving on orders, I was around one of the first 500 like it matters but almost got multiples to sell since it was moving so slow. Seems like they needed 1500 going into the last week.

 I may sell it if that is the going rate as I doubt I ever display it anyway.

[F For Fake]

20 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

Picked it up at lunch today, gonna pose it tonight.

One thing that occurred to me while taking Hulkbuster out of the box is that even though I largely prefer figures styled after the comics, there are characters that I'm the exact opposite on and strongly prefer the film rendering.  Iron Man is the absolute best example of that because ALL of the movie armors just blow away any artist's rendering of the armor I've ever seen.  That's mostly attributable to Industrial Lights and Magic who just knocked the armor design out of the park from the first Iron Man film onwards.  Same with Ultron, I prefer the film version.  In some cases I don't really care, or the comic and film versions are so similar that there's not much reason to care.  Spider-Man and Venom at this point are very similar on screen and on the page, although that wasn't true of the Spider-Man 3 Venom which lacked many of the best aspects of the comic version, but the Venom from the recent film looks great, although certainly he'd look better with the spider logo on his chest.

Characters I only half-like I generally tend not to care either.  I was never an Ant-Man fan, so I've now come to prefer the movie costume over the comic one.  Same with Vision, I rather prefer the film costume to the garish yellow and red comic costume.  With Scarlet Witch I prefer the comic costume.  I'm only a partial Hulk fan and like any version as long as he looks massive.  I don't really care if it's a comic Hulk, the first Hulk film, or a Mark Ruffalo Hulk, as long as he's huge he's fine with me.

For me, when I see an MCU figure, I breathe a sigh of relief, as that's one less figure I have to buy. I like the Marvel movies well enough, but I don't need to own any merch from them. The costume designs work (mostly) ok for the movies, but I don't think they translate into interesting looking figures. I just want the iconic comic versions of characters I like, period.

Oddly, the one exception is Ant Man. I think those are probably my favorite comic-to-movie costume translations so far, so I do have an MCU Ant-Man and Wasp. Plus, uh, Evangeline Lilly is a cutie.

[fantastic_four]

41 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

I just want the iconic comic versions of characters I like, period.

Oddly, the one exception is Ant Man. I think those are probably my favorite comic-to-movie costume translations so far, so I do have an MCU Ant-Man and Wasp. Plus, uh, Evangeline Lilly is a cutie.

I think we want the one that just looks the best for whatever reason.  The old Ant-Man helmet looked a lot more ant-like than the film helmet does, but hey, humans are fundamentally repelled by most insects, so I'm left thinking that the problem with the classic Ant-Man helmet is it's TOO ant-like.  Also, you can't really pick one look as being "iconic" for most characters, just a look you like the best.  What's the "iconic" look for Iron Man when he's constantly refined his armor throughout the decades?  The cover below is probably the most popular and classic style, but does it hold a candle to almost ANY of the film Mark versions?  Even as a kid the suit design for Iron Man made no sense to me.  How do you get armor that compact with exact muscle and abdominal definition like that?  It looks like he's wearing spandex, not metal plating.  The film design crushed it by solving all of the problems with the classic comic design.  I've got the Classic Iron Man Legends figure, and even my three-year old calls it "Iron Man with muscles."

Edited January 31, 2019 by fantastic_four

[comicwiz]

22 hours ago, PKJ said:

There are some who have presold for 1500 and the Yak Face for 350, In the old days I paid 450 for my Original POTF yak that graded a 85..times have changed.

Tri or Canadian?

[PKJ]

15 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

Tri or Canadian?

Mine was POTF that I bought then, I had a trilogo as well. I need to dig pics out.

I did the POTF run in the late 90's, Nitko and GG on POTF were hardest for me to find. Ironically once i found one Nikto another became available and I got it as well.

 

When I dropped everything off with Tom to sell I think it was around 480 carded figures. 

I did one of every Cardback version at first so SW, ESB, ROTJ and POTF then moved to the actual card backs on my favorites, so it was pretty in depth.

[fantastic_four]

Got the last Toys-R-Us exclusive two-pack in yesterday, the 80s Cyclops and Dark Phoenix pack.  Loving both of them.  I prefer the 90s Jim Lee Cyclops costume with the yellow straps across his chest and legs, but I bought that for my son for Christmas and the straps on his legs are a pain, they're not attached to the body and they constantly fall off.  They also snap at the back, but the strap is too tight to ever actually snap in place so it hangs loose.

The extra Phoenix heads are a weird accessory, I'd much rather have some flame effects other than the sorta-useless flame phoenix that really only fits in her hand with one specific pose and isn't terribly impressive.  I'll probably end up using the heads on other figures...the one with the wild hair and no Phoenix coloring makes a great human head for Scream.

  

Edited February 1, 2019 by fantastic_four

[Shaolingoat]

Tonight's grab:

[Cat]

20 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

Got the last Toys-R-Us exclusive two-pack in yesterday, the 80s Cyclops and Dark Phoenix pack.  Loving both of them.  I prefer the 90s Jim Lee Cyclops costume with the yellow straps across his chest and legs, but I bought that for my son for Christmas and the straps on his legs are a pain, they're not attached to the body and they constantly fall off.  They also snap at the back, but the strap is too tight to ever actually snap in place so it hangs loose.

The extra Phoenix heads are a weird accessory, I'd much rather have some flame effects other than the sorta-useless flame phoenix that really only fits in her hand with one specific pose and isn't terribly impressive.  I'll probably end up using the heads on other figures...the one with the wild hair and no Phoenix coloring makes a great human head for Scream.

  

Do you have Toy Biz's ML Phoenix? Either version came with a great flame-Phoenix backing piece. Mine are both in a box somewhere, but I'd be shocked if they weren't cross-compatible. 

[fantastic_four]

15 hours ago, Mecha_Fantastic said:

Do you have Toy Biz's ML Phoenix? Either version came with a great flame-Phoenix backing piece. Mine are both in a box somewhere, but I'd be shocked if they weren't cross-compatible. 

I don't.  I noticed the Marvel Select came with a flame phoenix, but I hadn't noticed that both Marvel Legends versions came with one.  Guess I'll compare all three and get one, thanks!  

[Cat]

2 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

I don't.  I noticed the Marvel Select came with a flame phoenix, but I hadn't noticed that both Marvel Legends versions came with one.  Guess I'll compare all three and get one, thanks!  

Scroll down here to see a pic of it (not mine, obviously). As you can see there's a waist-clip on it, but I really do think it'll fit. If I knew where either of mine were I'd test it, but alas, all I know is that the box containing them is in a certain room, which isn't that helpful! 

http://www.oafe.net/yo/ml6_phnx.php

[fantastic_four]

11 hours ago, Mecha_Fantastic said:

Scroll down here to see a pic of it (not mine, obviously). As you can see there's a waist-clip on it, but I really do think it'll fit. If I knew where either of mine were I'd test it, but alas, all I know is that the box containing them is in a certain room, which isn't that helpful! 

http://www.oafe.net/yo/ml6_phnx.php

I think you're right.  The Marvel Select one looks more elaborate than that ToyBiz phoenix backdrop, but I'm not sure how either compare to the newer Hasbro Marvel Legends backdrop.