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

[comicwiz]

4 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

I love collecting Joes due to nostalgia for my childhood which was filled with G I Joe. I love the figures and vehicles, they're great, and I've been enjoying picking them up as I run across pieces that I like. But I would never drop a ton of money into them, or ever view them as an investment, because they're not built to last. None of this stuff is, really. So I'd never put more into it than I'd be willing to lose if it all turned to dust the next day. For me, the hunt is a lot more fun than owning it, but I do enjoy looking at the cases and seeing the stuff all set. I'm hopeful that they'll last until my retirement, but I'm not counting on it.

That's actually a really good point. I should provide some context, I was buying nearly 3 complete sets of the entire vintage Star Wars line, so it mattered that I did my homework at the time, because even back then, it was a good chunk of money. I realized very quickly that buying them one at a time would cost me 3 to 4 times what I paid because of shipping costs, duties, and to have to acquire nearly 300 loose figures, there would definitely be a hang-up or two along the way with bad operators and sellers who are sooner bothered doing harm than doing the right thing. I also bought a considerable amount of vehicles, playsets, it really was a monumental purchase for me, but someone from the outside looking in would look at what I paid and see it as an "investment purchase" - when in actual fact, it was the complete contrary. I remember sending PM's to two long-standing members of these boards at the time who I knew collected Star Wars and they both told me they had left the hobby, and advised I didn't venture into it because prices were going to depress even furter.

Like you, I did it for nostalgic reasons, and I was really keen on trying to do this with as minimal an economic impact on me. In the end, I paid off the collection selling less than two dozen variant figures which shot through the roof in value a couple of years later. They were cool to own, but couldn't justify keeping them with what people were willing to pay for them.

[fantastic_four]

31 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

Having purchased around 182 figures in the last few months I have noticed a more disturbing trend than I thought existed for GI Joes.  After joining several Facebook groups and doing many deals there and on eBay, I noticed the following. 

• GI Joe figures are even more brittle than I imagined now that we are almost 35 years removed from the golden years 1984-1986.
• Many collectors know this as they remark things like "I realize that one day I am going to have nothing but a tray of little plastic kibble" or something like that. 
• There are some dealers that are so reluctant to change o-rings themselves that they send you an o ring for the buyer to do it themselves. 
• Every figure that I have seen shows o-ring degradation so again, good luck with the MOC
• I have watched a live claim sale auction where the figure broke as the guy was showing it.    
• I have seen quite a few facebook posts with figures suffering damage just from moving them as people are then looking for replacement parts

So the issue then becomes that if I have spent what I have spent... what am I holding onto here?  If simply moving the figures can cause a crotch to or t ring to break then that is a real issue if I want to hold onto these things for 20 years or so. I am also seeing some of the repro guys cast some VERY convincing repros that are almost too close and they are only getting better. On top of that, I have mistakenly bought a Funskool version of a figure where once contacting the seller upon realizing that something didn't "feel" right with the plastic, he said that I was right and said, keep it and issued a refund. 

I don't know if some action figures are really viable to keep and preserve. 

Thankfully the Star Wars figures are not as bad as what I am seeing here. 

Is it just the rubber O ring in Joes that's the problem, or is the plastic itself degrading significantly in some way?  All I know about the anatomy of Joes and original Star Wars figures is that Joes have the rubberband and Star Wars don't, and yea, mint on card therefore doesn't mean squat for Joes.  Doesn't seem viable to collect them on card.

[Yorick]

58 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

Is it just the rubber O ring in Joes that's the problem, or is the plastic itself degrading significantly in some way?  All I know about the anatomy of Joes and original Star Wars figures is that Joes have the rubberband and Star Wars don't, and yea, mint on card therefore doesn't mean squat for Joes.  Doesn't seem viable to collect them on card.

More than just the o-rings.  The elbow joints and the crotch casting are prone to fracture.  Those are very thin castings.  Star Wars FEELS like a different type of plastic (softer) than a GI Joe, and the simplification of articulation reduces fracture/stress points.  On the other hand, it seems the softer plastics more often frost/crystalize or change color(yellowing).

[fantastic_four]

Wonder if the newer figures are made of more enduring plastic.  The comics industry went to archival paper for collectible titles, so have Hot Toys, Diamond, or Hasbro done that for figures?

The rubber Hot Toys uses over joints is one of the main reasons I haven't bought any yet, but I've only seen that be a problem on their very early figures, not sure if they changed their materials over the years.

Edited February 5, 2019 by fantastic_four

[Yorick]

1 minute ago, fantastic_four said:

Wonder if the newer figures are made of more enduring plastic.  The comics industry went to archival paper for collectible titles, so have Hot Toys, Diamond, or Hasbro done that for figures?

Wasn't there some Star Wars figures cast entirely in metal?  In most cases, toys are meant to be cheap/affordable.  I don't think the production company can justify using archival materials.

[fantastic_four]

6 minutes ago, Yorick said:

Wasn't there some Star Wars figures cast entirely in metal?  In most cases, toys are meant to be cheap/affordable.  I don't think the production company can justify using archival materials.

In most cases, yes, but that's why I mentioned the companies that sell "premium" figures.  In the Star Wars world, the bottom end of the premium market is the Black series and for Marvel it's the Legends and Diamond Select series.  Hot Toys figures cost $200 to $1000 or more retail, so preservation really does need to be a part of their design.

Edited February 5, 2019 by fantastic_four

[Buzzetta]

1 hour ago, fantastic_four said:

Is it just the rubber O ring in Joes that's the problem, or is the plastic itself degrading significantly in some way?  All I know about the anatomy of Joes and original Star Wars figures is that Joes have the rubberband and Star Wars don't, and yea, mint on card therefore doesn't mean squat for Joes.  Doesn't seem viable to collect them on card.

Both

Star Wars figures are DEFINITELY more durable than GI Joes.  I have seen dealers that will overtly say that they will not replace the o-rings of 1982-1983 figures as they fear that just loosening the screw then putting that same screw back in might shatter the back chamber on the figure. Certain figures are far more prone than others to break it seems. 

• 1982-1983 figures are VERY brittle in general 
• 1983-1984 Duke's crotch seems to break off easily 
• 1984 Recondo's right thumb
• Night Viper helmet shields
• TARGAT backpack hose attachment 
• Crimson Guard Immortal Waist
• EVERY figure: Cracked elbows.  Even figures on the card have shown this phenomenon.  The pressure from the elbow rivets are having a negative impact on the surrounding plastic as the plastic continues to break down. Cracked elbows are becoming more and more prevalent as collectors are finding homes for perfect examples and remaining samples are still on sale.  As time goes on even non-cracked elbows are turning into cracked elbows. Some figures that were molded in certain color plastics have demonstrated a tendency to break down more than others.  In one FB discussion a member challenged others to find a Tiger Force Frostbite that did NOT exhibit cracked elbows.  At that point there were a dozen or more available on eBay but not a single one had non-cracked elbows. 
• 1984 Zartan - he is build differently than the others.  Good luck if his o-ring snaps.  I paid near $70 to get a complete one with swamp skier in decent condition. 
• 1990's Ninja Force and ANY battle action figure.  They are also constructed in a way that if that o-ring snaps... there is nothing you can do. 

This is what immediately came to mind btw. 

Edited February 5, 2019 by Buzzetta

[fantastic_four]

Hasbro is forcing me to learn action figure anatomy.  I'm up to about 40 to 50 Marvel Legends figures now, and seems like their QC is only good about 90% to 95% of the time...meaning I've got roughly half a dozen to a dozen figures in need of some first aid.    Mostly it's warped plastic that I need to pull out the hair dryer to fix, but my Deadpool needs a sword hilt glued back on so I need to figure out the best glue to use and my Cate Blanchett Hela's knee peg is loose, so I've got to learn to perform surgery on Legends female characters to fix her.  Can't believe how much that Hela figure costs now, I saw it in Target two months ago and didn't buy it and now it's sold out and REALLY hard to find for under $50.

This article details how to disassemble a Marvel Legends female in great detail, probably will do this sometime soon with my Hela's knee joint:

https://www.actionfigureart.com/how-to-take-apart-marvel-legends-female-body/

Most of me wants to just buy another Hela, but I think I'll learn a lot about how these figures work if I try fixing it myself.

Edited February 5, 2019 by fantastic_four

[Buzzetta]

35 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

Hasbro is forcing me to learn action figure anatomy.  I'm up to about 40 to 50 Marvel Legends figures now, and seems like their QC is only good about 90% to 95% of the time...meaning I've got roughly half a dozen to a dozen figures in need of some first aid.    Mostly it's warped plastic that I need to pull out the hair dryer to fix, but my Deadpool needs a sword hilt glued back on so I need to figure out the best glue to use and my Cate Blanchett Hela's knee peg is loose, so I've got to learn to perform surgery on Legends female characters to fix her.  Can't believe how much that Hela figure costs now, I saw it in Target two months ago and didn't buy it and now it's sold out and REALLY hard to find for under $50.

This article details how to disassemble a Marvel Legends female in great detail, probably will do this sometime soon with my Hela's knee joint:

https://www.actionfigureart.com/how-to-take-apart-marvel-legends-female-body/

Most of me wants to just buy another Hela, but I think I'll learn a lot about how these figures work if I try fixing it myself.

This is going to sound like such an amateur fix but it worked.   When I was a kid I would eventually run into GI Joes that had loose knees or something.  What I would do is take a brace rubber band and extend the leg and then wrap it around the knee joint.  Eventually the brace rubber band would work its way into the joint and I would cut away the excess.  It was like placing a washer into the joint to tighten it up.  

12 year old me was Effing Brilliant !

[fantastic_four]

2 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

3 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

Hasbro is forcing me to learn action figure anatomy.  I'm up to about 40 to 50 Marvel Legends figures now, and seems like their QC is only good about 90% to 95% of the time...meaning I've got roughly half a dozen to a dozen figures in need of some first aid.    Mostly it's warped plastic that I need to pull out the hair dryer to fix, but my Deadpool needs a sword hilt glued back on so I need to figure out the best glue to use and my Cate Blanchett Hela's knee peg is loose, so I've got to learn to perform surgery on Legends female characters to fix her.  Can't believe how much that Hela figure costs now, I saw it in Target two months ago and didn't buy it and now it's sold out and REALLY hard to find for under $50.

This article details how to disassemble a Marvel Legends female in great detail, probably will do this sometime soon with my Hela's knee joint:

https://www.actionfigureart.com/how-to-take-apart-marvel-legends-female-body/

Most of me wants to just buy another Hela, but I think I'll learn a lot about how these figures work if I try fixing it myself.

This is going to sound like such an amateur fix but it worked.   When I was a kid I would eventually run into GI Joes that had loose knees or something.  What I would do is take a brace rubber band and extend the leg and then wrap it around the knee joint.  Eventually the brace rubber band would work its way into the joint and I would cut away the excess.  It was like placing a washer into the joint to tighten it up.  

12 year old me was Effing Brilliant !

In this case I have a knee where the top peg attaches the inside part of the leg but not the outside visible in the pic below.  If I'm lucky, they just didn't push it through far enough during assembly and heating it up and pushing it through the unattached hole will fix it.  If I'm unlucky, either the peg or the peg hole are deformed and then I'm stuck with a more advanced repair.  It mostly works as it is, but I'd rather see what I can learn trying to fix it.  The hole it's supposed to go into looks fine to me, so if there's deformation I'm hoping it's the peg because those are far more easily replaceable.

[Buzzetta]

3 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

In this case I have a knee where the top peg attaches the inside part of the leg but not the outside visible in the pic below.  If I'm lucky, they just didn't push it through far enough during assembly and heating it up and pushing it through the unattached hole will fix it.  If I'm unlucky, either the peg or the peg hole are deformed and then I'm stuck with a more advanced repair.  It mostly works as it is, but I'd rather see what I can learn trying to fix it.  The hole it's supposed to go into looks fine to me, so if there's deformation I'm hoping it's the peg because those are far more easily replaceable.

I had something like that... the beautiful think with these types of new style joints is that the plastic is easily heated up and malleable enough to fix.  Give it a try.  I think you should be able to do it.  Just be careful not to damage the head of the pin too much or it will slip again. 

[Buzzetta]

Time to make some hard decisions.   There are few figures in there like my V2 Snake Eyes that I have had since I was a wee little guy. That is not going anywhere... along with a few moderns. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Buzzetta

[fantastic_four]

24 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

Time to make some hard decisions.   There are few figures in there like my V2 Snake Eyes that I have had since I was a wee little guy. That is not going anywhere... along with a few moderns. 

I thought you were implying you were going to sell your carded figures.  Why sell the loose ones, just to get the value before they degrade?

[fantastic_four]

Love that Hela figure by the way, and the knee isn't bad at all as is, I'm just worried my kids might yank it off.  Got it in a few weeks ago.  It's interesting in that it's scaled to be the size of the comic Hela, where she's about 7 feet tall and Thor is 6' 6", whereas in the movie they kept her scale at Cate Blanchett's height of 5' 8" relative to Hemsworth's 6' 3".  This figure is bigger than almost all of my regular-sized Marvel Legends at a bit over 7" tall.

Edited February 6, 2019 by fantastic_four

[Buzzetta]

14 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

I thought you were implying you were going to sell your carded figures.  Why sell the loose ones, just to get the value before they degrade?

Nope... I would never do carded Joe... I knew that before I got back into them.

[miraclemet]

4 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

 

• 1983-1984 Duke's crotch seems to break off easily 

I come here to read about toys and get to have this horror image stuck in my head.

[followtheleader]

I'm hearing a lot of either/or.  

Give me all of the above.  

I have a large Star Wars collection, GI Joe collection, G1 Transformers collection, He-man collection, and more. 

I totally understand the concerns with Joes, but I'm all in.   

I have mine in archival bags.  They are definitely sturdier which makes it easier to move without a damage concern.  

Figure goes in the larger bag, accessories in smaller bags.  

Patrick

[fantastic_four]

7 hours ago, followtheleader said:

I have mine in archival bags.  They are definitely sturdier which makes it easier to move without a damage concern.  

Figure goes in the larger bag, accessories in smaller bags.  

This is the setup I'm considering the most, accessories bag inside a figure bag.  Where do you get your bags from?

[Buzzetta]

8 hours ago, followtheleader said:

I'm hearing a lot of either/or.  

Give me all of the above.  

I have a large Star Wars collection, GI Joe collection, G1 Transformers collection, He-man collection, and more. 

I totally understand the concerns with Joes, but I'm all in.   

I have mine in archival bags.  They are definitely sturdier which makes it easier to move without a damage concern.  

Figure goes in the larger bag, accessories in smaller bags.  

Patrick

 

38 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

This is the setup I'm considering the most, accessories bag inside a figure bag.  Where do you get your bags from?

It depends on the figure for me.  All figures are in those clamshells but not all of their accessories are in bags.  For example, that flashlight from Outback is VERY fragile so that is in a small baggie in the clamshell separate from the figure.  However a figure like Iceberg who has one rifle or an Iron Grenadier whose weapons are pretty sturdy have their weapons thrown in loose with the figure in the clamshell. 

[fantastic_four]

Why do you like the clamshells?  Accessories bag in bigger bag seems like less risk of accessory loss, zero risk of accessories scratching paint, and FAR more space efficient.  Those clamshells look like a space hog and I'm having trouble seeing any advantage to them.