If you smoke, please disclose that to any potential buyers! I usually only buy sealed stuff but every now and then a deal comes along that seems too good to be true. And it usually is. 3 times in the last few months I've bought loose Transformers on eBay and all 3 times they arrived absolutely reeking of cigarettes. It's disgusting. I'm not wasting my time with dish detergent or dryer sheets. Even if you "don't smoke in your home", I guarantee that you, your clothes and all of your stuff still smells like smoke. Please save everyone the headache and just put it in your listing.
Yuck! I'm sorry you've gone through this. And I thought I had it bad getting a couple TFs with food residue in some of the greebles...
Oof that's super gross too. I'll just pay the extra for sealed figures from now on. There's no telling what some people do to these figures before selling
Ugh, that, quite literally, stinks. I once bought a lot of cheap action masters, and they had some horrible stench…possibly mildew. Nasty.
Happened to me. Got a TM2 dinobot ten years ago from eBay and it smelled insane of smoke. Also made of crappy rubber which absorbed the smell very very well. Went to see the other listings and feedback of the seller to see if anybody said that in their feedback but all other listings and sales were gay porn videos. Dinobot was promptly disassembled and left by an open window for a month then the smell improved.
Heh. I used to add "Comes from smoke free home" to my auction descriptions but stopped. Maybe I should put that phrase back in again.
Reminds me of a Marvel Legends figure I bought a couple of years ago. The auction said it was loose and complete but didn't disclose that the previous owner smoked. The figure arrived reeking of cigarette smoke and it took me close to two weeks and finally a dry potpourri bath to leach the stench of cigarettes out of it. I left the guy neutral feedback for not disclosing that he was obviously a smoker since the figure reeked of it and he actually had the nerve to call and leave messages on my cell phone telling me to 'fuck myself for leaving him a negative for a little cigarette smell'. Ended up reporting him to eBay, but I'm not sure what happened after that. Learned a lesson about asking if it comes from a smoke-free home if the listing doesn't specify one way or the other. After my experience above I started adding this to all my loose figure auctions as a courtesy. Also, it started saving me time in responding to the inevitable questions of it the figure comes from a smoke-free environment whenever I list loose items and don't add that descriptor.
Cig smokers legit cannot tell that they fucking reek to everyone else. Everything they own and touch acquires that same smell and since it's going in and out their mouth and nose they are just completely nose blind to it. It's not a bad idea to ask if the figure has been handled by anyone that smokes cigarettes and to clarify that you'll be very unhappy if you receive a smoke-smelling figure. There can be similar issues with homes that burn incense, candles, or have a lot of animals (especially cats and birds). Both in terms of smells, and of debris collecting on the figures. Just remember, people trying to sell their shit are not in a hurry to disclose flaws in those items, especially if they aren't even aware of those flaws due to being filthy people. So if it's important to you, it's wise to ask, and to clarify up front that you don't want any gross shit. In my case, the dirty figures I've received, I wasn't too upset. I figured the seller had the figure when they were younger and\or it had been handled by children. I HOPE that's the case, anyway, because there was like pizza jizz in the greebles...
One time I bought an old graphic novel used, you know ... with the old matte paper. It came from a smokers home ... I guess ... it actually smelled worse than a smokers home; It smelled like it came from a house fire or an ashtray in a bar that hasn't been cleaned out for a couple months and was bathed in stale beer. It took a couple months for the smell to dissipate. I tried everything too, putting it in the freezer, spraying it with cologne and Febreze. It still smells like smoke, but isn't as obnoxious.
Bought a pretender monster shell of ebay a few years back. No matter what l did it still smeIIed Iike cigs. I still cant even look at it without smelling it
As a former smoker (thankfully I quit 20 years ago) I can attest to the fact that I never smelled that shit on any of my stuff and never noticed it until after I quit. As an occasional seller of used toys I make sure to put in my listings that my stuff comes from a home not only free of cigarettes, but free of colognes, perfumes, incense, Fabreze, body sprays and especially air fresheners. Personally I think air fresheners can be just as foul as cigarette smoke - and just as hard to get out. I found this out the hard way when I stored several boxes of toys in my mom’s basement while between homes. I forgot they were there until about a year later, and when I brought them home everything inside had been fully saturated with the scent of whatever Glade Plug-Ins my mom used. I had also left some coats in her basement closet and those had been saturated too. It took several months for that sickly-sweet stench to leave the figures.
Just went through this a little over a week ago. Bought a figure off of Mercari, the listing said it was well taken care of, etc. I bought it because he took my offer and up to this point in time, it was all good. ...then, it arrived. I opened the box and got hit with the stench of syrup, molasses, and almost a cat pee smell to it as well. Pull it out of the plethora of Walmart and HEB bags and I was rewarded with...sticky brown sludge all over and inside of this figure. Electronics, too. I wanted to gag, and it smeared all over my fingers. So, because of this, I had to tear it apart and clean it inside and out and salvage the electronics. As well as the melted and fused battery compartment. *shakes fist, angrily* Got in contact with the seller, he copped to all of it and admitted it was even nastier when he got it in. (UGH.) So, after fixing the cracked thigh (also not disclosed), the cleaning, and putting it back together...I couldn't just send it back. I put of a lot of effort into it. He did finally refund me, partially.
Back before I had my own place, I was surrounded by cigarette smoke all the time. I can confirm you can't smell it at all if you grow up around it as many sellers probably have. It wasn't until I moved out and had been away from smoke for a longer period of time that I pulled open a box of Transformers that had been in the living room and nearly vomited from the smell. Since then, I make it a point to mention it anytime I sell a figure that has been outside of a smoke-free room at any point.
So far all the figures I purchased loose were in good condition with no smells or food residue left on them.
I used to smoke up until 3 years ago when I started back collecting with WFC. My figures from when I used to smoke are in storage. I wonder if they reek lol. I can attest that you don't notice the smell on any item, if you smoke regularly. I used to smoke inside my room with my door closed, and my roommate from across the hall said he had cigarette smell on his clothes inside his closet.
Sealed or not, the smell with get through.. the cardboard and plastic isn't pressure seal, the smoke will get in regardless. Weed smell absolutely lingers quite enough. If anything, there could be deposits that builds up making the toys a hazard for children. I've seen such toys at sale events and they reeked of it and the whole bunch in the same bucket too, enough to make me sick, I walked away and didn't care if the bucket might have had a holy grail.
