The inner goblin won. Picked up Motormaster yesterday from Game. Got a day off tomorrow so will mess with him then.

Not really fussed about collecting the team, but I do appreciate his ability to embiggen without his comrades.

They also had that tonka devastator set in there.

 

At the very least you'll be able to plug any CW guys you have in as legs if the hollow shins get to you  

 

Trimming the fat is always a good idea, especially if it's starting to feel a bit overwhelming. I've done that a few times (and indeed, doing so at the moment). You had your fun with it, if it's not sparking joy (or worse, sparking anxiety), time to move them on. Many people think collections are a static thing, once in, that's it, they're there forever but they're not, they are a living biosphere that adapts and evolves over the years. Things leave, new things take their place, goals and directions change and it's good to realise that and make changes accordingly.

Hope you can start to feel a bit more relaxed once you go through the purge.

 

Ay up! Game have changed the Scourge Galaxy Shuttle date to tomorrow, might be tomorrow for the shuttle for me then

 

In my experience, this is a more recent mentality and something that creates super high turnaround with modern collectors.

I was collecting Star Wars vintage and Transformers all through the early and mid 90s, before ebay and Internet sales really existed. Back then, if you managed to get something for your collection you held on to it, until you got a better condition version of the thing or a duplicate.

For my money, nothing gives me more joy than my G1 Transformers, thats a 38 year journey which is close to completion, in a way that means very little gets added to it year by year. They're the indispensable part of my collection that would only be sold for emergency or quality of life reasons.

I look at a lot of modern collectors I know who have been collecting for 10/15 years and have very small collections, and I often wonder if this is by design or because they keep stop/starting/changing hobbies. It's not my place to ask, so I just support and encourage, but collecting is a marathon not a sprint except for the extremely wealthy (or the Patreon backed I guess).

I personally would love to see more legacy collections (lowercase meaning longterm, not Marvel uppercase Legends), because you can build crazy good collections across a lifetime, but I feel our social media ties mean a lot of us get caught up in the new=best rat race.

As always, there's no right or wrong way to collect, and in many ways people who chop and change probably get a more varied depth of collecting experience in a shorter time span, I just extol the virtues of marathon collecting as someone who has built a collection beyond my wildest imagination.

I imagine younger generations who've been raised with the Internet as a constant don't have the same "I have to find the thing and keep the thing" mentality a lot of us old timers have, because stuff doesn't disappear from circulation for decades like it used to: if you sell something and regret it, you can nearly always replace it nowadays.

Tl/dr: collectED can be as much, if not more fun than collectING And I'm old.

 

I used to buy anything that took my fancy but now my collecting is much more focused.

 

I am currently trying to resist buying him. I had 3 of the limbs but sold them 3 days before MM was reduced as I never thought I would find him cheap enough. Annoyed at that, but if I did get him I'd want to get the limbs again. Maybe they will get reduced in time too.

 

CD deserve to go under - the owner’s attitude stinks, so no sympathy if it goes to the wall.

In good news:



Can’t believe it was £14.99!! Looking forward to Goldbug, to be honest the others will probably be moved on.

When I collected last night, Game had MOTU revelations He-Man, Skeletor and Scareglow for £14.99 each too if anyone’s interested.

 

Shipping notice for my neutrona wand. The completed Proton Pack going to look nice with the rest of my Ghostbusters prop replicas/toys. The old Matty Collector PKE Meter, trap and goggles still look the part.

 

With you on this one - although in my case it seems that it relates to CHUG of G1 characters.
I still enjoy my FOC toys, which were the first ones of those I got, as much as I ever did. The times I've sold CHUG of G1 guys I've then had to go and buy them back again.
Don't want to part with any more unless I really have to!

This seems to extend to Beast Wars (well BW is G1) although not Transmetals for some reason. I like to rotate my CHUG displays too, that helps in appreciation of these treasures!

Other lines get treated on an individual-toy basis, which normally means that one or two that come to mean something to me get kept and go in my ad-hoc CHUG-scale lineup, and the rest get sold so I can buy more CHUG.
No idea what would happen if I sold CHUG of eg Armada characters as haven't tried that yet...

So I'm definitely a collectED type too. For me it's about having the lovely things...playing with them...making a colourful display with them....and then gloating over them, mua ha ha ha!

 

I fully understand the need to not start the ball rolling that may inadvertently/deliberately cause a business to go out of business. But there's also a "duty" to inform The Community who just may not be aware that a dealer has become a bear-trap for the unwary.

The Sonner example works in a lot of directions. They were clearly NOT on the up and up, and we all got plenty of warning about them. It's the ones we DON'T hear about until it's too late that should be the concern.

If you read the excuse-list Sonner-Bloke trots out to that local news site none of them are actually "wrong" or unreasonable. And therein lies a real problem of the buyer-beware type.

The current state of distribution -especially from Hasbro/Mattel DOES put a heck of a lot of stress on Retailers, and their relationship with their customers. Many sources have spoken to this (See SAFs detailed rants) and would it really be surprising if this one issue was what put a more "marginal" business in the shit? Nope.

Likewise the death-by-internet rumour process. This could be used by The Less Scrupulous to effectively kill off a competitor. Sonner are clearly playing this card for whatever it's worth at this point.

But explicit warnings to prevent customers stepping on landmines are NOT out of line.......if it's "known" that a scam is effectively underway then not sounding the alarm is.......well there's plenty of terms for that. None of them good.

If Sonner-Bloke(s) were scumbags then to hell with them, the hobby is better off without them. Sadly I agree with the assessment that the truly criminal don't tend to stay away from an easy con for long.

And on that happy note.......

Safety Tarn on his way.

 

Wanting to take the plunge on OP Leader, and TF-Direct has a good price...of course the Chinese Lunar New Year happens right at this time tho...what's TF-Direct like for UK shipping? I've bought from ShowZ before, but never TF-Direct.

 

PUT A TONK ON IT.

Folks seeing the wee Avatar sets cheap in Tesco - There's not one that sells toys near me, so can anyone tell me if they have any of the diorama sets?

 

Oh fuck. I think we may need to buy another SS86 Sludge :S

 

TF-Direct were always fine when I used to use them, but that was a few years ago now. (And I sold everything I got from them, to buy more CHUG.  )

I wouldn't expect anything to move anywhere around CNY time, though. Everybody will be on their way home to see their families hundreds of miles away who they haven't seen for months.

 

They"'ll all be quick to blame shipping delays/price increases/smear campaigns?!?! (You mean customers leaving bad reviews for ripping them off?). But all companies are in the same boat and (hopefully) the ones that actually value their customers and offer decent customer service are weathering the storm.

 

Don't know if intentional, but I like the happy face looking at the box as well.  

Pics when it's all set up lease? I love the Ghostbusters but never got into the merch so I'm curious what a GB collection looks like.

These are wise words. I'll be honest, 20 years ago (jeez. I said 10 but then realised what year we're in now) when I started collecting, the thrill of the hunt was more than half the draw. Going into the shops, seeing what was there, trying to find stuff. It was all great. Now though? I don't care about the hunt. I just want to get it, enjoy it, place it amongst it's brethren and enjoy the collection overall. I'm finding myself just sitting in my Mancave and looking at the collection, inspecting each shelf close up and getting a sense of satisfaction, of fullfillment, of geeky pleasure, seeing these casts all together, with my classics shelf made up of figures from present day and reaching back to 2006 (henkei Hound, Universe 2.0 Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Red Alert, Solar Storm Grappel as Hauler, RTS Cyclonus with my headmasters, T30 Doubledealer and Darkwing). And by the end of this year, when I have The Fallen, Deathsarus and Hatchet (RELEASE HATCHET ALREADY YOU COWARDS!!!!!!), it'll be the close of an epic adventure, and one I'll be able to look at the fruits of and enjoy what I have to the fullest. I definitely enjoy the collectED part more, especially these days.

But it's different for different folks as well. I'm sure there are plenty who find the collectING more exciting and fullfiling overall.

 

Troska

 

If you tonked it then you shoulda put a ring on it? Oh mai.

 

My Dr Wu Tiny Trypticon is out for delivery with Yodel today, just annoying I'm not in the office to collect it!