Topic: New Star Wars Purchases

[Darth More]

Monday Mail Call:

And here's what was in the package today: Found these 7 figures for 77€ shipped on the bay.

They came in a box of Masters of the Univere's ROBOTO shipper. Was this a Mail-Away from Mattel? I don't know much of Masters of the Universe, just had fun to carefully remove the tape...







I would've never thought that I buy a 5POA action figure in 2018 for 10 bucks, but I made an exception for the Evil himself and two of his Guards...



I just LOVE this figure, didn't have a "sith-lighting" Emperor before and am glad that I left him on the peg when I found him for 11,99€ at TRU last month! I wouldn't have unboxed him anyway. Wow, is this a wonderful sculpt!
And also the ERGs look fantastic with updated sculpts and plastic capes...these dudes look fun indeed because all they do in the movies is standing around, I mean guarding...so this is my expectation to them as action figure.





Read my full comment on the TVC Kmart Exclusive Death Star Scanning Crew after the jump:


http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=10515.msg207968#msg207968



- Philipp

[Tamer]

Those are some crazy prices.

And no I didn't see any new vintage figures yet. I will look in a few more days.

[Darth More]

@Tamer: Yes, indeed!

I know that they started selling Wave 1 over the MRSP at $14.99. The VC120 Rebel Trooper (Hoth) stayed stable at the price for the longest time and sold for as low as $11.00 a couple weeks ago.
All the other Sequel repacks of Wave 1 are way down to 6 bucks (prices vary almost on a daily basis).


But the regular retail price for the TVC Asst. still is  $12.99 + sales tax in the United States, isn't it?


I hope Wave 2 will hit retail in the U.S. big time, soon!


- Philipp

[Tamer]

Yes, although I have found new waves show up sometimes at even lower prices. I remember getting the vintage FO Stormtrooper last year for seven bucks.

[Darth More]

Who is going out for a toy hunt this weekend? Any news on new local finds so far?


Yesterday, I went to the biggest of my local Comic Shops. Haven't been there for over a year - and it's still the same. Maybe next time I'll ask if I can take pictures. It's a neat store.

The Vintage Collection Wave 2 arrived there a couple weeks ago and is almost gone already! Only one Death Trooper and Han Solo (SOLO) were left for 24,95€ / ~$28.69 USD  each. Enfys Nest was gone immediately and one Hovertank Pilot was left on reserve for another customer to pick him up.
Well, since I don't buy new stuff anymore for my own collection, I passed on the two. tunghori sells Han Solo for $13.99 at the moment, which is still too high for me. I think tunghori has risen prices way too high anyway.

The TVC Hovertank sold right through for 108€ / ~$124.20 USD and is re-ordered. STAR WARS X-Wing is doing excellent here in Germany, too! A customer and fan of Boba Fett stepped in to pick up his order of X-Wing sets. He must've spent something around 120 bucks.

I took my time to look around, found many old TVC and TBS figures. TBS Rose was there 4x for 18,95€ / ~$21.79 each, which is just ridiculous. 
But I took a closer look at TBS Rose and her 5 POA counterpart and recognized that the headsculpt of the ForceLink version looks BETTER than the TBS SA Rose...
The 5 POA ForceLink figures sell for 12,95€ to 15,95€ (~$14.89 to $18.34 USD) at this Comic Shop depending on the character and how often they come in one case. C-3PO and TLJ Luke Skywalker are most expensive for example, while the Mimban Stormtrooper "only" sells for 13,95€ - not a steal of a deal. BUT I have to admit these 5 POA figures have some decent sculpts! The details on them look even excellent sometimes! And call me crazy, but in my opinion Rose out of all got one of the best female headsculpts from Hasbro. Why Hasbro why? I honestly think Hasbro have done a truly awful job on most of female headsculpts so far - they just don't make them right - sometimes they don't even look like a woman...do you agree with me?
They messed up so many Princess Leia figures already, it's not even funny anymore - so many precious slots and releases were just a mess.
Rose's sister (don't know her name) was also hanging next to her - nice headsculpt here, too! All I know about her character is that she died way to fast in The Last Jedi.
But my point is: I am somehow impressed by the detail and authencity of (at least some of) Hasbro's 5 POA figures. No, I still don't buy them.
 
TBS 6" figures were niceley presented in glass cabinets and sell between 28 and 39€ (~$32-45 USD) there.

But as much as I want to support my local Comic Shop, these prices are just nuts. I don't have the extra money to overpay for action figures. Even the Rogue One 4-Pack with Hovertank Pilot got a 44€ / ~$50.40 USD price tag there...over 50 bucks for four 5 POA figures!!

So I did what one does in a Comic Shop: I bought a comic!

And here's what I asked for and they had it:








This is the first of six parts of the Doctor Aphra comic series translated in German. It is printed by Italian publisher Panini and is part of a comic collection that started back in 1999.
Therefore this is issue #98. The second Aphra comic is issue #103 of that collection.
Issue #98 sells for 16,99€ / ~$19.53 USD here in Germany and has 148 pages of "Star Wars Action". I do not regret to have bought this comic. It got a nice story, amazing drawings and is sold for the same price everywhere as long as it is still in stock at Panini.


Its title is: Treasures from the past






Follow this link to see my full update on my review of the exclusive Doctor Aphra 3-Pack Set:


http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=10507.0



I also bought 100 sleeves from Ultimate Guard for my chidhood's Pokémon cards. The sleeves cost 1€. So that was my "toy run" of yesterday...




I wish you all a nice weekend!



- Philipp
 

[Tamer]

Well I did see one new vintage figure; Solo Han but he was all bent up.

I also saw the new vintage boxed big win tie, but passed at 80 bucks. The boxes were buggered up a bit.

[Jodo]

Darth More,

It's the same for the Jurassic World figures, which is the other line I am currently collecting. Amazon is stocking the figures, yet the prices are between three and four times the MSRP. It's ridiculous.

I did find a single Young Han Solo from Wave 2 at a Walmart, but I guess I will rely on my pre-order from DorkSideToys for the rest. Plus, I had someone message the YakFace page last night, and they had found wave 3 figures (Aphra and Range Troopers). I ended up ordering four Range Troopers from DorkSide as well. I can't afford to spare the time to hunt endlessly anymore. 

BrickSeek has shown TVC as in-stock since I posted last, but they never put the figures out. ><

[Tamer]

Yeah, I don't get too crazy with brick and mortar myself anymore. Its a shame really. I liked the hunt a lot years ago. Its just to crazy with distribution to count on things being on the pegs.

[Jodo]

I still enjoy it, but it seems like it was more fruitful way-back-when! Now the pegs are almost always empty, and aside from this recent influx, the waves are spaced so far apart it doesn't do anything to go looking for new stock anyway.

Plus, my girlfriend doesn't appreciate toy hunting like I do. 

[Tamer]

New Piett



I look for them to do a ton of Imperial Officers with this same body.

[Darth More]

Jodo: To claim three or four times the MRSP is an insolence. I mean the most ridiculous scalpers are on Amazon and I always think: Nice try, nobody will buy that from you (hopefully...)! But Amazon does usually not claim insane prices like that. But maybe it pays off for them for producty which are temporarily not on the market in high quantities.

Jurassic Park is a nice line to collect.
Thanks for your update on TVC, too! I think DorkSideToys is an excellent choice.


Tamer: There he is! Finally Piett joined your crew, too! Nice add, Shawn!


My last order from tunghori supposedly arrived, yesterday. I'm going to pick it uo at the post office now and will share some pics later...

[Darth More]

Yesterday, I picked up my latest order from tunghori at the post office, but I didn't have time to take and upload pics anymore...


It contained a couple surprises and here they are now:

- TVC Captain Cassian Andor (VC 130) - $7.99
- TVC Imperial Death Trooper (VC 127) - $12.99
- TVC Imperial Assault Tank Driver (VC 126) - $14.99
+ $7.00 for international shipping ($5.00 + $1.00 for each additional item/figure)







I wonder why especially the tank driver came in this strange position, but that might be related to production/assembly processes.

The tank driver came with not one, but two E-11 blasters...I don't hope that another unit came without blaster, but considering the fact that MANY figures I bought from tunghori were missing parts, I can almost assume that this is exactly the case.
It's kind of ironic because I asked him if he could send me some accessories from the VC Rebel Fleet Trooper, which I bought from him and were  missing parts as well. He did include them.

The Imperial Death Trooper is obviously a repack of Walmart's exclusive Black Series verion, but the Vintage version comes with a different stamp on the left upper leg:

- TBS: 62561
- TVC: #E1648 82071

Cassian Andor is also a straight repack of The Black Series, but a welcome one and I'm happy to have him stand next to Jyn, now.

The fact that ALL figures of The Vintage Collection come WITHOUT the year of production beneath their feet is a REAL downer to me, though.








And two more packages arrived yesterday:



I found some premium fodder for very cheap on eBay:




10€ for all 7 figures + 4€ shipping nationally. That makes a  total of $12.88 - $1.84 per figure.
They are incomplete, but that still can't beat the priece...




First, I thought the helmet of the TIE Pilot was missing a print on the right side. And I wondered how this one passed quality control. but today I learned that this is actually not an error.



And this package arrived with 7 carded figures, one loose Battle Droid and three vehicles: 45€/~$51 including shipping




I'm very happy about the Homing Spider Droid. I might repaint the Speeder and my first Jedi Starfighter of Obi-Wan because it has yellowed quite a bit by now.





The price tag on the Zam Wessell figure is a little trip into the past: When the EURO was introduced as currency for the European Union in 2002, previous currencies of each country had to be replaced. The former currency in Germany was the "Deutsche Mark" (DM). Back then you got 1 Euro for 2 DM...so everything was double as expensive as it was before. That's why prices dropped first, but it didn't take long until they reached the total digits, again. So basically everything is double the price by now.
Zam Wessel came out in 2001/2002 so around that time. It was 9,99€ first, but was then reduced to 2,99€. Today, a 5 POA action figure costs 12,99€ and a TVC figure 19,99€ here in Germany.

Oh, and Ben dropped his lightsaber in the blister...



- Philipp

[Tamer]

Looks like you got a lot of goodies.

[Jodo]

EXCELLENT haul Darth More!!!!

A few days ago I was able to do something I haven't done in a long while...I walked into a store and bought stuff. I picked up two Range Troopers, Dr. Aphra, Enfys Nest, and a second Tank Trooper. 

[Darth More]

Tamer: Yes, this was one bigger haul, indeed. Next week the semester starts, again and I won't have the time to follow the latest auctions on eBay anymore - so this is probably it for the year.


Jodo: Thank you for your comment! Your finds sound awesome! I think the last years have made local finds and actual purchases at brick and mortar stores more special


Happy toy-hunting everyone!

- Philipp