Who puts your pants on?
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1 I've always seen auctions on Ebay for Star Wars figures on unpunched cards. Were most of these cards sold at retail stores or were they probably taken directly from the assembly line? -Timothy
I don't think many figures were taken off the assembly line for sale on the secondary market before 1990, but hey, it happens.
Since vintage figures were displayed in stores in dump boxes, which does not require to punch out the hole, a lot of C-10 unpunched figures ended up existing... that, and some people did a lousy job of punching them out as well. It's not unthinkable for such a thing to survive, but it is pretty amazing when you think about stuff like that existing in the pre-collector eras.
2 With Yakface.com doing a poll to determine some obscure figures that will be produced, how confident are you that Hasbro will release the obvious figures they should make, like Biker Scout, Boba Fett resculpt, and X-wing Luke/removable helmet? -Larry
Hasbro has hinted more than once that they want to do a new Biker Scout, and Boba Fett is a shoo-in for the future, assuming the line keeps going. I'm pretty confident Hasbro will resculpt everything it can, especially if they see a chance to improve an existing and popular figure... but it doesn't mean it'll happen this year.
3 Lately I have heard a lot about the new holo Maul & Qui-Gon figures. What I don't understand is the price, $10 a piece (Opposed to the current $7 or so $'s). Is there something special about them, or are they standard 3 3/4" figures that are being charged more for? Or is the current price going up to $10 on all new figure (my wallet is already scared!) -James
The price is probably due to the more "deluxe" nature of the packaging as well as the electronics involved... the figures themselves are pretty cheap to make, as far as raw materials go.
4
Nope. The FFs have a few errors here and there, none of which were changed-- with one exception. There is the "Imperial" and "Death Star" versions of the R2-D2 slide, but aside from that, no corrections/changes/whatever were made.
And so nobody has to ask this as a follow-up, no Ponda Baba figures were released on Freeze Frame packaging.
5 What ever happened to the figure of Yarna Garna-whatever (the fat dancer of Jabba's). I saw that there was a prototype of her in the SW action figure archive by Steve Sansweet. Was this a POTF2 fig , and why was it's production cancelled (come on, everyone loves obese woman action figures!) -StEvE
Gargan (as she's affectionately referred 'round these parts) was considered for the original line, thousands of years ago in the 1980s, but never saw release. As far as I know, she has yet to be considered for POTF2, but hey, there's a lot of time to make more figures between now and the time the series becomes unprofitable.
6
Value questions. BAH!
LDs will be worth something if someone thinks the LDs are really worth having for a ton of money. With the originals still being available with a little legwork, and the SE films being (as far as I know) reissued this Fall, I doubt LDs will see high prices in the long run. Besides, it's a pretty small market these days...
7
Heck, I can't find the two new droids anywhere these days. I picked 'em both out of an abandoned case in a Toys "R" Us a long time ago, never saw 'em again. Well, I saw like two TC-14s, but that's about it.
As far as ordering things online, yes, we love our sponsors and you should give them all your money. Seriously, if you have the money to order a case, it's probably going to be much less of a headache in the longrun, and if you can split a case with a buddy, all the better. It's about as close as you'll ever get to a "subscription service," plus there's extras to trade. On the downside, there's extras.
As far as getting stuff goes, well, it's impossible to say what'll be a pegwarmer, what'll be harder to find, and what'll be deemed mega-rare one day and show up 3 for $10 at the mall two years later. For all I know Hasbro Canada has warehouses full of stuff that'll show up for a nickel a case in ten years... then again, you might never see some of this stuff again. So do whatever your wallet allows short of paying 10 times retail per figure.
8
It's the same toy, because there's only one "Interactive Yoda" or "Yoda Furby" coming out. I'd get your money back from Kay-Bee and order it online, odds are you'll find a better deal on the web, plus I've heard horror stories about people never getting called about retail pre-orders, while I've heard nothing but good things about pre-orders on the web. (With the exceptions being the monkeys who pay 10 times retail for a figure on eBay as a presell, that is.)
9
As far as dust goes... well, never had a problem, myself. My 12" vintage figures have sat on a shelf for the past ten years, and they're still looking great. Ditto with my extra Leia Endor Poncho figures, Jedi Lukes, and so forth-- the dust has never been a real problem.
If you want a storage solution to keep lots of figures dust-free and cheap, allow me to reccomend my POTF2 storage solutions.
First, and this is best if you want easy access to and an excellent storage method for your figures, there's some cases from P & P Products that allow the storage of multiple figures on a nice wall-mounted clear plexiglass case. Or something like that. It keeps dust out and figures viewable, and it looks nice.
Second, and this is good for a just plain storage standpoint, are Plano's tackleboxes. You'll find these at K-Mart or Wal-Mart in the fishing departments... I use model 3700 to store most of my figures. A box costs around four bucks and holds around a dozen figures. Plus it'll snap shut. Unfortunately, the boxes aren't as nice as the cases as far as viewing goes, but it'll do the trick for bare-bones storage.
Otherwise... ummm... buy two and keep one packaged. :)
FIN You want questions for your answers? As always, this is gonna be a request for more questions. Believe it or not, I get a lot of repeats, so if you've got a question that hasn't been answered about Star Wars, toy collecting, or plumbing without knowledge of the subject matter, I can help. Thanks, as always, for reading!
Questions for April 5, 2000
1
When I asked Galoob, black. That's what LFL told them: Han always wears black. Hence the black Bespin Han jacket on a figure in... I think it was 1994, or in 1995 before POTF2 really took off. (I'm feeling old.)
Hasbro... well, they do some weird things. The 12" Han Hoth is a brown color, the 4" versions are more muave. If you ask me, the color is a really, really dark blue that could be mistaken for black, meaning that ultimately all of the POTF2 era versions from Hasbro are wrong. But short of going into the archives, it's hard to say for sure what the real color is... all I know is what I see on the trading cards.
2 I've recently gotten into the Action Fleet series of vehicles by Galoob (Micro Machines) from the classic trilogy. Was the Millenium Falcon ever available as an individually boxed item? I've read about the "Classic Duels" two-pack, but can find no other reference to the Falcon. I'd like to get the Falcon, is this the only way? -X
Sure was. I remember it being a little hard to
find for a while, I found mine in Tucson before I moved down here after
considerable searching in Phoenix. The individually boxed version came
with Han & Chewie, while the 2-pack from Toys "R" Us came with Lando and
an Endor soldier. It's a little hard to find, and like most SW toys,
harder to come by than just about anything in POTF2, but the toy isn't
anything special, really-- it's cool and all, and fun to mess with, but
not the MicroMachines playet one you can score for around ten bucks
these days (which everybody should get). The Action Fleet version came
out with the likes of the Blockade Runner and Imperial Lander.
3 I loved that create-a-card contest!! Will you guys have something like that again? Maybe a create-a-cinema scene, or something? -Dave
To coin a phrase, "there are no plans at this time."
4
The Fan Club may or may not be getting more, and there are a few Japanese Laser importers out there as well... I haven't done much with that market, so I really can't reccomend anybody in particular.
5 Adam, are the Episode I AAT's an exclusive toy to Toy's-R-Us? What about the Darth Maul/Obi-Wan Kenobi two packs, are they an exclusive to K-Mart? -Jason
Entertainment Earth has had both, so I'm gonna go with "no."
6
I have never seen any information on the existance of packs numbered above IV. If they exist-- and I'm almost positive they don't-- they're not gonna be easy to find.
7
Nope.
8
Like I've written before, LucasFilm has never offered blueprints of their sets to fans, so for that, you're out of luck.
While you can get quite a lot from your imagination and source material available to you like the movies and such, AMT/MPC/ERTL put out model kits of both scenes, both containing a lot of parts and being a pretty generous size. You can probably use those as a good source of inspiration, roughly $20-$30 per at your local hobby shop.
9
Is this a legitimate variant, or is this guy just desperate?
Toys don't really have any REAL secondary market value until after a while. Variations can always show up, or cases of older product, or cases of old variations. People are welcome to go nuts over anything, but this is something I don't think many fans would care about. Then again, I get people writing in about "how cool" their Yoda with its head turned a little is.
10
It's entirely possible that the Jabba w/ announcer (based on the actors in makeup) will ship again when Qui-Gon with the Eopie ships. But I dunno yet.
There are no plans to do a running change on the toy.
FIN
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