Well, after my whiny last post, I was able to order the subscription service last night.
Now to figure out the dark Energon stuff.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Ugh.
Ok, so my awesome SDCC post from July, with all of its awesome toys? It may not amount to much.
Money, money, money - I just don't have enough!
First and foremost, there are the TFCC Subscription toys. I did a post on them a couple of weeks ago, and it looks like they may not happen for me. The cost - about $360 - is pretty damned high, and earlier this week when I mentioned the idea of her getting me the set as a combined birthday/Christmas gift, she wasn't at all interested. Didn't say no, but I have my doubts she'll say yes (and the clock is ticking! They stop taking orders on the 10th!). So there's that.
I've considered asking my parents for the set in the same fashion, but I already had Amazon Jetwing Optimus on preorder that they were going to pay for. Mom was going to get me the SDCC exclusives this year for a belated Father's day gift, but I missed out on Bruticus, so I ordered Jetwing Optimus instead. However, I imagine the idea of my parents spending nigh-$500 on me within 6 months isn't too appetizing to them. I weighed my chances of getting the Subscription set against how much I wanted Jetwing, and I settled on cancelling the Jetwing preorder, which I just did. So, I guess, that's one obstacle out of my way, though I don't know how much it will help.
I also considered finally listing my Botcon 2010 box set on ebay and using the money from that to get the FSS, but when I had got the Botcon set, I had told my wife that I'd give the money back to us as a family to use for something collectively. I brought this up, and, again, she didn't say no to this idea, but it was clear she didn't care for it.
On top of all this, BBTS decides to list their exclusive Dark Energon repaints today (well, at 12 in the morning, what the hell?) in the midst of all this FSS stuff. While not that bad as individual prices, the four deluxes are only available as a case for $60 plus shipping, and the two voyagers are sold together as well for $50 plus shipping. Originally, the only one of these toys I didn't want in any way was Optimus, but now that I know that acquiring them will be difficult, I really only want the Skywarp-looking repaint of Starscream. So, either I pay over $60 to get him and either sell the other three deluxes (or decide to keep some of them, I don't know?) or I have to buy him on the secondary market, hoping that someone on a board will let me at him for a decent price before resorting to ebay.
So, if I were to pony up and buy both of these sets, it would cost $470. And that's not considering BBTS's shipping costs. $500 for 12 toys. Now, this isn't unheard of in the franchise. To fully enjoy a Botcon set, buying both the box set and the souvenir exclusives costs about the same. However, this isn't Botcon. Yeah, the FSS toys are close in concept, since they are just an expanded take on the Club's online exclusives, but the main problem with both of these sets is that if you want a realistic shot at getting any one toy for a decent price, you've got to get the set. With BBTS, there's no option. With the Club, they say that the individual toys will be available at some point, but of course only at a higher price and being very limited. And, again, even if you are among the hardcore that attends Botcon every single year and manages to do so by carefully budgeting through the year, now you've got what amounts to a second Botcon-level expenditure that nearly came out of nowhere. And, again, if you want it, you've got to act now, pretty much. Of course, this ignores all the "normal" retail purchases you might want to make to keep up with the current cool stuff that Hasbro is putting out.
Anyhow, this is all getting a bit frustrating. In hopes of making a bit of extra cash that could go toward some of this stuff (and also just thinning out the collection a bit), I compiled a list of transformers that I'm going to be selling over the next few weeks/months. None of them are real blockbusters, but, again, hopefully I can reclaim some of the cash they cost me.
Money, money, money - I just don't have enough!
First and foremost, there are the TFCC Subscription toys. I did a post on them a couple of weeks ago, and it looks like they may not happen for me. The cost - about $360 - is pretty damned high, and earlier this week when I mentioned the idea of her getting me the set as a combined birthday/Christmas gift, she wasn't at all interested. Didn't say no, but I have my doubts she'll say yes (and the clock is ticking! They stop taking orders on the 10th!). So there's that.
I've considered asking my parents for the set in the same fashion, but I already had Amazon Jetwing Optimus on preorder that they were going to pay for. Mom was going to get me the SDCC exclusives this year for a belated Father's day gift, but I missed out on Bruticus, so I ordered Jetwing Optimus instead. However, I imagine the idea of my parents spending nigh-$500 on me within 6 months isn't too appetizing to them. I weighed my chances of getting the Subscription set against how much I wanted Jetwing, and I settled on cancelling the Jetwing preorder, which I just did. So, I guess, that's one obstacle out of my way, though I don't know how much it will help.
I also considered finally listing my Botcon 2010 box set on ebay and using the money from that to get the FSS, but when I had got the Botcon set, I had told my wife that I'd give the money back to us as a family to use for something collectively. I brought this up, and, again, she didn't say no to this idea, but it was clear she didn't care for it.
On top of all this, BBTS decides to list their exclusive Dark Energon repaints today (well, at 12 in the morning, what the hell?) in the midst of all this FSS stuff. While not that bad as individual prices, the four deluxes are only available as a case for $60 plus shipping, and the two voyagers are sold together as well for $50 plus shipping. Originally, the only one of these toys I didn't want in any way was Optimus, but now that I know that acquiring them will be difficult, I really only want the Skywarp-looking repaint of Starscream. So, either I pay over $60 to get him and either sell the other three deluxes (or decide to keep some of them, I don't know?) or I have to buy him on the secondary market, hoping that someone on a board will let me at him for a decent price before resorting to ebay.
So, if I were to pony up and buy both of these sets, it would cost $470. And that's not considering BBTS's shipping costs. $500 for 12 toys. Now, this isn't unheard of in the franchise. To fully enjoy a Botcon set, buying both the box set and the souvenir exclusives costs about the same. However, this isn't Botcon. Yeah, the FSS toys are close in concept, since they are just an expanded take on the Club's online exclusives, but the main problem with both of these sets is that if you want a realistic shot at getting any one toy for a decent price, you've got to get the set. With BBTS, there's no option. With the Club, they say that the individual toys will be available at some point, but of course only at a higher price and being very limited. And, again, even if you are among the hardcore that attends Botcon every single year and manages to do so by carefully budgeting through the year, now you've got what amounts to a second Botcon-level expenditure that nearly came out of nowhere. And, again, if you want it, you've got to act now, pretty much. Of course, this ignores all the "normal" retail purchases you might want to make to keep up with the current cool stuff that Hasbro is putting out.
Anyhow, this is all getting a bit frustrating. In hopes of making a bit of extra cash that could go toward some of this stuff (and also just thinning out the collection a bit), I compiled a list of transformers that I'm going to be selling over the next few weeks/months. None of them are real blockbusters, but, again, hopefully I can reclaim some of the cash they cost me.
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