Deluxe Class Wave 6: (SGD 27.90 each)

 From left - Swerve, Stalker Scorponok & Arcee. 

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A lot of collectors have been wondering when is this next wave of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) Deluxe action figures arriving on our shore.  Well they have finally appeared at many local departmental stores this week!

Swerve is a repaint of ROTF Deluxe Sideswipe (silver) but with a new head.  I still prefer this mold to be in silver color.  Swerve is said to be made in tribute to Sideswipe’s classic red color. 

Stalker Scorponok is a repaint of Scorponok (sandy color) from Transformers The Movie (TFTM).  The mold looks exactly the same as the previous one.  If you already have TFTM Scorponok, you can skip this black version, unless you think that black color is more realistic for a scorpion, and to match better with ROTF Voyager Grindor. 

Arcee is in a new mold, different from the TFTM version.  Her robot mode reminds of a real seahorse or the seapony from the G1 My Little Pony toyline!  I definitely prefer the seahorse and seapony over ROTF Arcee, but other collectors might like her as she is.

By now, I don’t find new sightings of the latest ROTF toys exciting anymore.  Perhaps the ROTF craze is slowing wearing off me.  The ‘poison’ in me has finally dissipated, which is a great feeling to have!  If you are still completing your ROTF movie cast toy collection, then happy waiting to you, LOL!

Here’s an interview of the 2 female leads from the recent G.I.Joe movie.  The interesting parts are at the very beginning where Sienna Miller (The Baroness) reveals that she played with My Little Ponies (she named this first!) and of course the typical Barbie during her childhood.  Rachel Nichols (Scarlett) played with Barbie, and often used her brother’s G.I.Joe dolls to be ‘boyfriends’ to her Barbie dolls, LOL!

Then they talked about how Hasbro did face scans of them to make the G.I.Joe movie action figures.  I do agree that it feels kinda freaky to have little toys made in your supposed likeness.  While most people buy them as toys or collectibles, Lord knows what some people would use them for, LOL!

Of course they also talked about the filming of the movie, some behind the scenes incidents that took place and other trivia.  I saw the movie and it was quite enjoyable.  The toys are still sold everywhere and I feel tempted to get a few if there is a sale.  But somehow, Hasbro has made them price controlled items.  Hence I’ll wait for Christmas time where the chances of a sale on such Hasbro movie toys would be greater!

Our local departmental store OG is having its annual OG Anniversary Sale now!  It started yesterday (28 August 2009).  I’m not sure of the end date but from past experience, the month-long OG Anniversary Sale takes place around September every year.  Hence you can take it that for this year, it will last for the whole of September 2009.  If you are familiar with OG, it is also ONLY during this time each year that you can get your chance to obtain their OG Member’s Card!

What is the OG Member’s Card?

Most other departmental store member cards are in fact credit cards (that are in partnership with the respective banks) which you need to qualify for like regular credit card applications, in order be get them.  The OG Member’s Card is more accessible to most shoppers since it’s an in-store card that is not in partnership with any bank.

How to apply for the OG Member’s Card?

Basically you just need to spend a minimum of SGD 75.00 within a day during this sale period (combined purchases made on the same day are acceptable).  If you can’t make up SGD 75.00 worth of purchases on your own, you can team up with your family and friends buy some stuff together while you get the card.

For new OG Card Members…

…you take all your receipts and head to their OG Member’s Card counter (which every of their staff will know how to direct you to) to fill up a card application form.  After you hand in your form, you’ll receive your card on the spot!  It’s that simple!

For existing OG Card Members… 

…you take all your receipts and join a different queue where you hand them your current card for them to issue you the new card on the spot.  You need not fill up a form, unless you have any change of particulars such as your address to update them.  They use your address to send you mailers periodically to inform you of their store promotions etc.

OG Card Privileges

The OG Member’s Card entitles the card holder to receive 10% discount all year round, even on items that are not on sale.  It worked for the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) and G.I.Joe movie toys.  Having some discount is better than none. 

Updated on 4 September 2009: G.I.Joe Movie toys are now on 20% sale at OG!  Saw the same at other departmental stores too!

Extra Info 

During the OG Anniversary Sale period, I also recall that for certain price controlled items, you’ll receive rebates in your receipt instead, which you can then use to offset the total amount in your next purchase (to be made within a certain period of course!). 

Friendly OG Staff

The above are from my past experience and I doubt they have changed their practice this year.  I’m not related to this store, but I do buy a lot of my toys from them using my past and current OG Member’s Card.  Their staff (I tend to interact most with the staff from the toy dept at their Orchard outlet) are very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable about the toys they sell.  They show much more initiative and render better customer service than most other retail places I’ve been to.

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So here’s your toy shopping tip for September 2009!  You’ve got a month to go get your OG Member’s Card.  The card will last you till this time next year where you make another SGD 75.00 worth of purchases during that next Anniversary Sale to qualify for your next card!  And so forth for the coming years ahead!  Happy shopping!

Not too long ago, I blogged about pre-ordering this lovely Junko Mizuno Designer My Little Pony from Entertainment Earth (EE), where they will only start shipping from October 2009.  

Now the pony is also available for pre-order at Hasbro Toy Shop (HTS)!, where they will start shipping earlier, from 14 September 2009!  The discount code (mlp2010) is for 10% off the cost of the pony only, and does not apply to the shipping charges or any sales tax relevant to your region.

The thing is that HTS ships only to the US and Canada, while EE does ship internationally but the international shipping can be a bit steep.  For Singaporean buyers, you can use vPost to help you resolve the issue of online stores shipping to the US only.

The box art for Junko Mizuno Designer Pony looks rather nice, though I’m most likely to discard this box soon after I remove my pony from its packaging.  The pony will look even prettier out of its box!  I hope that Junko Mizuno Pony is the last Collector’s My Little Pony for 2009.  She is already the 5th one this year, LOL!

Studies show that majority of people go online to look for information.  These are mainly the internet surfers.  Those who have the information go online to provide them to others, e.g. via blogging. 

Blogging can be done in text, photos and in videos etc.  Bloggers who go through the efforts of posting information in their blogs do so to share their information and comments about their areas of interests with other like-minded people.  Bloggers tend to be very passionate about their topics of interests.

For many toy collectors, blogging has opened up a whole new perspective to the online world that connects them to others globally.  Bloggers learnt to set up their blogs, and do technical stuff like posting, uploading photos and videos, and customize their blog layouts etc.

Even if the toy collectors don’t have their own blogs, they are internet savvy enough to go visit leading information websites and online forums about their favourite toylines and topics.   

Thanks to your toy hobby, you progressed very fast in your internet savviness, and could even pick up new online trends like social networking (e.g. FaceBook) very readily. 

Let’s say if you didn’t have a toy hobby, do you think you would still spend a great deal of your free time online?  Whether to blog or to surf the internet for information and entertainment?  Or perhaps are you more likely to be an offline person, where your leisure activities are done more in the real world than in the virtual world?

Come and share your views here!

For me, I would probably be more involved in animal related hobbies and activities.  Not that I’m ‘blaming’ my current toy hobby for holding me back on my other interests.  It’s just that if I didn’t have a toy hobby as the main focus of my free time, I’d most probably use much more of my time and resources on reading more about animals, wildlife conservation, be more active in volunteer groups related to animals and such.

Of course I would also have a different set of friends and network if I had other interests and hobbies instead.  My lifestyle would be very different.  Perhaps I would still be collecting something else, such as animal fact books and mainly animal models, instead of toys based on comics, cartoons and movies. 

If I didn’t have a toy hobby, I would definitely have more money for other indulges in life.  Or if I keep to my current non-toy frugal spending habits, I’ll probably have even saved enough for a down payment to my first private property and other investments.  Yeah, maybe I would have planned for an early retirement and financial independence to be achieved at a much earlier age.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret my toy hobby as I still enjoy it, though a little less than when I started out many years.  All interests and even obsessions will reach a peak somewhere along the way and would gradually start to decline after that with time.  People will then want to move on to newer or seemingly more exciting things as they progress along their lives.

What about you?  Can you imagine how your life would be like if you didn’t have a toy hobby?  What would you be doing during your free time instead?  Would you be more engrossed in your career?  Lead a more sporty lifestyle?  Be more fashion conscious? (I notice that most toy collectors aren’t fashion people)  Have more children since you probably have the extra money and time to raise and educate them?  Go traveling around the world?

Feel free to share your views here, I’m very keen to know your perspectives!

While looking through my Singapore Toy, Games and Comic Convention (STGCC) 2009 photos folder, I found some more photos which I decided not to ‘waste’.  Hence I post them here on my blog.

This I believe is a custom replica of Movie Optimus Prime’s vehicle mode.  It’s much larger than the Leader Movie Optimus Prime toys I’ve seen.  You can even see some wiring at the back surface.  I suppose they power up or light up the toy, which could possibly run on batteries or via remote control. 

Too bad when I took this photo, the boothwas swamped with lots of Cosplay participants getting ready for their Cosplay competition that day.  Hence I couldn’t find out from the staff how this Optimus Prime toy really works. 

This little fellow was spotted at a booth on the preview night where it was for display only.  There were Mint-On-Card (MOC) stock for sale then but the asking price was nearly triple the original retail price!  I wonder if anyone really bought the MOC stock cos I didn’t see it there anymore on the last day. 

This set of MOC EZ Takara Legends Devastator cum Constructicons action figures were spotted at another booth on the preview night .  The price was under just SGD 100.00 for the set.  Going by its popularity and severe short supply, it was gone by the last day of the STGCC 2009.  You can also purchase EZ TakaraTomy Legends Devastator online.

On the last day of the STGCC 2009, the Hasbro cum Toys ‘R’ Us (TRU) booth took out additional sets of all their available San Diego Comic Convention (SDCC) 2009 exclusive toys to display on top of their glass showcases for people to take better photos of.  That was was thoughtful of them.  But they also ended up re-deploying manpower to ‘watch’ over all those ‘exposed’ SDCC 2009 exclusive toys as the toys could also be easily taken away by people.

I only took close up photos of the SDCC 2009 Exclusive G.I.Joe Rise of the Cobra The Baroness 12-inch action figure.  The other SDCC toy photos can be seen in my earlier blog post about the Hasbro cum TRU booth .  On the whole, I think the face sculpt of this Baroness figure makes the character look older than the actress (Sienna Miller) who played The Baroness in the G.I.Joe movie. 

Our local SingPost was also there at the STGCC 2009 to promote its range of Tofu Postman toys, which comes packaged with its special series of Tofu postage stamps.  I think this set of Tofu toys and postage stamps could still be available for sale at its post office branches after the STGCC 2009.

Not all the booths there were selling MOC or MIB (Mint-In-Box) toys only.  There were also many loose toylines for sale and among them are these Wrestling action figures.  I think they could be from someone’s personal collection. 

To my surprise, this booth was actually selling those colorful custom boxes you see here to store action figures.  The numerous loose Justice League action figures were more of props to demonstrate the use of the boxes.  However, so many people enquired about the loose action figures for sale that the seller ended up selling many of the loose toys away by the last day.  I’m not sure on how well the box sales fared though.

Last but not least are the movie statues.  Seeing them is like seeing those movies ‘come to life’.  Many of them are quite realistic looking, but these are more for a very niched market.  You can still view more of these statues on display at the Simply Toys showroom (Plaza Singapura, 7th floor, diagonally opposite cinema box office).

Many of us are very specific on which toylines we collect, based mainly on our likes and dislikes.  Hence regardless of if there is a trend or craze on those toylines, we still collect them.

Trends tend to arise more prominently especially when certain blockbuster movies are screened in the cinemas, or certain shows and cartoon series are shown on TV.  The toy companies would roll out the movie toys in the departmental stores to coincide with the release of the movies and shows to cash in on the so-called hype.  Quite often, such temporary toy craze work their magic (or hex) on both the hardcore and casual fans and collectors alike.

Many fell for the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) toy craze in the past few months.  I’m sure the feeling of being ‘toy possessed’ is gradually wearing off on some fans and collectors by now.  Some of us even start to wonder what happened to our minds back then.  It’s like being possessed by some kind of toy spirits.

Currently, there is smaller scale trend on G.I.Joe toys due to the screening of its live action movie (G.I.Joe Rise of the Cobra) in our local cinemas.  Certain more popular figures of its movie toyline are said to be quite hard to find in the stores here.  Apparently there is demand for them, but for how long more?  The movie is almost near the end of its screening period.

There are fans and collectors who get very upset and frustrated when they can’t seem to find the in-trend toys that they want during the craze period.  Some even go through a stage of mild panic and pour out their woes, as if their lives have been greatly disadvantaged by being denied the opportunity of being among the first to lay their hands on certain in-trend toys. 

Hey these days, toy companies like Hasbro tend to re-release all their toys in revised waves.  Hence a short supply now will be made up for later.  So what if you do manage to complete your movie toyline for now?   Do you really like these toys enough that 6-12 months later, you still feel as obsessed about them as like during the movie screening period?  For some fans and collectors, the novelty of owning certain movie toys wear off soon after the craze dies down.  If this is the case, they are more likely trend chasers than hardcore fans. 

What about you?  Do you chase the toy trend as well?  Or do you stick to your main toyline collections, regardless of whatever toy trends there are?  Feel free to share your comments here!  I’ll love to know what you think!

After buying and bringing home your latest new toy, let’s say you decide to open the toy package and remove the toy from its packaging.  For the plastic bubble parts, it’s very straightforward as many of us will toss it into the rubbish bin.  These plastic bubble are not recyclable for now.

Then how about the backcards and boxes that are printed with the nice photos, pictures and background information of the toy character?  Do you throw them all away as well?

These days the art and deco in the toy packaging can look so nice that you become reluctant to throw them away after you have taken out the toy.  Face it, they are supposed to look attractive for the main reason of enticing you to buy the toy.  After that when you eventually take out the toy, they have virtually done their part and need to move on in the next stage of their existence - to the recycling bin!

My past experience:

For me,  I used to keep the original backcards and flattened boxes of the toys that I bought brand new in packaging.  Usually it’s the art and deco that attracted me to keep them.  But after a while, I realise that I do not even look at them anymore since the day I stored them away, much less appreciate whatever artwork that’s on them.  Hence, I ended up sending almost all of them to the recycling bin.

My current habits:

These days, I still keep the backcards of certain toylines (maximum size - Transformers Deluxe toy backcards) since they are already flat and do not require additional folding for easy storage.  If ever I sell away those toys, then their respective backcards go along with them to the new owners too.  Anyway, I still have the option of recycling them some day should I ever change my mind about keeping them.

I no longer keep flattened boxes, no matter how attractive the box art are.  Even if you flatten some of them, they still have very big surface areas.  As such, where am I gonna find a place big enough in my cupboard to store those large flattened boxes?  After a while, even accumulated flattened boxes can become a thick pile!  Furthermore, too much of these can be a fire hazard!

And hence I now make my toy hobby and life easier with the above practices.  Last but not least, I strongly recommend that you send your unwanted toy packaging (I mean the paper and cardboard parts) for recycling.  Pack them into a recycling bag for your local recycling company to collect. 

Even if you don’t have a recycling collection service from your doorstep, it doesn’t kill you to drop off your recycling bag at the nearest recycling bin you can find.  If you have the energy to go toy shopping and lug new toys home, you have the energy to lug the paper wastes to a recycling bin.  Be proactive about recycling, instead of expecting others to make it convenient for you to do so. 

Remember, we only have 1 planet earth, and as toy collectors and consumers, we are already indirectly ‘contributing’ to excess packaging waste through our demand for toys and other items.  So this is the least we can do for the environment in return!

And with these, enjoy your toy hobby and your life!

Whenever toy collectors buy new toys and bring them home, they go through some of the following scenarios:

1) Open the toy immediately or within the next 24-hours to enjoy, display or store them away;

2) Leave or keep the toy still in original packaging to savour the ‘newness’ of it indefinitely and for possible value appreciation;

3) Leave or keep the toy still in original packaging to await a day of ’suitable’ mood to open it;

4) Buy 2 of each toy, 1 to open now to enjoy and the other to keep in packaging for admiration or possible value appreciation. 

Option 1 is most preferred as it saves space in the home from being taken up by excess and unnecessary product packaging.  Even if you do store away the loose toys, at least they take up less storage space than before.  But you’ll miss seeing its original packaging.

Option 2 takes up a lot of precious space at home, and needless to say, you can’t touch the toy at all!  You might as well open a musuem to display all of them for others to see.  If you are waiting for the toy value to appreciate to sell off in the future, you’re probably better off learning how to invest in the actual stock market instead.

Option 3 is quite as bad as Option 2 because for many of us, that ‘another day’ takes forever to come or never comes.  This is usually an extension of procrastination.  If you accumulate too many toys to open at once, it gets too overwhelming for you to enjoy.  Besides, a lot of toy packaging these days come with pesky twist wires to irritate the hell out of you. 

Option 4 seems like a brilliant idea that gets you the best of both worlds, except that you now have twice the space cluttered problem at home.  Bravo!

So which is actually the best option? 

Well, for a start I recommend using your home space as a guide.  Most of us do not live in very large accommodations and we also tend to share our living space at home with other people. 

Some people cannot stand untidiness in the house, and that includes seeing toy boxes all stacked up against the wall etc.  Walking space invaded by clutter at home also has a depressing energy on you when you attempt to move about at home.

Hence before you buy your next toy, ask yourself this important question: Where am I going to put this?  On the floor with the rest of the untidy piles of previous unopened toy purchases?  Or a proper shelf or storage space that you have already allocated to it in advance?

If the new toy is not going to have a proper place to fit in your home, then it’s just gonna to add to the clutter you already have.  However it’s not a lost cause that you can no longer enjoy your toy collecting hobby like you used to.

This usually means that it’s time to clear out the older toys you no longer love as much, to make room for the newer toys.  Think of it this way, it’s someone else’s turn to enjoy those older toys you no longer want.  Things come and go in our lives. 

Collecting involves the emotion of “attachment” to the toy.  Clearing and selling them away involves the exact opposite emotion of “letting go”.  Learn to manage these 2 very important emotions and your toy hobby will become much more enjoyable and manageable!

In the next post, let’s talk about “to keep or not to keep toy packaging”…