My Little Pony  - 2009 Halloween Spooky Tube Ponyville 2-pack

Pinkie Pie & Scootaloo

It’s Halloween today!  Look, Pinkie Pie and Scootaloo are both “dressed up” to go “trick or treating”!  They are part of the Hasbro’s 2009 Halloween Spooky Tube Ponyville 2-pack to celebrate this annual occasion.  Locally, they are available at most Simply Toys outlets, at SGD 15.90 per 2-pack.

Although Halloween is a “western” culture, it is fast catching on as a popular annual party theme here in Singapore and in many parts of Asia.  I’ll be heading to a Halloween party this evening with my friends to join in the fun of “fright night”.  You all have a Happy Halloween today too!

Legends Class - Wave 5 (SGD 11.90 each):

Top Row - Wheelie & Power Armor Optimus Prime.

Bottom Row - Bluesteel Sideswipe & Soundwave.

This next wave of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) Legends figures are expected to be on sale at worldwide retail early next year.  The new characters that fans and collectors have been waiting for are Wheelie and Soundwave! 

Somehow I feel that ROTF Legends Soundwave doesn’t resemble his screen appearance that much, both in robot and satellite modes.  Legends Wheelie on the hand, looks to be in scale with the rest of the ROTF Deluxe, Voyager and Leader class toys because he’s a little remote control car in the movie. 

I’d expect both Legends Soundwave and Legends Wheelie to be very popular when they become available in the stores worldwide.   The other 2 are repaints, so I guess the “completist” collectors or unfussy buyers would want them. 

Legends Power Armor Optimus Prime reminds me of the exclusive black colored ROTF Leader Optimus Prime offered on Amazon Japan, with a purchase of their ROTF DVD or Blu-ray!  He would look quite nice when combined with ROTF Legends Jetfire!

Meanwhile, happy waiting for these new ROTF Legends toys in the stores!

Deluxe Class - wave 8 (SGD 27.90 each)

Top Row (from left): Gears & Armorhide.

Middle Row: Dirge.

Bottom Row (from left): Tuner Mudflap & Alliance Bumblebee.

We’ve been facing a “drought” of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) toys lately.  Our last and current wave of ROTF Deluxe toys in Singapore have been wave 6, which contains Arcee, Stalker Scorponok and Swerve.  We haven’t see wave 7 (containing Gears and Thrust) in the stores yet. 

Nevetheless, we take a look at wave 8 which contains yet more repaints and some off-screen characters.  You can view the video reviews of Dirge and Armorhide here. 

I’m completely skipping this wave.  Even though I like movie Bumblebee, this Alliance version or variant just doesn’t cut it for me.  How about you?  Are you planning on getting any ROTF Deluxe action figures from wave 8?

Latest Update: Waves 7 & 8 have arrived in Singapore departmental stores in Nov & Dec 2009 respectively!

ROTF Deluxe NEST Cannon Bumblebee & Deluxe NEST Soundwave

With regard to my previous blog post on Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) Deluxe Cannon Bumblebee with a masked head, here he is in a box set with another repaint of ROTF Deluxe Soundwave!  Both these figures are scheduled for release early next year, though they might just arrive here in Singapore slightly earlier.  So far, they haven’t been spotted at retail in any part of the world yet.  

I’m not too crazy about the number “x” repaint of Soundwave (gosh is he that popular? Why are there so many repaints of him!?).  I just want ROTF Deluxe NEST Cannon Bumblebee (despite being a slight repaint) for his new masked head, and because he’s movie Bumblebee!  I hope to see him in our retail stores soon, though I wonder how much this box set will cost… 

By the way, does anyone know what does “NEST” stands for?  Would appreciate your input on this, thanks!

ROTF Voyager Bludgeon action figure (SGD 51.90)

This Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) Decepticon toy was spotted at the Sunday Toy Market at China Square Central over the weekend.  Officially, he hadn’t been seen at our local departmental stores before that.  Perhaps it might arrive at mass retail this week.  He’ll be part of the ROTF Voyager Wave 4 with Voyager Jungle Attack Ironhide (not seen at local retail yet).

As Bludgeon is a non-ROTF movie character, I’m not familiar with him.  Nevertheless he still has his group of local fans and collectors who are keen to get him.  Here’s the video toy review for ROTF Voyager Bludgeon.  If you’re lucky, you can aim to get him when the departmental stores here are having their store wide sales.  Happy ROTF toy shopping!

With regard to my previous blog post on the 2009 My Little Pony toys from USA McDonalds, they have been available in the USA since last week.  Some of the collectors there have managed to complete their sets and here’s a photo of them all provided by symmetry of MLP Arena.

The manes are brushable and each pony comes with a hair pick.  The tails are all molded though and their overall colors are not entirely accurate, especially for Rainbow Dash (blue) who’s supposed to have up to 6 different colors in her mane and tail.  

Nevertheless, they still make nice collectible figures for many My Little Pony collectors.  If only this set of 2009 McDonalds My Little Pony will be available in Singapore soon!

Here we have the next highly anticipated wave 6 of the 3.75-inch Marvel Universe action figures that Hasbro has planned for Marvel fans and collectors.  According to online sources, these are scheduled for the retail stores in early 2010.  However, they could arrive much earlier than expected in some countries. 

This time round, the new characters are (see bottom row of above photo, from left) Jean Grey, Warpath, House of M Spiderman, Wolverine (Unmasked) and Sunfire!  And this time, they come with figure stands printed with their names, just like the 3.75-inch G.I.Joe movie action figures!  At last, Hasbro has listened to the Marvel fans!  I hope the previous characters from the past waves will be re-released with figure stands too! 

These figures retail for SGD 18.90 each here in Singapore, compared to the US retail price of USD 7.99 (approx SGD 11.20) for each of these same little action figures over there.  Nevertheless, this Marvel Universe toyline has lots of fans and collectors here.  Hence do expect the new characters of wave 6 to ‘fly off’ the pegs and shelves within days of being hung out for sale in our local stores.   

Now that I’ve stopped collecting this toyline, I find it much easier to blog about them.  I’ve put up my MOC Marvel Universe collection for sale.  Most have already been sold at my toy locker 12G at Toy Outpost (Plaza Singapura, 7th floor, diagonally opposite cinema box office).  There are still some left.  Just seek the help of the friendly store personnel at Toy Outpost if you need to examine the items up close or purchase them.  You can view the remaining figures of my sale list in here at this blog post!  Happy toy shopping!

What I mean is that way before the days of the internet, long before you found out from the world wide web that toy collecting is actually a popular hobby shared by millions of people around the world.  If you had been collecting toys for that many years like me, did you openly let your friends know that your hobby was collecting toys back then? 

And when you went to buy your collectible toys at the departmental stores especially, did you some what feel embarassed that you did not bring a young kid along with as your “disguise” as you queued to pay at the cashier?

Very way back in my early years of toy collecting, I found it a bit “weird” to enjoy visiting the toy sections of departmental stores and Toy “R” Us.  That was during in my secondary school and junior college years.  I stuck out so obviously from the other customers who were mainly parents with their kids. 

But since I liked the toys that I collect so much, I managed to develop a “thick skin” over time and learnt to suppress the conflicting thoughts in my mind.  During our growing up years, we tend to be influenced by the people around us and we prefer to fit in with the “acceptable social norms” set by our parents and the friends we hang out with.  

Of course these days with the internet, we toy collectors know that we are “normal” people (what a relief to know!) with a very decent hobby.  It’s now very common to see adults buy toys at any store, and that it’s obvious that they are buying the toys for themselves.  Even the staff who work at toys stores no longer find it ‘amusing’ that more adults seem to be collecting toys. 

More and more collectible toy shops have also sprung up over the years in Singapore to serve our small but growing toy collectors’ market.  We have our weekly Sunday toy market at China Square Central, and now we even have our very own annual Singapore Toy, Games and Comic Convention (STGCC) in our second year! 

If you are a toy collector who started this hobby less than 10 years ago, I guess this hobby didn’t seem to bring much or any “social stigma” for you.  After all, you knew from the start that there are many toy collectors out there, whose personal collections are more than enough to open their own private toy museums! 

For me I have been collecting toys for more than 15 years, so I don’t really know how the newer toy collectors felt in their early years of collecting.  To me, I’d already “been there and done that” when you came along.  I presumed that seeing “senior” toy collectors like me around in the local toy markets, you perhaps felt more assured about your hobby, and you even strived to surpass our collections.  In short, you had some form of “benchmark” to “compare and measure to”.

But let’s say like me, you had started out this hobby with little or no “benchmark” in your circle of contacts (before the days of the world wide web), would you have continued with your toy collecting hobby as the sole “grown up weirdo who still plays with toys”? 

Did you know that in my early days of toy collecting, when the cashier asked me if I wanted the toy gift wrapped, I said “yes!”?  At least it gave the impression that I was buying the toy as a gift for a kid (who did not exist) and not for myself.  That was back in those early days, LOL!

So how about you?  How long have you been in this toy collecting hobby?  What were your early years of toy collecting like?  Free to share your thoughts and experiences here!

Let’s say you are currently pursuing a certain, or several toy series which you strive to collect.  You may or may not decide to collect every single piece in those toylines.  Even if you are only collecting the pieces that you like, what do you plan to do after you’ve “completed” your current toy collecting “missions”? 

Do you go on to collect the next new toys that your favourite toy companies are going to release soon?  If this is so, where will you draw the line, considering that most of us have very limited display and storage space at home for our toy collections? 

And besides, many of us do not tend top pay much attention to each new toy that we acquire soon after they reach our homes.  Don’t you feel like you’re living like those ancient Chinese Emperors who had “accumulated” thousands of concubines whom he had only be in company with mostly once, before relegating them to “cold storage” when newer ones come along?  LOL!

I once asked a fellow My Little Pony collector here, (whom I have known for more than 10 years), on what are his plans after he’s done collecting the Nirvana variant 80’s ponies made in a certain country?  His reply was that he’ll move on to collect the Nirvana variant ponies made in another country.  The variant ponies that he’s collecting are basically of the same characters as the “normal” US versions.  But back in the 80s, some batches of ponies were not just made in Hong Kong and China, but also in Europe, India and South America.  

The variant ponies may differ in colors, symbols and quality of materials used.  Most of them are in the so called “incorrect” colors from the original pony characters mainly because of poor communication between the Hasbro head office back then, and the factories scattered across the globe.  But the ponies got made and now they have their pool of fans, like my friend here.

For me I started my toy hobby by collecting ToyBiz X-Men action figures in the 90’s, and I have “completed” collecting all the characters that I want.  Then with the availability of the internet and discovery of ebay, I went on to collect vintage 80’s My Little Pony, completing as many mini sets that I like as I could.  CurrentIy, I also collect ad-hoc toys related to popular movies that I get obsessed with temporarily, until “the next big thing” comes along to grab my attention and start the endless cycle all over again. 

So what about yourself?  What are your plans after you’ve “completed” your current toy sets?  If you collect only a handful of toylines, don’t you get tired of them by now?  If no, how do you stay interested in them for so long?  If yes, what has happened to those “cold storage” toys of yours by now?  Free to share your comments here!

For me, my dad is indifferent, or rather he prefers not to comment.  My mom on the other hand is more vocal about it.  She has very “traditional” thoughts that toys are merely “transitional” playthings for children, that even they must outgrow when they grow up.  To her, adults should not indulge in “kids” stuff anymore.  She also finds it a bit “embarrassing” that guests can see toys on display in our home, when there are no young children staying with us at all.

Even adults watching cartoons and any show that looks animated is abnormal to my mom.  But now she hardly says anything.  Perhaps she has given up on me, as her naggings in the past didn’t managed to change me.  After all, I’ve been officially collecting toys for about 15 years already.

My close friends know about my toy collecting hobby and being around my age, they are more understanding that everyone is entitled to like their respective hobbies.  My casual friends aren’t really that aware of my toy hobby, and I feel there’s no need to tell them about it.  

I guess the only thing that can make me indulge less in my toy hobby is when I get married and have my own children.  This new phase in life will likely shift my focus from my toys to my new family.  But will a new family life really “dilute” my toy hobby that I have engaged in for the past 15 years, which accounts for about half my life?  Only time will tell.

How about you?  Are you single, dating or married (with or without kids)?  Has your family life influenced your toy hobby in any ways?  How do you deal with it?  Feel free to share your comments here!