collecting

#965: The Collector’s Disease

RECORD STORE TALES #965: The Collector’s Disease

There’s no question I have the disease of a collector.  It’s undisputed and quite obvious.  I like to have not just one of a thing, but many.  I couldn’t just start with one Kiss album, I had to get more.  The goal was to get them all.  Having one GI Joe figure wasn’t enough.  You had to have as many as you could afford.  It’s marketing genius that this common psychological flaw was exploited guilt-free for so long.  Where did it start with me?

Perhaps my collector’s nerve was first tickled by Lego.  The more you get, the better stuff you can make.  Every year, new pieces were introduced.  In 1978 they launched the “Space” theme of Lego.  Prior to that came the new “Technic” pieces.  Right as I was hitting the perfect age for creating things made of Lego, they upped their game in a way that completely meshed.  I remember getting quite a few Space sets and several Technic too, including one where you build an 8-cylinder engine.  All you needed were more pieces to fully realize your creative visions.

At the same time, Star Wars had hit theatres and we were starting to collect the action figures.  This planted a seed.  Cleverly, Kenner included pictures on the back of every figure package:  Each Star Wars figure, numbered in a checklist style.  This was cribbed from trading cards, like Topps — another Star Wars merchandising brand we tried to collect.  Something about a checklist is an itch that begs to be scratched by certain personality types.  Hasbro recycled the checklist gimmick with their in-pack Transformers catalogues in 1984.

As I’m happy to recount the tale, I discovered Kiss in 1985.  Their new album Asylum was out.  The next door neighbour George had a bunch of rock magazines, and one of them (perhaps Faces) had a big full page Kiss ad.  The famed “Accept No Imitations” Asylum ad.  Simple branding, like Coke or Pepsi.  The “real thing”.  They were really promoting the new Kiss in North America as the 20th in a series of records, including the four solo albums, two live albums, and Double Platinum.  Laid out in two rows at the bottom, checklist style, were all 19 of the previous album covers, including their release dates.

Like bells going off in my head, the collector’s itch needed to be scratched.

Gene Simmons is a lifelong comics reader, and he knew as well as anyone that Marvel had a monthly checklist near the back of each book.  He would have had many trading cards in his youth and was surely familiar with the concept of a checklist.  Whether that’s a connection or not, that Kiss ad really set off the fireworks in my brain.  I stared at it, studying each individual album cover, and the frequency of release.

I’ve detailed, many times, my process in first recording all the Kiss records from George or Bob.  The desire to have a complete set, buying as many as I could find while recording the rest.  The need to include the “forgotten” Kiss Killers album in the count.  I displayed all my tapes, either recorded or originals, in order by release date, just like the ad I had seen, except my taped collection numbered 22, including Killers and Animalize Live Uncensored.  Eventually in highschool (1987 precisely) I discarded the recorded copies and acquired a complete set on tape.  In the Record Store years, the process would repeat on remastered CD.

But wait….

While all of the above is the truth, and nothing but the truth, it is not the whole truth.  Kiss were not the first rock band I sought to “collect”.

Before I had that Kiss epiphany with the checklist, I can remember having a specific earlier conversation.  It would have been Easter of ’85, several months before the September release of Kiss Asylum.  My mom asked me what I wanted for Easter, and I told her “the new Quiet Riot” because “I want to have all their albums.”  I thought they only had two, and it would be an easy collection to complete.  But there it was:  the desire to have “all” of something.

Strange how the concept of collecting only latched onto me in some ways.  Atari games looked pretty on display in their coloured boxes, but we had no desire to get all the games.  Just the “good” ones.  Even with comic books.  I would buy issues of current books off the newstands, but did not go back to buy older issues, because they could get insanely expensive, and numbered in the hundreds.  Since comics always referred back to previous and concurrent issues, they really made you want to buy them all to get all the backstory.  But I didn’t — couldn’t.  This is exactly why Bob preferred only to buy limited series, like movie adaptations.  I guess my collector’s desires only extended as far as I could reach, in a monetary sense.

Today, musical artists exploit this common need to collect at lengths never before seen.  We’re still out there, trying to make it through an adult world, but now we have disposable income.  It used to be you’d want all the albums, and if you discovered single B-sides, you wanted those too.  Then it became the bonus tracks, the deluxe editions, the super deluxe editions, and all the different colours of vinyl you get for just about every release these days!  That’s how they get us.  Next thing you know, you just dropped a grand or two on a Gene Simmons Vault, or $800 on a Judas Priest box set.

And we go along with it, time and time again.  Once the itch has been scratched, and the soothing radiation of a complete collection rolls over you like waves…the itch inevitably returns.

And so it ends?  It never ends.

 

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#911: The Pros and Cons of Rediscovery

RECORD STORE TALES #911: The Pros and Cons of Rediscovery

Ever have an artist that you like listening to, but have neglected for many years?  It happens.  Maybe they appeal to you only when you’re in certain moods, or you have forgotten why you originally liked them.  Or perhaps the albums got buried in a corner and you forgot about them.  There are numerous reasons why any serious music fan might not have heard an artist they like in a long time.

Whatever your reasons are, I assume they are good ones.  When I neglect an artist for a long period of time, I blame it on the haphazard way I’ve ripped my CDs to my digital library.  An ongoing project due to the thousands of albums in the house (and more arriving every week), I have not done it alphabetically.  I tried doing it that way, but it was tremendously monotonous, so I resumed “ripping what I feel like” instead.  And if I didn’t feel like listening to somebody, I didn’t rip it, and often forgot about it.

I’ll give you an example:  Joe Satriani.  Recently I was in the mood to listen to all-instrumental music for a day.  I went to my Satriani folder and only found five discs inside.  I knew I had more, but for whatever reason, they never made it onto my hard drive.  I had guesses as to why.  They were albums I wasn’t as familiar with.  I obviously ripped the familiar stuff that I wanted to hear rather than the stuff I needed to spend time with and grow into.

“I forgot about this song,” I mumbled during “Up in the Sky” from Crystal Planet.  I remember buying that CD.  It was 1998 and I was living with T-Rev, and I was excited about new Satch.  I wanted to touch base with my instrumental roots that began when I bought Steve Vai’s Passion and Warfare back in the summer of 1990.  I also made sure we carried Satch in-store.  It sold well enough for us, but I remember being underwhelmed listening to it.  I couldn’t distinguish a lot of the songs, and I found it a bit overlong.  I guess I rarely revisited it for those reasons.

Getting out Crystal Planet again, I might not have been wrong, but there are some cool songs buried within.  The title track has a really cool rhythmic, metallic riff.  “House Full of Bullets” For ballads, “Love Thing” is pretty sweet.  There is good stuff here that I missed out on for a few years due to neglect.

Other artists that I have recently dove back into include Steve Vai and Jethro Tull.  Undeniably, two more challenging artists.  Their music is not designed for simplicity.  I’ve always found Vai’s Fire Garden difficult to digest.  A single disc, it was originally intended to be a double, but still contains the same music because Steve discovered it would all fit on a modern CD.  It’s dense.  As such, it never made it onto the hard drive.  Until now.  Same with Tull’s A Passion Play.

There’s a negative side to this rediscovery as well.

Upon playing these old Satriani, Tull and Vai albums once more, I started looking up their discographies.  Reading about the albums I had, and the ones I didn’t have.

“Oh!” I exclaimed.  “Satriani has a box of all his studio albums plus a bonus disc!”

“There’s a Thick As A Brick deluxe box now!”

“I still need to get an original vinyl Flex-Able Leftovers to get all the tracks!”

Don’t worry.  I didn’t order all that stuff.  The only purchase I made was an RSD reissue of Satriani’s first self-titled EP.  Original copies go for $500, but I found a reasonably priced RSD copy.  It was within budget so that’s on its way.  And that’s it.  I didn’t go hog wild.

Yet.

#705: Extra Hands

GETTING MORE TALE #705 Extra Hands

Today we discuss perhaps the most controversial subject ever broached on mikeladano.com.  In the past we have fearlessly tackled bands without original members, whiny fanboys, the far right, and the plight of natives.  Now we go where no one has dared.

Readers here may think that my sister Dr. Kathryn and I have lots in common.  We both love music, schnauzers, and Star Wars.  That’s everything, right?  You’d certainly think so.  We disagree more often than we agree.

Some spans are simply too far to bridge.  This is one of them.

Here is the controversy.  Don’t judge until you’ve heard us out.

My sister and I disagree, strongly, when action figures come packaged with extra hands.

Say what?  I’ll explain.

This issue first arose in 2012 when the Star Wars 6″ Black Series was launched.  This was a series aimed at collectors, packaged to display.  Many increased in value quickly.  Each character was numbered.  The larger size (standard Star Wars figures were 3 1/4″) enabled more detail, better facial sculpting and way more articulation.  Some of these figures look like the actual actors for the first time.  Though quite a few are less than perfect (#03 Luke Skywalker has weirdly bright blue eyes) they were, by and large, exactly what nostalgic fans wanted.  Eventually just about every major character was released (though we are still missing a Padme) with lots of the minor ones too (bounty hunters, Jabba’s minions).  Fans were peeved that it took until now to get an original Lando Calrissian figure, while we already had such dubious characters as “Constable Zuvio”, plus about a dozen Rey variations!  From Star Wars ’77 to Solo, most of your favourites are now available in the Black Series line.

The figure that sparked the controversy is #08, the excellent Han Solo in his 1977 getup:  Black vest, white shirt, cool holster and blaster!  The Black Series also occasionally threw in some bonus accessories.  #08 Han has some of the best.  He comes with his regular gun and holster, plus a Stormtrooper’s gun and belt so you can duplicate the look he had when he was running around the Death Star after escaping the trash compactor.  He also comes with an extra set of gloved hands, so you can have Han as he looked when he was fleeing TIE Fighters aboard the Millenium Falcon.  The hands snap in and out easily with no fear of breakage, still maintaining full wrist articulation.  One of the gloved hands has fingers outstretched, as if Han were hitting buttons on the Falcon’s dashboard.

So what’s the problem?

My sister likes to keep her figures sealed.  She displays them around her desk in her music room at home.  I, on the other hand, put my sealed figures in storage, and sometimes buy a second one to open up and display.  #08 Han is one such figure that I opened.  (My sealed one is in a Cantina two-pack with Greedo!)

I’ve displayed Han in all sorts of ways:  With and without vest, with and without Stormtrooper gear, and sometimes with the gloved hands.  Meanwhile my sister’s boxed figure gets quizzical looks when she has friends over.

“Why does Han have two dismembered hands in the box?”

My sister finds the hands to be an eyesore she’d rather do without.  For me, they are just another display option.  I’ll bag up whatever accessories Han isn’t using right now.  (Currently, my #08 Han is put away, while I have “Old Han” from The Force Awakens on display with Chewie.)

To me, a bigger offender is actually R2-D2.  R2 is loaded with accessories (which is good since he’s half the size of a regular figure but still the same price).  R2 is packed with a sensor scope, an antenna, and a Luke lightsaber that he packs in his dome.  There are also blue dome covers for when you want R2 all closed up looking normal.  But he also comes with jetpacks for his legs.  Many fans consider the “flying R2” scenes to be among the worst in the prequel trilogy.  I’d rather pretend it never happened.

“Those are stupid too,” says my sister of the leg rockets.

Han isn’t the only figure in the series with alternate body parts.  Qui-Gon Jinn has a bonus hand doing a Force movement.  Anakin Skywalker came with two heads so you can do him with two looks:  mopey or angry.  My sister considers all of these to be very poor display pieces.

I guess we will never agree on this issue.  I think the extra hands are a bonus.  If her friends can’t figure out that sometimes action figures come with alternate parts, then maybe she needs new friends.

 

 

Gallery: TFCon 2018

TFCon in Toronto has become another tradition of Sausagefest-scale epic-ness for me. Coming the weekend just after ‘Fest, it help blunts the withdrawal. Jay and I left Kitchener promptly at 8 am. We planned to buy the “early bird” passes that got us onto the dealer floor two hours before general admission. That’s what we did last year, though it’s not really necessary.

I hoped to pick up a specific Toronto exclusive: Maketoys’ “Maestro” (a third party version of Generation 2 Jazz complete with deco), and that was first mission accomplished ($140 from The Chosen Prime). Its lovely clamshell packaging is an homage to its 1993 “G2” counterpart. There was no line for this particular exclusive, and they had lots left by the time we departed around noon.

Maketoys Maestro (aka G2 Jazz)

As usual we had a great time, but with a couple gripes. Last year the early admission came with a shaving kit and a bottle of water — this year nothing! (I’m only partially griping, but I heard two other guys having the exact same conversation as us. And just like us, “I still haven’t used that shaving kit.”)

Our other complaint were the people with the fucking backpacks.  Everybody under the age of 30 seemed to be sporting backpacks of varying practicality, but weren’t seeming to be buying things to put in the backpacks.  Just as bad:  the people in stupid outfits that had nothing to do with Transformers.  We saw some witches and some things that were probably anime references, and a few people sporting swords.  There was only one Bumblebee, one Prime, and one Ratchet.  Optimus Prime’s dad was dressed as Sparkplug Witwicky.

Beast Wars Megatron and Sparkplug Witwicky

To us a lot of people seemed to be there to be “seen” rather than be there for the awesome Transformers.  90% of the floor space is dedicated to collectable robots that turn into stuff.  Know what kind of event you’re going to, people!

Bitching aside, we both did well.

Jay bought the cool hologram-looking lights seen in the video above, one each for his two boys. You can hear the creator discuss pricing in the video. Jay also got a great price on a black Encore reissue of G1 Ironhide, just $20.

Jay’s best score:  he picked up Fanshobby “Megatooth” (third party G1 Repugnus), a figure I had been eyeing myself. It has chromed plastic mandibles and claws, which is considered a premium finish for figure collectors.

Fanshobby Megatooth (far right)

A look at my purchases below:

  • Takara Masterpiece MP-15/16-E Cassettebots vs. Cassettetrons.  Compatible with MP Soundwave in cassette modes.
  • KFC Kingzilla (third party MP G1 Snapdragon) with headmaster and triple-changing.
  • Fanstoys Spindrift (third party MP G1 Seaspray)
  • Maketoys Maestro (third party MP G2 Jazz)
  • Hasbro Hun-grrrr, which completes the set I only began last Friday at the beginning of Sausagefest!  Hun-Grrr becomes the torso of the combining Terrorcons, forming the evil Abominus.

Check out some of the cool sights below.  In this gallery:  prototypes of figures yet to come, and some customs as well.

And finally, some of the best of the cool stuff for sale.

Jay knows how to do this stuff.  I saw him negotiate $20 on a red B.A.P.E. Optimus Prime, and it was done with…art, really.  There was an art to it and both guys were happy with the outcome.

With us, we do TFCon right.  We won’t make you dodge our backpacks.  We’re smart about it.  When we buy a couple large items, we take them to the truck and go back in.  It’s a Transformers convention, not a campout.  And I sure as fuck wouldn’t dress up as a Jedi if I’m going to TFCon.

But whatever!  It was fun as these photos show.  Can’t wait for next summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

#578: TFCon 2017

GETTING MORE TALE #578: TFCon 2017

Hold onto your scraplets, I have literally a shat-ton of photos from Toronto TFCon 2017!

I’ve never been to TFCon before.  Buddy Jason has been trying to get me to go for years.  This is the first time the planets aligned and I went with Jay with two goals:

  1. Pick out a gift for myself from my mother-in-law (who is awesome that way).
  2. Pick out something smaller for myself.

Jay picked me up around 7:00 am and we hit the road.  We discussed strategies and vendors and I quickly realized that this was going to be epic.

I’ll let the massive photo gallery here speak for itself.  For official and third party figures, I have never seen anything like it before.

The goodie bag you get for paying your $35 entrance fee was kind of crap.  It had some flavoured water and a Schick razor.  The TFCon bag itself will get more use than the Schick.

One of the coolest figures was the Con exclusive from OcularMax. Diaclone Paris Dakar Rally Terraegis is a mouthful, but it’s the yellow truck in the gallery below. Look at the detailed deco. Those aren’t stickers!

They also had prototypes of forthcoming third party figures.  One of these was the giant FansToys Omega Supreme (mentioned earlier here).  Another was a really sharp looking pair of jets for a new Masterpiece Aerialbots set.

The items I purchased were:

  1. Takara Titans Return Wheelie from the fine folks at TF Source! – $25 Canadian.  A real winner.
  2. Transformers Collectors Club Impactor – $120 Canadian.  Cheapest I’ve seen.
  3. Third party company FansToys Phoenix – an homage to G1 Skyfire in Masterpiece scale.  From The Chosen Prime.

I just found a new annual pilgrimage.  Thanks Jay — can’t wait for next year!

 

#570: Third Party

By request of J from Resurrection Songs.  If you are familiar with the concept of bootleg CDs, then the idea of third party toys should be easy to assimilate.  For the purpose of this story, I’m going to be speaking only about third party Transformers toys, as they are the only ones in my collection.

GETTING MORE TALE #570: Third Party

What is a third party toy?  Simply put, it is an unauthorized toy designed to look like another toy, without infringing on any copyrights.  Third party toys are big business today.  These independently produced collectibles have limited runs and when they’re out, eBay prices can be prohibitive.  One of the reasons the prices get so high is that third party toys often exceed the quality of the official ones.  They cater to hard core fans looking for specific features and homages.  Stuff that officially produced toys ignore in favour of mass production, safety features and mass appeal.

Third party toys are not to be confused with “KO” or knock-offs.  KO toys originating from China or Korea are complete reproductions of official toys.  Therefore, you can buy a KO of the original Optimus Prime from 1984.  It will come in a KO of the original box with a KO sticker sheet and instructions too.  It’ll be made of die cast and plastic just like the original, and these toys are getting better all the time.  It used to be they would be made with cheap plastic and fall apart immediately.  That happened to me, when I ordered a KO of 1985’s Devastator figure.  First time out of the box, and one of the figures broke.  One part was too tight, the other part was too fragile, and snap.  They are of much higher quality now, and the bonus is that you can get a “brand new” toy of something you always wanted but never had.

To make matters a little more confusing, there are now even KOs of third party figures, and a current popular trend is oversized KOs.  The theory is that bigger is better!  The waters are murky indeed!

There is a certain amount of caution and “buyer beware” to be exercised with third party toys.  Especially with new startup companies, the quality and design can leave a lot to be desired.  One company, Keith’s Fantasy Club (KFC) had early products that were beyond shite.  They initially focused on cassette-bots:  robots that transformed into microcassettes.  I bought one that fell apart out of the box.  Now KFC have worked out the bugs and produce some of the heaviest, highest quality third party toys on the market.  I recently received their “Opticlones”, an original toy based on Transformers Generation 1 Reflector.  This is a set of three robots that combine into a camera.  He has a lot of metal, intricate transformation and dead-on accurate looks to the original cartoon character.  The figure is in “MP” or Masterpiece scale.  He is designed to fit right in with the official Masterpiece Megatron, Optimus Prime, Soundwave and the rest of the line.  Often, third party toys will be designed to interact with the official ones.  Reflector comes with a little miniature version of his camera self that can be held by the official Soundwave.

The early days of third party toys was like the wild wild west, you really had to do your research.  Fortunately, Youtube reviewers like Peaugh made some decisions easy.  A company called Fansproject put out a two-figure add-on kit to go with the official Revenge of the Fallen Bruticus figure, a combiner made of five robots.  Fansproject’s kit flat-out replaced two of the robots with much better ones.  It improved the overall figure greatly by supplying new hands, feet and guns.  Ingeniously, all the numerous accessories had a part in play in all three modes:  robots, vehicles, and combined robot.  Each part was perfectly integrated, and significantly boosted the firepower of the toy.

Bruticus before and after

This was wish fulfillment for fans!  The intricate parts were above and beyond the official Hasbro versions.  There was a new head too, with neck articulation.  Guns could combine into larger guns, parts unfolded into missile launchers…it was great stuff and Fansproject have consistently been on the top of the heap.

One of the reasons companies like Fansproject have lasted so long is that they continually cater to the demands of fans who feel the official products are missing something.  For just about every major Hasbro and Takara release, there is an add-on kit available from a third party company.  New heads are common, because fans are picky enough to want their figure to look like a specific iteration.  Transformers have a 33 year history and characters have undergone many versions.

Often there are multiple third party add-on kits to choose from.  Dr. Wu is one that I have bought from frequently.  Dr. Wu tends to focus on small add-ons, like guns and additional weapons that are missing from the official toy.  If Hasbro and Takara could only release toys that fulfill wishes from the fans from the start, third party companies like Dr. Wu wouldn’t be necessary.  Either due to cost or a desire to have toys less “weaponized”, Hasbro and Takara often omit weapons and accessories that the characters have traditionally wielded.  Enter Dr. Wu and a slew of others.

Even the sticker company Reprolabels/Toyhax have entered the weapons black market.  Reprolabels/Toyhax used to focus strictly on stickers, either to restore or enhance your Transformers.  Now they are including plastic weapons that, once again, Hasbro and Takara have omitted from classic characters.  Toyhax were the only major third party sticker company on the market, and now they’ve gone even further by adding solid add-ons too.  Any serious Transformers fan should visit and make at least one purchase from Toyhax.

Maketoys’ Battle Tanker is a kit to provide weapons and a trailer for Hasbro’s G2 Prime figure, as well as new waist and head.

Similar to add-on kits are upgrade kits.  These require partial disassembly of  your figure to outright replace major components.  This is often done to add articulation, especially in the hands.  Beelzeboss is a third party that sells a very complex kit for the official Combiner Wars Optimus Prime figure.  It’s a hairy process, involving tiny screws, pulling out small metal pins, and replacing entire waist and leg pieces in exchange for new ones.  The upgrade adds height and completely changes the appearance of Prime.  If you’re up to the task, it looks incredible.  Other upgrades are simpler.  A lot of modern Transformers have ball joints and it’s easy to pop off a head and replace it with a third party one that has light-up eyes.

At this point, there are now so many quality third party companies out there fighting for our dollars, that choosing one version to go with can be daunting.  KFC doesn’t have the only version of an MP-scale Reflector out there.  Another fine company called Fans Toys also have one.  Ultimately I preferred KFC’s version of the camera mode, which tipped the scales.  For other characters, especially combiners made of multiple robots, there are many versions, most great.  Choosing one might depend on which one is biggest, or fits in better with your collection.  Youtube reviews are essential.  Benscollectibles is one of the best.  Emgo316 “The freakin’ geek himself”, Peaugh, Balmatrix, Optibotimus, and many more can be counted on for their prompt and thorough reviews.  Another benefit to these reviews is to master the transformation process.  These companies are based out of Asia, and the instructions have no English.  You have to rely on sometimes vague pictures.  Some third party toys are so complex that, like a Rubik’s cube, it’s easy to just give up in frustration.  Maketoys’ Wardog (aka G1 Warpath) is the most difficult toy I own.  These guys will guide you through transforming it.

You might ask yourself, “What if there is a quality issue?  What do I do?”  Most of these companies are very good about providing replacement pieces.  X-Transbots Apollyon is their version of a Masterpiece Megatron.  The heavy battery-powered fusion cannon on his right arm is quite heavy, and the right arm droops.  It won’t hold up.  So X-Transbots provided a tighter replacement piece for the shoulder ball joint.  It’s easy to install, and they began including these replacement shoulders right in the box.  This is one example.

Apollyon on dispaly with official, third party and knock-offs.  Can you tell?

Where can you get third party toys?  Online of course, but I am lucky enough to have a store in town that sells them.  B&K Collectibles in Cambridge is my go-to guy dealer.  If Big Dan doesn’t have it, Big Bad Toy Store and TF Source will.  Now, there are even crowdfunded third party toys!  My buddy Jason just received his Ocular Max Kojin project, one such crowdfunded toy.  There were incentives offered including discounts and free bonus figures, and I regret not jumping on board myself.  (I didn’t because I was waiting for the official Takara version, and now…well, that might have been a mistake.)

Ocular Max Kojin

My biggest third party purchase is happening this summer.  A favourite company, Fans Toys, is releasing their massive version of as Masterpiece scale G1 Omega Supreme.  It is called Aegis Sentinel and is so huge that it is being sold in two separate parts.  Sentinel A is the tank and track component, and it will be available in June.  Sentinel B is out in August, and will have the rocket and base components.  Together, Aegis Sentinel will combine into a 21 1/2″ robot behemoth.   This is a beast that will look amazing in proper scale with Optimus Prime and cohorts.  The official Prime is already a large figure at 9″.  It’s going to be quite cool to have the giant Autobot in proper scale with Optimus!

Then all I have to do is slap some Autobot logo stickers on him, courtesy of Toyhax.  Hasbro/Takara will never release a full sized Masterpiece Omega Supreme figure.  Fortunately the fearless Fans Toys will.  Based on their Iron Dibots line, I know that my Omega will be heavy, strong and very impressive looking.

If you’d like to know more, check out the Youtube reviews of some of the fine folks above, and browse the third party section of Big Bad Toy Store or TF Source.  Even if you never buy a third party transforming robot, you have to admit they’re pretty damn nifty.

Aegis Sentinel and the Iron Dibots by Fans Toys

 

 

#569: Webb Surfing

GETTING MORE TALE #569:  Webb Surfing

Some readers are young enough to never have known a time without the internet.  Half my lifetime ago, in 1997, the World Wide Web was was a luxury that few had regular access to.  Tom, T-Rev and myself were eager to check out what the web had to offer to a bunch of music geeks.  We visited an internet cafe in downtown Kitchener, paid a couple bucks, and searched.  Remember Webcrawler?

T-Rev was trying to find rare releases by Steve Earle, and another country rocker named Webb Wilder.  Trevor owned his album Doo Dad and wanted to see what Wilder had been up to since.  He found a plethora of releases listed on some now-defunct website.  He also confirmed the existence of Steve Earle’s very rare debut EP, Pink and Black.  Thus the Pink and Black EP became one of T-Rev’s first “Holy Grail” must-haves.  Meanwhile, I was exploring previously unseen Deep Purple live albums and compilations.

Together we decided we should join forces and order some impossible-to-find CDs that we knew were out there, but lacked access to.  Tom had a friend who had the internet at home:  British Phil.  What luck!  One winter evening we ventured to British Phil’s house and gathered around a small computer monitor in the basement.  CDNow was the best online retailer for music.  We took turns browsing and deciding.  The only one who didn’t order anything was British Phil.  Trevor bought Webb Wilder’s Town and Country.  I can’t remember what Tom would have chosen, but I remember mine well:  Deep Purple’s Stormbringer.  It was $30.  I had it on cassette, but I was dying to get a CD copy.

British Phil and LeBrain

We pooled our goodies into one order and used my credit card.  A week or two later, we each had some new music to enjoy.  Our test run went smooth without a hitch.  Having proven that ordering music online was safe and easy, the door had opened to hundreds upon hundreds of purchases over the years.  Now, it’s simply second nature.

I need some new tunes and have a $25 Amazon gift card to burn.  I think I’m going to place an online order right now!

Gallery: “Holy sh*t, jackpot” #3: C-3P0 Gold Arm edition

Action figures are like CDs. You can go and buy the “standard edition” at Walmart, or what have you. But if you want all the extra goodies, sometimes you have to hunt a little more and buy a few extra versions.

Toys such as my beloved Star Wars Black Series 6″ series have plenty of exclusives, some that I have and some that I want. The most elusive are the San Diego Comic-Con toys. Some exclusives: Jabba the Hut came with a cardboard throne and accessories. Their Boba Fett came with Han Solo in carbonite. But they are mucho pricey. Elsewhere down the money scale are toys that are exclusive to certain stores and online outlets.

Walgreens is a store that doesn’t exist in Canada and often gets exclusive Star Wars figures. Their most well known is the “prototype” all-white Boba Fett based on an original 1978 Ralph McQuarrie concept sketch. Their current Star Wars treasure is a C-3P0 variation with two gold arms and one silver leg.

The “standard” version of Threepio has the red arm seen in The Force Awakens. This “Resistance Base” Threepio is the common one. Since C-3P0 doesn’t come with any accessories (not even a restraining bolt or com-link), fans hoped he would come with alternate limbs, so you could recreate his look in Episode IV. Hasbro had a different plan. Instead they made the different limbed robots exclusives to Walgreens. I have been looking for one.  (There is also a version with a darker red arm, but it doesn’t look as good as these.)

Our neighbors went to Toronto Comic-Con yesterday and found the Walgreens silver leg Threepio for me. It was only $40 — a lot cheaper than ordering one online. Thanks guys!!

#504: Waiting

Note:  This tale is from 1996 and does not reflect current tech.

GETTING MORE TALE #504: Waiting

The store that I managed for the longest period of time was opened in April of 1996.  The format was 95% used stock, about 5% new.  It was fun being a part of the cutting edge in retail.

When we opened that store, we were inundated by customers who had never heard of us before.  Every day for months, somebody would wander in who had never been in one of our stores before.  It was cool.  We were different, and we wanted people to know it.  We were eager to promote our special features and strengths, such as our listening stations and reservation lists.

The reservation list caused a lot of confusion among new customers.

Here’s how it worked.  Let’s say you’re looking for a CD that is hard to find used – Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  That one was expensive brand new.  Usually it ran for about $33.99.  Customers would much rather pay less, so they put themselves on our waiting list.  At the time we opened, the waiting lists were for that store only.  We didn’t have the ability to share our waiting lists with other branches yet.  This was still a massive improvement over the old system:  a notebook with phone numbers and titles written in it.  (There were lots of names and numbers with the title “any Beatles”.)

The list operated on a first-come, first-served basis.  If you were the very first customer to put their name in for The Wall back in April ’96, then you would get dibs on the very first used copy that came in.  If you were second, you’d get the next shot at it, and so on and so forth.  What seemed to confuse my early customers the most was “Where do these used CDs actually come from?”

There was no magical land of used CDs.  There was no massive warehouse from which to pick and choose copies of The Wall in various conditions.  There was no place from which to order used CD stock like you could with new.  If there was a Used CD Magic Wonderland, then it was in your basement, because the only way we received our stock in those days was via the customer.  If a customer came in and traded a great condition copy of The Wall, then congratulations – the first person on the waiting list received the first call.

On down the list we went.  If the first person no longer wanted The Wall (a frequent occurrence) then we’d go down the list to the second person.  We would phone each customer and give them a week to pick up their CD.  Unfortunately most customers who no longer wanted the CD never bothered to tell us, so it would sit there for a whole week before we could put it back in the hopper.  We wiped out our entire waiting list for Last of the Mohicans (Soundtrack) with just one copy, because none of the reserved customers wanted it anymore.  There were five names on that list, and then suddenly none!

So: reserve a CD, and we would let you know when one was traded in.  This doesn’t seem like it should be hard to understand, but apparently for some it was.

One upset customer came in about two weeks after reserving a rare CD.  “Is it in yet?”

I checked.  “No, it’s not in stock, but since you have a reserve for it, we’ll call you when it does show up.”

“When’s that going to be?” he asked.

“Hard to say,” I responded, trying to answer his question.  “Whenever someone trades one in, which could be tomorrow or it could be next year.”

Then he bellowed, “What do I have to do to get this thing to come in?!”

Sometimes, I just didn’t know what else to say.

“You don’t have to do anything,” I said, not sure how to explain this further.  “Somebody will get tired of their copy, or just need the money.  If they sell it to me, you’ll get a phone call right away.”  Then, feeling a little snarky, I added, “Unless you know somebody with a copy that you can talk into trading it in to us.”

There was actually one nearly-surefire way to guarantee a used CD would come into stock.  T-Rev discovered this, inadvertently.  Somehow, any time either of us bought a new CD that we’d been hunting for, suddenly a used copy would show up in store.  Sometimes on the same day.  This happened more than once!  I was there when it happened with a Primus CD he was looking for.  (Wish I could remember which one.)  It was eerie.

Everything has changed today, obviously, and now you have access to the world’s inventory from your PC.  It’s hard to imagine there was once a time when you (gasp!) had to actually wait to find a used copy of The Wall!

WALL

#477: “Holy sh*t, jackpot, holy sh*t, jackpot…”

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GETTING MORE TALE #477:  “Holy shit, jackpot, holy shit, jackpot…”

Collectors know the feeling.  You walk into a store, and saunter over to a favourite section.  Upon spying a gold mine of things you had been looking for, the euphoric feeling hits you just a shot of adrenaline straight in the heart.

“Holy shit! Jackpot…”

Whether you collect music, movies, books, toys, hockey cards or Kiss stuff (they being a whole category of their own), we have all experienced the feelings.  Finding a mother lode of treasures can be such a ride of emotions!  The excitement when you see it all.  The dread when you feel your thin wallet.  The pain of picking out the things you can afford.  The second-guessing and flip-flopping over what to actually get.  The sorrow of having to choose something to leave behind.

This has been happening to me for decades.  Having broad tastes and interests plus a healthy case of OCD will do that to you.  Over 20 years ago, my love for my childhood favourites the Transformers was re-ignited by such a jackpot.  While browsing junk at a church garage sale with my buddy Peter, I ran into a large pile of Marvel Transformers comics.  Most of these were from near the end of the series (issues #50-80), and long after I stopped collecting Transformers.  I couldn’t just leave them there!  Who knows where they would wind up then?  I had to rescue them.

At 50 cents each, this hardly broke the bank, but all the same feelings arose:  The excitement upon spying these comics, the picking out of the ones I needed, the angst of leaving some behind (even though I didn’t really need them).  And it kick-started a stunted adulthood that quickly reverted back to youth, a place I’m still stuck today.

IMG_20160319_105213Today, whenever I spot a stack of Japanese imports at a store (as I did last month as Vertigo Records in Ottawa), the adrenaline hits.

If I spy a pile of 90’s Metallica singles, the same thing happens.

A collection of rare 80’s Canadian metal records?  Same thing again.

But I still collect toys and comics too, and this same experience just happened to me at a local Walmart store.

The Star Wars Black Series 6” action figures have been hard to find.  There are always “shelf warmer” characters that nobody wants, and in 2015 that was poor Finn.  Other figures have been impossible to spot at retail.  Whenever a shipment arrives, people snap them all up and often end up re-selling them on eBay for more than double what they’re worth.  It’s not cool but that’s what happens.  I’m sure the store staff know all the eBayers  by heart, because they the know when the shipments arrive and are there when the store opens.

Cases are also “short-packed”, meaning a box of eight figures might have three Finns, but only one Kylo Ren.

A couple weeks ago, I was at a small Walmart store at Stanley Park Mall in Kitchener.  Interestingly enough, this is the same mall at which the very first Record Store in the chain that I worked opened.  My dad worked at that mall (at a bank), and I worked there twice (at a grocery store and finally at the Record Store).  It’s a pretty shitty mall and the shittiest Walmart around, but sometimes you can find real treasures at the out-of-the-way ones.

Even though this is a sucky Walmart, I still found a Star Wars 6” New Order Flametrooper there a few weeks earlier, so I knew that figures could be had there.  What I did not expect this time were FOUR more figures I needed, and some of the hardest to get:  “Old” Han (the most popular), Captain Phasma (very hard to find), Jango Fett with removable helmet and jetpack, and Finn in Stormtrooper gear!  Most of these are going for stupid money online, so to find them in store was quite an exciting surprise.

I frantically sifted through the row of figures, animatedly pulling out all the ones I needed, and singing out loud “Holy shit, jackpot, holy shit, jackpot, holy shit, jackpot…”

That’s when I noticed the stock guy staring at me.  I spied several boxes of figures that he was unloading and opening.  Did he figure me to be one of the eBayers?  Maybe, maybe not, but I then saw two more employees stocking the toy shelves, giving me glances.  I’m sure they all heard my “Holy shit, jackpot” song and dance.   I smiled and ran away.

That haul cost me $100, but it was worth it!  And I still love the rush of discovery.

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