well, today because of a little prick at a retail store i lucked out and scored an unpunched VTC Darth Maul.

Just goes to show you that the most sought after figures in each wave are either snatched by in store employees or by friends of in-store employees which just burns me to no end.

Here is the story which basically proves my theory!

I went to the a local store today (zellers) since it pay day on a gut feeling. I was hoping to find some good figure and lo and behold they had replenished the vintage peg with phantom menace toys. I looked at what was on the peg and always hoping to find a darth maul since he is the star of that wave but did not see any. but as i looked around in the mess of the shelf, i saw what seemed like a darth maul figure, i reached out and struck gold. I was hidden but not properly and unpunched. So as i i said you can clearly see that it was put there intentionally by someone working for the store. There is no way that figure should not have ended up on the peg but by strange luck i foiled the plan of a little prick who thought he would score and i scored instead!

woohoo, score one for the collector!

When I've come across upunched cards it's usually where there is no peg space left & the figures are left strewn over boxed ships etc. where they can slip down behind them. From my experience when staff grab the rare figures to sell on eBay they take them straight from the packing cases before they go onto the shop floor. I agree it can be very frustrating when saff do this as it can take several visits just to acquire one ellusive figure.

yes this makes collecting a pain. I never been able to get a Boba Fett from the original wave because:

A: kenner made him super rare

B: the store staff and their connections got their greedy paws on them first.

C: retails store ignorance about the waves and what they contain

D: Hasbro not doing a proper job at educating retail chains ( other than the exclusive ones ) as to what they are putting out and in what order.

I blame Hasbro a little bit for this since their distribution system is horrible and now the waves are coming a little too fast for my taste. Mind you i like them doing more and more vintage toys but this tsunami of toys does not give the retailers the chance to order them properly. 99% of the stores have no clue as to what is happening with the star wars toys so they order in an staggered way which makes collecting harder like i said. The only wave that was succesfull at retailers around my part of the world is the phantom menace because it was tied in with the movie re-release so stores knew in advance about the toys, other than that i am sure they are as baffled as clueless Joe to see new toys pop up all the time.

That is one of the reason why I'm not that into collecting modern SW figures anymore. Gone are the days when the action figures were released in sync and spaced out according to the movie releases in the vintage era. Nowadays is anything goes and the DAMNED short supply nonsense - one figure per case - is very much prevalent in SW figures released by Hasbro.

Yeah Ahsoka Tano CW44 from Clone Wars where a real bitch to find.
And lol yes I did score a couple that where dug in at the back of all standing figures, even behind the old ones that had been there for weeks.
So someone had put them in the back. It's why I always check whats behind the rest. So far I have found 4 Ahsoka here. 2 hidden and two put on front which I grabbed at once.

Most of my Ahsoka come from ebay though. Hasbro did a Wizards of the Coast I think. They started that galactic battle game that you could use the figures for and I guess by looking at the most successful trading card game Magic, where they intentionally make some cards very rare by low release rate, Hasbro picked up on that and some figures get hard to get. The result here isn't like Magic the Gathering because the staff can see what it is, unlike trading cards where noone knows whats in the packages. So when working in a store as a collector and opening these boxes would be like christmas every week. Ofc they would snatch what they want. I would probably do the same lol.

I like that they made some rare though. It makes me more happy to own the figure when I finally get it.

Thats the only way they can make the things worth money, one per case. Everybody knows you wont go on a Euro vacation by selling modern stuff.

I love how everyone thinks theres a conspiracy by the "pricks" who work at the stores. Most of the folks who work at the big box stores aren't collectors and could care less what the hell they are putting on the pegs. They're like you and I. They want to collect a paycheque and go home.

As for stores being clueless about what each of your presious waves contains. Pull your head outta your butts guys. Big stores don't give a fiddlers crap what combinations of figures they get in as long as they sell them. Do you really think they care about the average collector??? If you think they do you're really clueless.

Just my 2 cents.

kisstour03 wrote:

I love how everyone thinks theres a conspiracy by the "pricks" who work at the stores. Most of the folks who work at the big box stores aren't collectors and could care less what the hell they are putting on the pegs. They're like you and I. They want to collect a paycheque and go home.

As for stores being clueless about what each of your presious waves contains. Pull your head outta your butts guys. Big stores don't give a fiddlers crap what combinations of figures they get in as long as they sell them. Do you really think they care about the average collector??? If you think they do you're really clueless.

Just my 2 cents.

That depends on who works in the store. When tbc for WoW where released, yes I used to play. The store here only got 50ex. Now thats very little compared to how many wanted the expansion. So a buddy who worked there put a side 2 for us. So at same day as release we had our expansions. I can very well imagine that the more popular and harder to get figures are requested by friends to the staff.

The point was I think you guys put a little too much credit to your "Big Conspiracy". It does happen don't get me wrong. But I don't think it's as wide spread as you guys seem to think it is.

I didnt get the same impression as you. More like it happen. Really large stores might have rules but around here working at even the largest stores does have benefits.

just to add that you are seeing more and more unpunched new vintage cards on ebay so were do these all come from?

only 2 sources i can think of, store people who cherry pick the cards they know will be valuable or people who order cases and then try to resell the cards at profit.

but i am inclined to say that the cherry pickers exists more than we may think, people are more aware nowadays of the toys and more exposed to them, it would rather seem silly that a teen working at the local walmart would not know anything at all about star wars so you know they know something about this.

3 of my Ahsokas where bought from people who bought them in the stores. I even went to other cities trying to find them before I eventually payed 3 times what they sell for in stores. These people told me that they where looking through stores to find them then sell them at ebay. Very damn annoying to not only compete against collectors and children lol but also people systematically hunting these to earn some bucks on ebay.

If they worked at the stores or knew people working there I don't know. But they sure knew if they where rare or not.