Fwoosh has 6″ Public Enemies and Webstor first looks

August 18, 2009 | Poe

supesbats1

The well-connected folks at Fwoosh have posted first looks of Mattel’s 6″ Public Enemies and Webstor. First off, Fwoosh–and I think I speak for all toy collectors, but particularly those of us who wile away our time writing blogs about toys and secretly but arrogantly think we deserve some sort of compensation for all the free publicity and yet are ignored like–wait, where the hell was I going with this? Oh yeah, Fwoosh: you go to hell. You go to hell and you die for getting all these weeks-early free samples to taunt us with.

There, now I feel better. Moving on… (more…)

Show and Tell > Man-Hero and Skulldar

August 18, 2009 | Poe

by Justin Gammon

Maybe you’re like me, and you’ve been hearing a lot lately about the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline (seems like most of the news is coming from this blog 😉

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I haven’t been a huge follower of the newly-released toyline (mainly because of the prices), but it’s my impression that Mattel is gouging the living hell out of MOTU fans, and making it a pain in the ass to get the limited edition figures they want.

Recently, Mattel has unveiled its collector’s membership where you can sign up on Matty Collector’s site to be guaranteed a figure when it’s released. That’s a big improvement, but it’ll still cost ya $260 plus shipping on 13 figures. Luckily, the figures they unveiled at SDCC were so cool and badass, everyone forgot about all their belly-aching and decided to sign up (myself included. I really didn’t wanna miss Moss Man).

So, what’s my point with all this? Well, I say screw it. It’s great that Mattel is revisiting our childhoods with the MOTUC toyline, but they know we will do whatever it takes to get these toys, because we are crazed fans with a disposable income.

Howabout we switch it up a bit. Maybe show Matty Collector who’s boss. Instead of reliving our expensive childhoods through Mattel, let’s relive a cheap childhood we never had (most of us anyway). Behold. MOTUB: Masters of the Universe Bootlegs.

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(more…)

Happy Tri-Klops Day

August 17, 2009 | Poe

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Unfortunately, today is not the end of the Red Screen of Doom for those of us who subscribed, as there are no doubt bonus figures, Battle Cats and stands in our future. But at least I’ll get September off.

Ask Mattel > Mid-August Edition

August 17, 2009 | Poe

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Before we begin the Tri-Klops Day festivities, here’s my mid-August bout–er, round of Q&As with Mattel. –PG

DC Universe

1.) Emerald asks: Can we now be assured that the remaining Matty JLU 4-packs (Shazam, Doom Patrol, and Justice Guild) will in fact be released, and if so, what are the approximate release dates?

Yes, both Doom Patrol and Justice Guild will be coming out, but we do not have release dates yet. The future of the JLU line on MattyCollector.com will depend on sales of these remaining packs. (more…)

Site updates

August 17, 2009 | Poe

Just a couple quick notes about the website this morning. OB1 and I implemented a few changes over the weekend, and I wanted to point them out.

1.) The “Latest Toy News” has now become a “Toy Reviews Feed.” It’s a compromise between trying to put together regular Fanmode-style collections of reviews and not posting links to reviews at all. Using Yahoo Pipes, I took a bunch of websites that post toy reviews and created an RSS feed that lists any post with the word “Review” in the title. So you can either browse the most recent five here on the site, or subscribe to the link to get a constantly-updated list of toy reviews.

2.) I’ve also added a small Google calendar widget. This will list major toy-related events, from Mattycollector sale days to conventions. I’ll be adding to it constantly, so if you see something missing just let me know.

3.) As you may have noticed, comments now have a little arrow at the bottom. By clicking on that arrow, you can reply to that comment. Your reply will contain a link to the comment you’re replying to, plus the Poester’s name.

The effect of inflation on action figure prices

August 14, 2009 | Poe

He-Man.org member Mermisto has written up an interesting post examining inflation and it’s relation to the action figure industry. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do but never got around to it, and I think Mermisto did a better job anyway because he had access to the old Sears Wish Book catalogs.

I’m not going to blockquote what he wrote (it’ll screw up the page after the “Read More”). His post starts with the quotations.

“When the MOTUC series was first announced, I thought the $20 price tag was a little much for an action figure, but since I have been collecting vintage toys over the past decade, I am used to paying over $20 a piece for dolls and action figures anyways, so it did not bother me too much.

However, I was recently curious as to how expensive the toys I grew up with really were. I know a lot of times nowadays I tend to look at prices at Target and Wal-Mart with vintage goggles on, as I remember back to the 1980’s when I could get She-Ra or Catra for $6.99 at K-Mart back in 1985.

So, using a handy price inflation converter, I looked up all the prices in my vintage Sears Wish Books, and converted them into current prices. (I rounded the current prices to the nearest dollar, or five dollar increments if they were over $20.)

1985

Toy / Original Price / Price If Sold Today

Castle Grayskull / 29.99 / 59.99
Snake Mountain / 44. 99 / 89.99
Night Stalker / 8.99 / 17.99
Spydor / 24.99 / 49.99
Bashasaurus / 13.99 / 29.99
Fright Zone / 28.99 / 59.99
Hordak / 5.49 / 10.99
Thunder Punch He-Man / 6.99 / 13.99
Modulok / 7.99 / 15.99
Land Shark / 11.99 / 24.99
Crystal Castle / 32.99 / 69.99
She-Ra / 6.99 / 13.99
Enchanta Swan / 17.99 / 34.99
She-Ra with Swift Wind / 14.99 / 29.99
(more…)

Mattycollector to refund “tax” on international collectors

August 14, 2009 | Poe

I know a number of fans were concerned about the $3 tax that they received with their Mattycollector subscription orders. Mattycollector has posted this on their website:

Oops!

Lots of you have asked and we’ve finally gotten to the bottom of the $3 tax on international customers who purchased the Club Eterniaâ„¢ subscription for 2010. Turns out it was a tax coding error on our part. My team has identified how the error happened and is processing refunds to all customers who were mistakenly charged. You should see it on your statement within the next two to three weeks

Sincere apologies for all the confusion.

—Matty