The Energon Pub

I have taken advantage of the Club's current summer sale to order a new Thrustinator and Unit-3 (only those two as they are presently the only ones I can afford of the ones I suspect to sell out by the sale's end). Once they arrive I shall cross them both off the list of unrecovered figures.

Two more down, still a long way to go.

This is terrible news Sabr. Part of it is hard to wrap my head around but I get that when family isinvolved you can get your guard down. It's terrible.

I dont collect botcon or TFClub stuff (yet), so I cant help you on the most part. However, for MP Grimlock, E-bay Seller Lena has him at times and its all bids so you can get him for the cheapest market price possible:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Transformers-Ma ... SwKfVXHYRe

And its not a KO, just extra unpackaged runs of the product.

Sabr - I'm so sorry to hear what happened to you. Good luck rebuilding your collection.

WJ - Have you ever bought anything from that Ebay seller? The prices are very attractive, but buying from a seller in China sounds scary. And the negative reviews, some for MP Grimlock (what I'm also interested in), don't help.

nycPrime wrote:Sabr - I'm so sorry to hear what happened to you. Good luck rebuilding your collection.

WJ - Have you ever bought anything from that Ebay seller? The prices are very attractive, but buying from a seller in China sounds scary. And the negative reviews, some for MP Grimlock (what I'm also interested in), don't help.

Yes, multiple times. He has an in at the factory where Hasbro stores the molds. And we know that since even if production for new toys is in Vietnam, toys made from older molds like TAV Dreadwing or Red Bumblebee or Hasbro Asia Grimlock are still made in china. There have been some flaws with the paint, I wont lie, but the general quality is the same. These are all made from the real molds, so these arent KOs. And e-bay/ paypal helps cover you if anything goes wrong.

Thanks for the education WJ! I find this incredibly fascinating. Are there any other sellers on ebay you know of that do this? Interested in seeing what other figures are available through this method.

nycPrime wrote:Thanks for the education WJ! I find this incredibly fascinating. Are there any other sellers on ebay you know of that do this? Interested in seeing what other figures are available through this method.

That's the only one I know. It was more fun when all the production was in China, you could get more stuff from Lena, like cloud shockwave, that was awesome. Hopefully sabr can pick up his new grimlock there.

Sabrblade wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:We may have some differences now and then but I feel the hurt within. Sure it's so easy to "replace stuff" (easier said than done and that they are material objects but I know what's it like to pour all the effort for the hunt with your hard earned cash only to have someone else destroy/ruin/pawn etc.

I'd be a hypocrite to say just forgive him when he didn't have any respect for you at all.

That being said, if some other pharmacologic substance scrambled his logic etc, it be best to cut off ties and keep him as faraway as possible. Change your home locks etc. The PC route of saying this is a disease (addiction) or you gonna replace your brother with something made of petroleum products? Those are living in lala land.

Don't bail him out.It will show signs of weakness. Many an individual tried helping their neighbor only to pay the ultimate price. They no longer are thinking straight. Forewarned is forearmed.

Believe me, he's not getting bailed out. The bail amount is too high for anyone he knows to want to pay it. He needs to be where he is right now and fully deserves it.

It wasn't a drug addiction he had, we believe it was a gambling problem. We suspect that every time he went over to the next town to sell more of my figures he would then go straight to the Hard Rock that lies just off the interstate between the two cities and spend the money there that he got for my figures.

He had little respect for me, my hobby, my property, etc. Forgiveness is not going to be easy.

Gambling addiction is a vile scourge on the world.
There was a guy just near I work the other day, I watched him for a while. He was pretending to be homeless and going into all the local shops and restaurants asking people for change. I was suspicious of him after I noticed a huge pile of copper coins in the doorway (I was sitting in the KFC at the time). If he was homeless why wouldn't he be grateful of *any* money even if he had to just pick it up off the ground? He looked well kempt, not clean shaven but, he'd clearly had recent access to an electric razor, it was a neat even stubble. Plus I travel through that street twice a day, and frequently give money to the homeless in the area. I didn't recognise him as among their number.

He approached me and asked for change. I said no. He pressed a little. I gave another no. He walked off to bother a family sitting nearby, who did oblige him. And then I noticed when he left the restaurant he dropped all the copper coins, and then walked over the road to the bookmakers, and piled all the silverware straight into the slot machine.

He must've spent a good hour walking back and forth harassing people for cash. Which is illegal for homeless people to do, so by pretending to be one, he was making them look worse by association.

I have no sympathy for that kind of person.

I looked through your list to see if I could help in any way. But I only have 1 of the figures.

I can't offer it up for free, but I can sell it for whatever you can afford, even if it's just enough to cover shipping. I'll hold onto it for as long as you need. (PM'd you)

I'm not gonna click on evry link, but bbts also has magnificus on sale/clearance, better act fast though:

http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/product.aspx?product=TOM10108&mode=retail

Ironhidensh wrote:Sabrblade, PM me your home address. I'm sending you a generations Rattrap. No charge, not even shipping. Might take a couple of weeks to get there, might not, not sure yet on time as I'm currently on vacation, and will be for the next week and a half.

What happened to you was pure ****, and just plain sucks. You deserve some kindness. Rattrap isn't much, but I hope he makes you feel better.

Your most generous donation arrived in the mail this morning. Many thanks for your kindness and assistance in my current endeavor to reacquire what I've lost.

My replacement Unit-3 and Thrustinator arrived in the mail this week. The latter has some very minor paint quibbles on its head, but after all this, I don't think seeking a better-painted version from the Club would really be the worth the trouble at this point. Though, the beast mode legs were misassembled upside-down, but popping them off and back on correctly was an easy fix.

And Unit-3's paint job is adequate enough.

Christ man, I'm really sorry to hear about yor loss, especially due to a family member's actions. You should see if you can get him judged in a Quintesson court.

As far as figures go, I'm afraid I can't offer you a whole lot. There is a store nearby that has a decent collection of BW and Unicron Trilogy figures. I'll also check around Craigslist, as there's usually quite a few on there in my area that go for pretty cheap.

Re-posting this question since I never got an answer:

Sabrblade wrote:Anyone here ever buy from ToyWiz before? How are they?

They have a few Timelines figures listed as In Stock, including the 2006 and the 2012 boxed sets (though the 2006 set is astronomically expensive--I paid $800 for mine).

Sabrblade wrote:Re-posting this question since I never got an answer:

Sabrblade wrote:Anyone here ever buy from ToyWiz before? How are they?

They have a few Timelines figures listed as In Stock, including the 2006 and the 2012 boxed sets (though the 2006 set is astronomically expensive--I paid $800 for mine).

I haven't myself, but I know people that have ordered from them. All have pretty much agreed that ToyWiz is pretty over-priced. They didn't say they had issues though with making and getting their orders, just they felt the price gouging made it unfavorable.

Tyrannacon wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Re-posting this question since I never got an answer:

Sabrblade wrote:Anyone here ever buy from ToyWiz before? How are they?

They have a few Timelines figures listed as In Stock, including the 2006 and the 2012 boxed sets (though the 2006 set is astronomically expensive--I paid $800 for mine).

I haven't myself, but I know people that have ordered from them. All have pretty much agreed that ToyWiz is pretty over-priced. They didn't say they had issues though with making and getting their orders, just they felt the price gouging made it unfavorable.

If overpriciness is their only issue then that's good for me, since at this point, I've little to no alternatives in finding another BotCon 2006 boxed set available for sale to replace the one I've lost.

The only other site I've seen one for sale on is this obscure Japanese website that I know nothing about.

Sabrblade wrote:

Tyrannacon wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Re-posting this question since I never got an answer:

Sabrblade wrote:Anyone here ever buy from ToyWiz before? How are they?

They have a few Timelines figures listed as In Stock, including the 2006 and the 2012 boxed sets (though the 2006 set is astronomically expensive--I paid $800 for mine).

I haven't myself, but I know people that have ordered from them. All have pretty much agreed that ToyWiz is pretty over-priced. They didn't say they had issues though with making and getting their orders, just they felt the price gouging made it unfavorable.

If overpriciness is their only issue then that's good for me, since at this point, I've little to no alternatives in finding another BotCon 2006 boxed set available for sale to replace the one I've lost.

The only other site I've seen one for sale on is this obscure Japanese website that I know nothing about.

Just want to know, who is that Omega Supreme like character? Tfwiki does not have the Dawn of Futures Past info or maybe I typed it wrong?

fenrir72 wrote:Just want to know, who is that Omega Supreme like character? Tfwiki does not have the Dawn of Futures Past info or maybe I typed it wrong?

Huh? What Omega Supreme-like character? Where do you see that?

Sabrblade wrote:

Tyrannacon wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Re-posting this question since I never got an answer:

Sabrblade wrote:Anyone here ever buy from ToyWiz before? How are they?

They have a few Timelines figures listed as In Stock, including the 2006 and the 2012 boxed sets (though the 2006 set is astronomically expensive--I paid $800 for mine).

I haven't myself, but I know people that have ordered from them. All have pretty much agreed that ToyWiz is pretty over-priced. They didn't say they had issues though with making and getting their orders, just they felt the price gouging made it unfavorable.

If overpriciness is their only issue then that's good for me, since at this point, I've little to no alternatives in finding another BotCon 2006 boxed set available for sale to replace the one I've lost.

The only other site I've seen one for sale on is this obscure Japanese website that I know nothing about.

Yeah, that's the only issue I'm aware of right now. I mean if this is the only place I could find it, I'd take the punch myself and roll with it.

Don't know about that Japanese site as I've never heard about it before.

Sabrblade, I do have a 2006 Classics Voyager Class Jetfire that I might consider parting with... I hadn't been planning on getting rid of him, but if I were to be honest, he's kind of been supplanted in my collection by the more recent Leader Class Jetfire.

He has been altered a bit, but nothing that can't be undone if you are so inclined. (Or maybe you'll like what I did? Who knows?) I added the Reprolabels set to him, along with some additional leftover stickers I had lying around from a Macross toy.





Anyway, if you're interested, PM me and perhaps we can come to some arrangement. And in any event, I wish you luck in your rebuilding. I couldn't imagine how I'd feel if I came home and found even parts of my collection gone, and I know for a retail figure even a few months old (never mind years old con exclusive ones!) it can sometimes be a bitch to find them for anything resembling a reasonable price. But stay with it, you'll get there!

william-james88 wrote:These are all made from the real molds, so these arent KOs.

That's... debatable. If it is a factory in China using the real molds to make extras on the side and sell them cheap without Hasbro's or Takara's consent (and, consequently, not paying HasTak for the use of the molds they own) it sure as hell isn't an official product. A factory produced knock-off is still a knock-off in my book.

Yotsuyasan wrote:Sabrblade, I do have a 2006 Classics Voyager Class Jetfire that I might consider parting with...

That was on the list of figures I DID recover.

Sabrblade wrote:

Yotsuyasan wrote:Sabrblade, I do have a 2006 Classics Voyager Class Jetfire that I might consider parting with...

That was on the list of figures I DID recover.

Oh, sorry. When skimming the list to see if there was anything I had that might be extra to me, I missed that there were in fact two separate lists. My bad! Glad you got him (and those others) back, and good luck in continuing to shrink the first list.

Yotsuyasan wrote:

william-james88 wrote:These are all made from the real molds, so these arent KOs.

That's... debatable. If it is a factory in China using the real molds to make extras on the side and sell them cheap without Hasbro's or Takara's consent (and, consequently, not paying HasTak for the use of the molds they own) it sure as hell isn't an official product. A factory produced knock-off is still a knock-off in my book.

But at least its debatable and not a sure fire KO And anyways, while I am assuming thats the case with the MP casettes (since they are selling a mountain of those things) I cant assume thats the case for all the toys (like TAV Dreadwing for instance).

william-james88 wrote:

Yotsuyasan wrote:

william-james88 wrote:These are all made from the real molds, so these arent KOs.

That's... debatable. If it is a factory in China using the real molds to make extras on the side and sell them cheap without Hasbro's or Takara's consent (and, consequently, not paying HasTak for the use of the molds they own) it sure as hell isn't an official product. A factory produced knock-off is still a knock-off in my book.

But at least its debatable and not a sure fire KO And anyways, while I am assuming thats the case with the MP casettes (since they are selling a mountain of those things) I cant assume thats the case for all the toys (like TAV Dreadwing for instance).

This is definitely a gray area. Personally, I'm only interested, and buying, official products. But I did take a chance on this MP not-exactly-official Grimlock. To me, it's official enough lol.

nycPrime wrote:
This is definitely a gray area. Personally, I'm only interested, and buying, official products. But I did take a chance on this MP not-exactly-official Grimlock. To me, it's official enough lol.

william-james88 wrote:

Yotsuyasan wrote:

william-james88 wrote:These are all made from the real molds, so these arent KOs.

That's... debatable.

But at least its debatable and not a sure fire KO

Well... to be fair, I was being kind in calling it debatable. It really does fall right in the definition of a knock-off. Even if it is being made in the original factory and with the original molds, they're not being made for and sold by Hasbro or Takara, who are the owner of the molds.

But hey, if you're comfy buying them, that's your business. We all have our own collecting standards.