The Energon Pub

I think this subject most if not all of us can relate to. Perhaps some of you can recall doing this even in your youth. If your lucky maybe you don't do this anymore and I'm talking about having to hide that particular TF you found at the store that you really really wanted and couldn't get that moment. It's that one TF you refuse to leave without but you realize that your finances pose a big problem in taking it home.

Now you gotta find a place to hide your treasure and any place won't do. You almost feel like your trying to hide that pirate booty from all the other cutthroat pirates and it's gotta be buried deep. I think to myself always making a trip to the store where it was hid every day to check and see that it was still hidden and undisturbed. Sometimes I wasn't so lucky and they were found, put out on the floor again and sold. I remember sometimes it was more than 1 TF I had to stash even if there was soon to be more I wanted to be the few that had it first. The last time I did it was a few months back, I was at a TRU. I found the very illusive Habro MP Grimlock and I was so stoked! I knew they would never restock again and they didn't. So I picked it off the shelf and started to craft my location where to hide it and almost 2 weeks later I came back for it.

So do you recall which TF you had to hide till it was time to buy? Did it happen recently or long ago? Now if your like me and still doing it on occasions I'm not asking you give up and your secret spots. But that had to be one hell of a TF for you to have to hide it from the world till you could come back for it, all because you knew that it was the only thing to do.

I admit to hiding the three RiD Autobot brothers for 10 mins while I ran to the bank machine. This was before I had a credit card and the ability to take money out with my card. In retrospect, I was rather paranoid at someone taking them though there was probably 0 risk.

If I see anyone taking vast quantities of figs and hiding them around the store, I wait a few mins, then take them all back. I did that more than once and was praised by a stacker for my efforts.

Mkall wrote:If I see anyone taking vast quantities of figs and hiding them around the store, I wait a few mins, then take them all back. I did that more than once and was praised by a stacker for my efforts.

Now it's that kind of BS I totally despise and applaude you for! I would have done the same damn thing to that dude. It's even worse when they're heading to the check out with a half dozen of a certain fig leaving 0 behind. And I think they are either people who do business online or they own a shop those freakin' vultures....'nuff said!

Back when I was a kid and would get an allowance from my parents every few weeks, I used to be partial to hiding Transformers and other toys around Wal-Marts and Zellers. I used to hide some in rubbermaid plastic bins on higher shelves!

I don't know how I would have gotten all the Star Wars Action Fleet toys I wanted without my trickery lol!

The most I do now is shuffle them to the back of the Transformers display.

Haha, yeah I've hidden many TFs.

I used to do it quite a bit, but I don't seem to anymore. I guess it's because I don't wait like I used to...I just buy the darn thing!

I was under the impression that stashing things was a taboo of sorts among collectors?

Rodimus the Prime wrote:I was under the impression that stashing things was a taboo of sorts among collectors?

I believe it's a case by case basis. If you're buying 4 of a rare figure to pass on to collecting friends it's a good thing; if you're buying for just for yourself it's a bit of a dick move. Similarly if you're hiding a figure while you pop to the ATM or so that you can tell a friend about it and they can get it later that's fair enough. If you're stashing it so that you can get it next week, or just some time that you feel like in the future that's not cool.

Personally I grab a staff member and ask if they can hold it while I go get cash out.

LMAO..This topic brings back childhood memories! I dont do it much now, Im with Galvatron X on this one.. In the rare occasion I cant pick the figure Up I do find that taking it to Sporting goods and stashing it behind the ridiculously overpriced airsoft guns works quite nice.

I try to not buy more than I of any certain figure though..If I find some pushed to the back of the pegs that are the hot items I bring them up to the front of the pegs for the rest of us to find

Cant say Ive ever stashed anything for later, BUT I am aware of people doing this and intentionally search through the entire toy aisle for hidden treasures

I have found many of elusive figs this way, like...

Hasbro MP Grimlock
TFA leader Megatron

Rodimus the Prime wrote:I was under the impression that stashing things was a taboo of sorts among collectors?

QFT full stop.

I hide stuff and it doesn't bother me. I don't see it as wrong if I'm going to come back with my money to buy it.

I don't do it as much since I usually have the cash on hand to buy something here and there. Still, if I see something that I can hide temporarily, I will.

I even hide it for friends as well so they have a chance.

Layaway is also nice on occasion.

When I worked in a hardware store, I once had to tell a customer that we couldn't give him the sale price on a dehumidifier a day early, and he promptly stormed off and stashed it down the trash bins aisle, in a trash bin. So, my co-worker and I waited until he left the store, put the item back, and left a note in the trash bin. "Finders, keepers!" or something like that.

Childish, perhaps, but fun!

Personally, I've never hidden anything. I know my brother's friend used to do it all the time, but I just hope that the item will be there when I get back!

Autobot Strider wrote:So, my co-worker and I waited until he left the store, put the item back, and left a note in the trash bin. "Finders, keepers!" or something like that.

That's awesome!

robofreak wrote:I don't see it as wrong if I'm going to come back with my money to buy it.

I'm going to have to agree with this, damn good point.

If I can't afford to buy any I don't go looking!

I know what figures are coming out months before they do so I can plan my finances ahead. Also, I'm so fussy my TF budget doesn't get maxed out. My budget isn't anywhere near as big as some of the others around here so don't go thinking I'm rich!

I did it when I was younger. Now I just have money.

You had to stash an MP Grimlock? At the local TRU they had several of them collecting dust on the shelves so long that I started to mistake them for Tuner Mudflaps.

I don't stash. I'd be quite mad if I found out the reason I couldn't find a certain figure was someone before me had come along and stashed it, so do unto others, etc.

Keeping it in the same section, just moving it behind other less desirable TF's, that's okay, though. Not that I do it, but at least then if someone doesn't find it they just aren't trying hard enough.

I don't stash, I'm far to desperate. I call my wife, explain how owning this specific figure will improve our time on earth and ignore all the frowning normal people standing nearby.

[quote="Optimum Supreme"]You had to stash an MP Grimlock? At the local TRU they had several of them collecting dust on the shelves so long that I started to mistake them for Tuner Mudflaps.

It's true about Grimlock! I had basically given up considering always spotting the tags but no TF. Now I'm from "So Cal OC" and I checked all my local TRU regularly so it must have been nice they your TRU had as many Grimlock's as they did.

It would've been nice if I'd had $70 to spend on a single figure! I just can't justify that these days.