Absence

Some people may have noticed an absence of new posts on this blog.
For those who only know of this blog via adverts at the bottom of my YouTube video description, you will already know by way of uploaded video why I have not been posting anything.

On March 13th, I received news via my father that Mum had collapsed at work. The issue was a major bleed into the brain (otherwise known as a haemorrhagic stroke). A few days later, Mum had a second stroke and became unresponsive to external commands.

On March 26th in the early hours of the morning, Mum died in the hospital.

Needless to say, I am very upset at the loss of my Mum and further blog posts and YouTube videos are suspended until such a time I feel I can return to "normal"

REST IN PEACE MUM!

Masterpiece Transformers

Back in mid March, two more additions to the Masterpiece family were released in Japan - MP-23 Exhaust (a Decepticon repaint of MP-20 Wheeljack) and MP-24 Star Saber (the winner of the fan choice Masterpiece vote). Due to shipping issues as a result of multiple pre orders, I left my order to ship last and over the weekend the order finally arrived (along with a couple of extras)

Don't Smoke Kids!

First, MP-23 Exhaust.
This release caused many issues, with Takara having to re-do the decoration on the car a few times before release (leading to delays). With the clear reference in the decoration of the car to Marlboro cigarettes, the company behind Marlboro stepped in and threated lawsuits due to the design breaching copyright. As a result, many retailers where unable to secure stock through regular supply channels with Hasbro Hong Kong unable to stock this item. Thankfully I had no issues with my regular Japanese supplier.
Sadly, being an obscure repaint, this Masterpiece has no real place in the collection. Sure the Deception MP side is in desperate need of reinforcements, but there are so many other original characters to be done before looking at repainting a toy - however at the same time understand why it was done.

Second, MP-24 Star Saber
Winner of the Japanese only fan poll for the 30th Anniversary of Transformers in Japan, Star Saber is the leader of the Autobots in the Japanese only Victory series. Having not grown up with this character in my child hood, this Masterpiece release doesn't have some of the emotional impacts that 1984-1986 characters have when they are released. In saying that, the toy looks fantastic and since I did import two, I do plan on eventually opening one and adding it to the Masterpiece "shelf".

Joining the parcel, was the final Transformers Adventure toy I wanted, but was unable to secure a pre-order, TAV-07 Roadblock. Being a construction vehicle, he is of course given a Constructicon green colour. This is the first release of the Generations Scoop (as released in the USA) in Japan, and serves as a Decepticon filler for the Adventure toy line, given that no real toys for the Decepticons on the show exist yet.

Hot Wheels Porsche Series

Another day, another phone call from Toyworld advising of a new Hot Wheels shipment.
This time, a single case of the Porsche series that has been found in Europe and is due for release in June at Walmart stores in the USA.

Much like the Fast and Furious series, the Porsche series is a limited 8 car set and comes on 12 piece cases allowing for one complete set along with some doubles. With the Ferrari licence for 1/64 cars having been lost by Hot Wheels, I guess they decided to use some of their other licences for realistic cars, and I am very glad they did.

Sadly none of these cars have full detailing (some have front), so I didn't purchase any more to open

Hot Wheels Fast and Furious Cars

When it rains, it pours!
After purchasing the F and G case cars earlier in the week, I received another call from Toyworld to let me know that 3 boxes of Fast and Furious cars had arrived and 1 box was set aside for me.

"Rushing" down at lunch time, I spotted the rest of the cars on the pegs and was very surprised to see that the price of each Fast and Furious car was only $6. When the first sighting of F&F cars came through at the Farmers Department stores, they were priced at $7 each which was double the stores asking price of a regular mainline and well above the expected asking price of $5 that the similar Star Wars and Mustang 50th sets sold for in New Zealand. Conversations with Toyworld in seeing if they could secure the F&F cars lead me to believe that their asking price would be $7 each as well.

I opened the sealed case of 12 cars, took out a complete set (noting that each case of 12 holds a complete set, along with doubles of the first four cars) and then went to the pegs to pick up another couple of openers. With the 25% of all Hot Wheels in effect until the end of the school holidays and the cheaper than expected price I figured "why not" :-)

So glad that we got one of these sets locally.

Hot Wheels F and G case

Finally, 2 and a half months since the last release of D and E case, my area of New Zealand has received the G case, allowing me to catch up on a long list of wants from the F and G case. I've been talking to the staff at the local Toyworld most days in the run up to the Easter break and the school holidays, asking questions on what Hot Wheels are available to order, what they have ordered and expected arrival dates.

As the Easter break got closer, I learnt that Fast and Furious cars were coming, along with Star Wars Character Cars, Marvel cars and Marvel Character cars, Pop Culture as well as basic mainlines. I was also given a strong hint that all Hot Wheels cars were going to be on sale around the Easter break. With this information, I make sure I checked out the store every day at lunch time hoping that "today was the day", and thankfully as I walked in today I saw a familiar box sitting behind the counter.

The staff informed me that I was the first to go through the box (a GQQ box), and imediatly began to pull cars out of the case, setting many aside for purchase. 10 minutes later, I had a small pile of cars from the case set aside. Quickly dashing outside in order to get internet access, I checked my wanted list as well as to access my bank account to transfer money and went back to the store to pay for my purchases. While paying I talked to the manager about the Fast and the Furious cars, as well as asking if they had any word on the Porsche series since that had been spotted in the country - fingers crossed that these arrive next week.

On to the purchases!

This batch also had a few cars that had front lights and tail lights, so I purchased doubles of those cars to add to the loose collection. 

Fingers crossed that some of the other retailers in New Zealand stock more F and G cases to have a chance at the Super Treasure Hunts, and that it is not another 2 months between case assortments arriving. 

Maisto Price Increase

Back in early March I wrote about my single Maisto purchase, the Volkswagen R32. In that blog post, I included an image of the item sealed inside its box with a very large price tag from the store reading $7.99.

A few weeks ago, I was checking out the stock at my small local Warehouse store. In this store they Maisto on an end cap and received the same case assortment that every other Warehouse in my local area received. As I got closer, I noticed that all the price tags on the boxes were all smaller than the one on the above picture. Checking it out I almost fell over in shock - indeed, all the price tags had been changed and well, just take a look at this in store picture

Have you spotted the difference ....
That's right, all these Maistos now feature a new price tag, pricing them at $15NZ! Almost double the cost than what they sold few a few weeks earlier.

Thinking that someone had to be having a joke, or just wasn't paying attention at their job, I headed over to the price scanner to scan it and ...

OMG! They can't be serious, the new nationwide price of all Maisto Customs Shop have indeed gone up from $7.99NZ to $15NZ!

Needless to say I jumped on Facebook (sadly the most effective way for communication with these department stores) and alerted them to the price issue. Sadly I have not heard anything back.

So long Maisto in New Zealand, it was nice while it lasted.
RIP

More New Greenlight

Several long weeks ago, my local Toyworld got in a bunch of Greenlight. I purchased many cars on arrival day, but had to go back the next day and secure a few more by way of layby (known in the USA as layaway).

Over the next several weekends (including Friday and Monday), Toyworld had a sale off everything store wide and I asked various questions to the staff if there was anyway I could end my layby to get 20% off the Greenlight cars I had secured. Several different tactics were used but due to store policy I was unable to get any traction and resigned myself to having to pay full price for these Greenlights and cursing myself for being in a rush to secure the cars.

Walking into the store at lunchtime, I went to make another payment on the layby and made a comment to the manager who just happened to be at the counter about my inability to secure a discount. At that point she let me know that she had approved a discount on the layby and thought I had already taken advantage of her offer. As a result, rather than making a small payment off the layby, I paid it off and was able to take home my new toys.

The first car from the layby was a single car from Country Roads Series 12 that I missed in my first purchase run

On the more expensive side (which is why they were left for the layby purchase), are two sets from Greenlight Film Reels. Each Film Reel contains four cars from a motion picture, packed in foam which is housed inside a metal tin.

From Series 1, Smokey and the Bandit (I and II)

From Series 2, Gone in 60 Seconds (1974 and 2000)

In both cases, I already had one car from each tin (Trans-Am from Smokey and the Bandit II and Elenaor from Gone in 60 Seconds), but there were enough other cars in both sets that appealed to make the purchase worthy.