Collecting Transformers and Other Stuff: What a year!

TRYPTICON!!! Oh, yeah!!! Yep, the great international public have made the right decision on the Transformers Generations Titan figure after Fortress Maximus. With the Ghostbusters Firehouse, 2017 will be an exciting year for me. It seems likely we will get Scorponok and Omega at a later point but great that we're getting Trypticon first.

I've got a couple more Jedi, this time Pablo Jill and Coleman Trebor. Pablo is remarkably hard to find considering how recently he came out. He has great articulation and detail so I'm very happy with him. Just looking for Even Piell at a decent price now.

I've just received the original and prequel trilogies on DVD so I'm going to give the order Machete order (IV, V, II, III, VI) a go. I haven't seen any of them since about 2005 when I was off work for a couple of weeks, so none of the films are exactly fresh in my memory. Naturally I will exclude Episode I from this viewing, but I'll also re-watch it a later point. I will do a little review shortly!

I have also completed another lineup - Smash Bros. Amazon finally decided to ship Fox. Very happy to have the main cast, a little part of me is hoping for a Captain Falcon from the Nintendo 4" line though, so perhaps not quite there. Having Fox does make me think I should get Slippy and Falco! Actually what would be pretty damn sweet would be an in scale Arwing, I reckon they could probably make one within the 6" budget, but just hopeful thinking.

Some pictures of Sky Lynx have surfaced online, he's looking really good, I've always had a fondness for the character 'Superior forces are taking over!'.

Christmas has crept up on me again, I've got my preorder in for MP Ironhide and Ratchet as well as Takara Devastator. I've eaten as many mince pies as I can!

I feel it's been quite a year, I've actually managed to pay off my overdraft. I actually buy my toys according to a budget now. One major change has been moving from BBTS to UK retailers, and now that Amazon US ships internationally, it's a great way to get figures that are widely available in the US, but not the UK, at a good price. That you are charged import tax before it's shipped means you don't also get stung for a 'handling' fee.

Not getting charged over £150 tax every time I ship a pile of loot has made the world of difference. I always used that option because I thought that I would save money, but ultimately it never worked that way. This way I actually get my stuff sooner and I can prioritise what I want. Waiting sometimes can be good as it might just turn up at UK retail. Speaking of which, it's not been too bad this year, with the notable exception of the Stunticon Combiner Wars wave, I've bought almost all of my Marvel and Transformers toys at retail.

I've really enjoyed Combiner Wars, having great looking, not too complicated combiners with interchangeable limbs is great. The perfect antidote to complex third party efforts.

I've re-discovered my love of Star Wars this year, it's been great picking up all of the figures that I've wanted for a while. I don't regret selling my Star Wars Transformers and miniatures for a second! I've also discovered the Transformers MTMTE comics, I'm really glad I finally gave in. Having good transformers fiction really makes a difference to the hobby, it gives focus to my collecting, but somehow makes me feel more happy with being a geek.

My Transformers collecting has changed focus this year, I've worked out what I want from Masterpiece, which is basically my nostalgia for the G1 cartoon (whereas Classics is more about the comics), so it's mostly about the S1 Autobots (the only S3 stuff I saw was on video).

I've stopped collecting unofficial (third party) Transformers and I've moved my collection to a much smaller room, but I've created a cool little den for all my toys where hopefully I will appreciate and actually play with them a bit more.

I've actually decided to sell off all of my Fansproject figures, I've been collecting their stuff since 2008. This feels like a big change. I was there from the beginning - the Cliffjumper upgrade, the Ultra Magnus and Superion upgrade. Their first full figures in the Bruticus upgrade and Springer. I later bought Broadside, the Insecticons, Menasor, the Headmasters and Dinobots. So what happened?

I have to say, and I think I've been ignoring this ever since the beginning, I don't like their head sculpts. I think if all of my figures were Fansproject, then it would be fine, but I don't really see them as having a compatible style with official Classics figures. With the Cliffjumper set I sold it because I decided all of my minibots should be legends or scout sized. I sold the Ultra Magnus set because I replaced my Magnus with the official leader figure (I really never liked that headsculpt, it was very animated style, I only resisted because of great sentimental attachment to Classics voyager Magnus.

I sold Springer because I just didn't like it, I don't think I ever actually transformed it which probably didn't help, but I just don't like the way it looked. At one point though I was so rabid about 'completing' my Classics collection that I would have bought a yellow Sandstorm repaint. Luckily for me, an official figure was later announced for both. I sold Menasor because I wanted a set of figures that were scramble city style, each limb could attach to any of the central CW figures. Also he was an absolute bitch to transform, it just wasn't fun. I gambled on selling Bruticus, and luckily it again paid off as an official release was later confirmed. I kept Superion because I love those Energon figures, and the upgrade makes it better (it still uses the original combiner head though!).

Hasbro have released legends Shrapnel and Bombshell figures, if they had released Kickback I was all ready to sell the FP versions. They are good, but you know, the Insecticons aren't ninjas. I admire the way they tried to do something new, but I don't want new. Now Hasbro have shown off Hardhead and Skullcruncher, I immediately stopped buying FP headmasters (if I'd had the money I could easily have put in preorders). Recently I was thinking about my upcoming purchases, and that I should set aside £80 for Grimlock. And then it hit me, I really didn't want to. I'm paying ridiculously high prices for figures which basically are just placeholders. There were many things I was overlooking on the toys, Slag has a random red point on his tail, he irritated the crap out of me when I first transformed him. He has guy-liner! You know what figures make really good placeholders for G1 characters? G1 toys!!! I have every animal G1 transformer. Of all those figures I listed above, only Chomedome and Broadside do I have not have an official version of. So, they're all going to go, if I'm feeling particularly cynical, it's best to sell them now whilst they're still worth something. Hasbro has shown they are going to do characters we never though possible and once (if) they do get announced, FPs stuff is going to greatly drop in value.

In a previous blog I did say that I didn't think Hasbro would do the dinobots properly, I still think that, but I don't think FP have done them properly either. My G1 figures might just get another run of being on display.

So my only other third party stuff is Mastermind Creations Sixshot and Predaking, and Perfect Effect Fort Max. I think MMC are great, and I'm still considering their Overlord. Not so very long ago I was going to sell Fort Max, but since reading MTMTE he's really grown on me. I've also got several minibots and cassettes, but they fit in much more easily and crucially aren't worth much, so there's no great loss holding on to them until they do have official replacements.

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I actually decided to update my Perfect Effect Fortress Maximus with Reprolabels: