MKT

Sadly high aftermarket prices don't seem to affect how well reissues do, as far as Arcadia releases go. We've seen how the VF-1Js Milia + Max, and the VE-1 turned out, and Arcadia themselves are probably scratching their heads on this too. On contrary, YF-19 appear to be their most successful mold. The prices never really went to strato levels right from their first release, but they appear to be doing well enough on each re-issue.

Even the reissue 31AX Hayate's in plastic, rather than the styrofoam of the first issue release.

Lol hand grenade it is.. I put it into this pose & left it as it is forever. Around the same time I had the 1/72 VF-25S Armored on PO, but cancelled it soon after putting this Zeta together. It would be quite some time before I touched another RG kit as I thought all RGs were like this Zeta.

Very first model kit built back in the day.. Up till that point, always thought model kit needed glue & paint like in even older days, so was pretty stoked that it can look like a decent toy with a straight build out of the box. I got the Zeta because it could transform, but once it was built, that was when I learned model kits are not toys and the idea to transform it was quickly abandoned lol.

Outside the 1/55 chunkies, 1/48 Yammies still have lots of charm & relevance today despite the various newer VF-1 releases after it.

Is Prime1 = Pose+?

It’s past 6 hours and counting, and still available at Amiami. This must be a record for any Macross Chogokin lol, even for a WWM. Yeah I guess at this stage folks likely adopting a wait and see approach on what other improvements Bandai gonna implement.

No prizes in guessing what the CF would be named when it gets reissued lol.. it will give PTSD

Ok after 2 days, KC have fixed their listing error. It's properly showing $152.99 now. Edit: Actually, not so much they fixed it. It is just the flash sale of $190 was over, and now it went back to the 'default' $152.99 price they mistakenly put earlier LOL.

Still up at Amiami after an hour.. tables have really turned lol. Seeing the results of WWM now

And wow still up at Amiami after 6 minutes..

Situation is reversed now lol.. HLJ did add the 10% for quite some time when others didn’t.

Noted date and time.. Amiami eschewed the recent practice of PO on following day morning, and reverted to same day for this, although an hour later than the rest (5pm JST).

Wow the knee joint is really a big mess of a design.. That said, I can't seem to find much info on exploding knees on the other 171 releases. Did Bandai change the internal knee design of these other releases? Maybe not, as Alto's actually came out before the CF, so the most likely culprit would be bad materials in the CF knee joint just like its shoulder triangles. The other 171s, despite the problematic design, probably have sufficient toughness on the parts to not explode even if the knees are incorrectly rotated. Ok found one of his posts.. Of the total 12 units CF, 9 units have breakage mainly from triangles and knee joints. That pushes the failure total to 3 out of 4. This is a valk that suffered the combination of being the most fiddly Chogokin to transform, I think even more so than the 262, and horrendous QC lol.. But still gotta love the teal and angular cockpit design, at least for me. The 31AX arm cannons is a non-issue now in comparison lol

I'm reminded of the old 171 tread, where someone on these boards procured quite a number of the teal CF 171s - I believe close to 20 units in total and reported the number of exploding black triangles on transformation. Failure rate was pretty abysmal, with something like about 70%? Those are some really bad odds.. Still, the triangles durability issue should be more likely to have been solved than not, since the 2 releases after the teal CF had no problems on this front unless Bandai have selective amnesia and decides to Bandai us again. I'm now thinking the wing peg issue may not be an issue even if they retained the old design, since the wing with hardpoints should already installed out of the box and there would be no reason to take them off at all (except for clear coat, panel lining customizing works etc) So the biggest question mark would be the exploding knee joints, and I'm not too sure about this, but does it affect all releases and not just the CF 171? And it's something about, from Battroid to Fighter, not rotating the legs in the reverse direction as Fighter into Battroid? My RVF-171 was the only 171 I had ever put into Battroid, but it never went back into Fighter, so I have not encountered this problem yet.

A KO MPM Prime, with a 3rd party Annular Trailer that's mostly finished in chrome.. This was back when I heard chrome finishing could be a bit iffy on plastic and may heavily discolor over couple of short years. But after many years the chrome still looks about as good as the day I got it.

I want to like the B2 Fives, but because of it there seem to be more old CM's becoming more available these days on secondary market and I'm more partial to those despite its flaws.

I'm quoting @Chronocidal here on HMR vs 1/60s "if they have half the calories, I can eat twice as many, right?"

Yeahh seems to be a listing error. In their FB page, they state it as $152 as well. Now is really a good time as any to get a full Vermillion team despite the mold's flaws. Get 3 valks for the price of 1 Threezero!

Wow really great work, and looks to be worth all the time spent.

Yamato has never made a VF-171, or any valks from Frontier. Perhaps you are thinking of Yamato's VF-17 from Macross 7? This Bandai VF-171 is unofficially 1/60, and yes it is WWM. Looking at the announced Yen pricing, I'm casually speculating that it will be circa USD300 when US stores starts their PO in about a week or two. I thought it would be an easy answer for me, ie matte finish, but at some level I do like glossy finish. The teal CF VF-171 is one which looks great as it is:

I think that was the speculation when the Chogokin VF-31J & VF-1J first came out, even when it was starting to be documented that the older matte-finished YF-30 were no better at yellowing resistance than the glossy ones. But after some years and many Chogokin releases later, the matte finish does absolute nuts to stave off yellowing compared to the glossy ones. It's just Bandai's plastic formulation.

^^ Very nice... I've got a confession. I didn't much like the Arcadia VF-0D in earlier days of collecting, compared to the 0S/0A. I thought delta wing on the VF-0 body look strange, and Battroid just seems dysfunctional with those huge wings hanging off the back and blocking movement of the legs. Gradually, I came around and got to like its uniqueness, and now with this HMR VF-0D, Battroid-wise it looks miles better than the HMR VF-0S. I think partly it's because of the shorter wings option, and we are seeing more of it in dynamic poses that we don't see the Arcadia's in (likely due to lack of stand for the Arcadia).

It sounds like when there are successful deals in Greece it must feel like one hit a mini jackpot? haha.. Over at elsewhere online, many have reminisced how fun it was to pull out some forgotten toy off the back of a dark shelf, obscured over by layers of newer toys in shops run by a usually disorganized owner. That has only happened to me once, but what a feeling it was lol. These stores are long gone, as razor margins from online competition made sure this very type of laidback stores unsustainable and only ones that are run by owners who stay right on top of things & their inventory continue to stay afloat. Still, good deals can sometimes be found at online second hand stores, for eg Mandarake. I've noticed, the Shibuya store almost always have the highest price when it comes to Macross items. However, couple or so smaller Mandarake stores sometimes miss updating themselves on the prices of older, more obscure Macross items and when fresh stock of these do come in, they price them based on their last sold price that could be years ago lol.

Picking up cheap valks or a grail or two significantly below current value really feeds into the joy of the hunt. Sadly when I think back, it seems to be harder to come by these kinds of deals these days.