Slave IV

2 minutes ago, MKT said:

I think I got too greedy getting duplicates. Sometimes its just to overcompensate for the PO madness (yes scored another one!!), sometimes its over-ambition in wanting to display them in different modes, sometimes its just getting that plastic crack high lol.. but in reality, they have just been sitting in storage forever.

Can't wait to see the moducases set up! 

You just broke it down perfectly!

 Welcome to my life!😂

45 minutes ago, Anasazi37 said:

So is the lack of printed washers better or worse? I can't quite tell from your comment. Asking because I just ordered six of these stands and have both a filament and resin printer.

Much appreciated!  Now I have to either dig out my original adapters or track down STL files for replacements online that I can 3D print.

The lack of the washers is worse imo. The smooth acrylic has no buffer/friction between them without the washers so you need to tighten more to prevent slipping. Not a huge deal especially since the arms are thicker on Archi compared to Yeti but worth pointing out since I never noticed it mentioned before. If you plan on printing your own, it may be an issue with the length of the bolts provided so I’d say just don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine. 

Meanwhile, I finally got one of the Archi Stands
 

So far so good! Only thing is even though it came packed really well and has the typical acrylic protective film that you need to peel off, mine still had a scuff on the base.

Another difference from Yetistands is these don’t come with printed washers which really help with the connections feeling more secure as opposed to bare acrylic attached to each other. Either way, glad these exist because they put all other available stands to shame. 

1 minute ago, Anasazi37 said:

All of my adapters are packed away in their original boxes, which are in turn packed away where I can't easily get to them. The valks have been on FlightPose stands for many years, so there was no need to use the adapters and I don't remember what they all look like. Before taking several hours to dig them all out to check before buying a bunch of stands that cost $37-65 each, I was hoping others might have the adapters more readily available and/or have already put those valks on the stands and could answer the question. Sounds like Arcadia A might work for all of them.

That’s understandable. Yeah, my guess is Arcadia A will do it but yeah, I’d want to know for sure too. 

2 minutes ago, Anasazi37 said:

That helps--thank you. I plan to keep all of them in fighter mode. If you can let me know for sure, I would greatly appreciate it.

Could you just check the adapters with your Valks? The only ones I remember are a small rectangle version (Arcadia a) or the octagon version (Arcadia b). 

A full size acrylic arm for HMR could be overkill. I haven’t tried yet but it would be really cool if the stand arms from Tamashii stages or any other stand arm with that standard size could peg into the holes on the acrylic arms. I think some of the old Yeti stand bases had holes that fit like this too. 

Man, am I glad I never cared about any of my toys of anything matching. I'd rather have variations to make things look more interesting. That being said, I have every HMR release anyways so I guess I won't have a problem matching anything if I really wanted to.

2 hours ago, sh9000 said:

I have 2 spare HM VF-1S heads with 1 I think stiill going to @Slave IV.  Let me know.

Wow, thanks! I definitely still need it. 

41 minutes ago, Mommar said:

Everything about their prices seems too good to be true.

Note the shipping weight...this was a smaller item but I compared to HLJ's quotes for a similar item and these prices are still lower. I had a DX from sent from them with also very low shipping prices but those prices were from a couple years ago so I don't think they are worth comparing.

23 minutes ago, DewPoint said:

From my experience, my credit card rate is always better than PayPal's.

No doubt about it! Like I said, even if you have a card that charges foreign transaction fees, it's still going to be lower than what PayPay charges.

8 minutes ago, Mommar said:

What's their shipping like?

Seems on par or better than most places. Here is the last quote I got, which was last year:

Shipping weight 500g

FedEx International Priority 2,603 yen approx. 5 days
EMS 3,150yen approx. 4 to 12 days
UPS Worldwide Express Saver 3,453yen approx. 4 days
DHL Express Worldwide 3,589 yen approx. 5 days

35 minutes ago, Pontus said:

Thanks.  I had assumed that and thus didn't order because I don't have the money.  Btw, if you're paying with paypal, expect them to screw you over on the exchange rate.  I recently got a figure (non-macross) from Mandarake, and the current exchange rate was supposed to make it come out to $345 but Paypal said it came out to $363.  Read the fine print, and it says they can basically pad it out however they like.  Also, it seems that although we currently seem to be saving a good amount on the current exchange, it's made up for by exorbitant shipping costs, and DHL is no longer the cheapest.  I went to cancel that Mandarake order when it came back with 18k¥ for DHL shipping  and they wouldn't take paypal, but they came back offering to do paypal with only 11k¥ shipping EMS.

If you are letting PayPal do your conversions, you're doing it wrong. Get a CC that has no international fees (or even one with fees) and let them do the converting because they will give you the current actual rate. This has been discussed many times so just look into it.

11 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

Agreed. "Overpriced" is a subjective term, after all. I personally don't consider Arcadia to be overpriced for what I'm getting.

Yeah, I think they offer the best overall value for Macross still. You probably know better than most but I even think the PF are a great deal considering how long it takes to do those details yourself. The time it takes is worth more to me than they charge and they do a better job than I have patience for.  I personally just don’t care about those details much so I only get certain ones. 
 

But I also think most Macross toys from Arcadia and Bandai are a better value than most other toys out there in general. 

1 minute ago, Lolicon said:

Yup, prices for all toy lines have gone up across the board.

I think because there were so many clearance sales way back in Yamato's heyday and people got used to those sale prices that once Yamato went under (turns out their business model wasn't great for solvency) and Arcadia had to move to a business model that would allow them to actually stay afloat that a bunch of people decided Arcadia was way overpriced and wanted the pricing back from the Yamato days.

I like low prices as much as anyone. But I think Arcadia provides some great value still. 

The good thing is Arcadia seems to charge the same price as they did around 10 years ago so with the exchange rate and inflation, we are getting them for less today than they were then. Not as cheap as Yamato days but still not bad. I’m in for both if they do it. 

I wasn't paying attention before and didn't notice this had a shiny canopy. I like it!

10 minutes ago, MacrossMania said:

yea it was the perfect confluence of different cultural influences/phenomena - the skating scene coming to its peak, graffiti art finally being understood as real, high-borne art (i.e. Basquiat), and the magazine scene exploding with all of those great action shots that helped propel the skating scene.  I think all of it started to die in the nineties - over the top, carnivalesque colors, and lack of inspiration.  Much like the 90's redux of 80's properties like Tformers and GI Joe.

Did you ever see Dogtown and Z Boys?  Best skateboard documentary I've ever seen.   Really captures that time period.  Highly recommend it.  I think if you showed it to your son he would have a really good idea of where you're coming from. 

Well said. Yeah, I’ve seen it but my family hasn’t. They’ve watched a lot of skate videos though. Bones Brigade Search For Animal Chin and stuff like that to current videos. We’ll get to that movie again sometime but good reminder. Thanks!

10 minutes ago, MacrossMania said:

very cool.  I can't remember the deck I used.  Some of the ones I loved from the 80's below

 

I don't care what anybody says.  80's had the best designs ever.  Doesn't matter if it was toys or skateboards.

Agreed on the 80’s. The 1/55 Chunky still can’t be beat to this day as the greatest TOY (not just Valk) ever made. 

That Mcgill is my favorite all time Powell graphic. But these were my favorite overall boards from back in the day. 

1 hour ago, MacrossMania said:

saying that I skated is being dramatically generous.  I wouldn't go that far.  I bought a few boards and put them together old school 80's style, but left the real skating to my friends in West Hollywood (I'm an LA kid).  So yea, being from the West Coast I was definitely exposed to the culture (and loved it), but I would hardly call it skating.

Oh, haha gotcha! That's all good as long as you enjoyed it. 

Here's my old school style deck that I put together recently using a combination of old and new parts:

57 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

I'll still try and support...but it now seems apparent that when a retailer does happen to have a competitive price...it's only because they are just willing to make less profit on it....probably just to try and get some future business...

I don't collect much else beyond Macross...but are they doing the same thing with their other product lines that are allowed to be sold outside of Japan?  Same type of import markups?

Yeah, from what I’ve seen, most items are upcharged. There is a reason why I almost always buy anything from SOC, SHF, SHMA, and even other items like Transformers from Japanese retailers instead of domestically. 

12 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

It seems all the big HG/BW deal did was to legitimize the upcharge to overseas customers via "legit" sales at local retailers...there is no reason to support the WWM campaign locally if you can still just get your Macross direct from Japan for less...Bandai isn't even trying to hide the fact that they are selling above their own listed MSRP...

Totally agree. While I would like to support WWM by buying domestically, I'm not going to pay more for it so it defeats the purpose.

15 minutes ago, Pontus said:

Great idea!  As a DIYer, I'd go with an acrylic shadow box from a craft store and just stencil on the details I wanted, making it totally custom (which I'd want to do anyway instead of being restricted to Bandai's or whoever).  This one's only 3" deep, so not super far off the wall yet just enough to mount a valk.  Kinduv expensive tho.  Using a standard wood frame shadow box would be much cheaper, but not nearly as good looking or visible.

I love the look of this but like some of the other expensive cases out there, I can't bring myself to pay more for the display case than I did for what the case is displaying.