My Dilmma Of Collecting Macross Toys

[darthmayhugh]

Im bored sitting here in my room messing around with my VF-1 toys I have been collecting since October of last year and I got to thinking. Damn these are all I ever wanted in a toy! They are Jets! they Transform! i mean come on they are cool! I have been wanting to get back into models and messed around building some gundams but they were just not doing it for me then I saw that Yamato had these build your own VF-1 No way AWESOME so i found two that were resonibaly priced 100$ each. They are very fund to build One of mine is done the other still a WIP. Well here is my Dilmma I cant find anymore! Since October I have spent around 2K on these things 8 VF-1's and one Super Strike armor and 3Flight Pose stands. The only other two i can find is the VF-1D on ebay its 250.00!!!!! and a VF-1S also on ebay 170.00!!!!!! I just have hit a brick wall and dont know what to do..........

[McFly!!]

Search on jungle and mandarake? Don't let it get you down, man. Sometimes taking a break during lulls in availability is good, too!

[spanner]

Hey darthmayhugh, You're not alone! many of us feel your pain.. I myself only just restarted my collection back in 2012 and even by then many Valkyrie, the VF-1 in particular were already becoming hard to find and when I did find something I wanted or needed it was often frighteningly expensive! But I persisted with it and managed to grow my collection to a now nearly 50 strong Valks! Not to mention the half dozen or so which are currently on pre-order and due later this year..

Its been a tough and extremely expensive road and I am still missing a few critically important variants which im hoping Arcadia will re-release but im not gonna hold my breath too much on that..

Im still searching for the elusive M&M pair, a few other DYRL variants and a whole lotta super & strike parts which I so stupidly put off wanting to get until now and paying the price for doing so..

As McFly already mentioned.. Jungle and Mandarake are your two best bets to begin with but you gotta check on those sites fairly regularly as the odd goodie does pop up every now and then!

But you gotta be quick as there are plenty of smokin guns out there looking for the very same things as you! The MWF sale thread is another good place to keep an eye out too.

Unfortunately like myself and many others you have come into the game a little too late as the Yamato Valks are out of production and long sold out. There are a few Arcadia re-issues but they too are still a very limited range and most though still nice are not so desirable or sort after.. I'd say Arcadia was purely testing the waters with those few.. You may be able to find an open VF-0D pre-order still available and I know you can still pre-order the VF-1J GBP set so they are worth a look at!

But don't let it get to you so much.. this is collecting and this is Macross!

[Knightdramon]

On one hand, Macross collecting is a blessing, but on the other, it's a curse.

Blessing because when you go past variants and whatnot, there's not much to collect. There's like less than 20 unique moulds [talking about the 1:60 line] even if you include the Bandai renewals.

There's a curse though because the market for these wildly fluctuates. Wildly. A few years ago there were massive discounts on pretty much all Macross items. Everything up to and including the VF19S were discounted at 60% or so. I got two super/strike parts for 3000 or so yen each. Pretty much the only items in the past few years that I bought for retail was the VF1S Max and the VF25S.

The VF17S has been on clearance since...forever. Like, 2011 or so. Yet now that it's out of stock, expect its prices to soar upwards easily.

It created a trend where everybody was waiting for clearance sales for most items. This backfired when Yamato caught on, and the VF19F, E, VF17D and so on were released in much fewer numbers.

And now there's this odd situation where Arcadia releases -one- very expensive item per year, easily available, and Bandai releases a lot which disappear within seconds. Bandai probably does not want to get caught with its pants down like Yamato did circa 2010 or so.

And now since Yamato could not make it even, Arcadia is upping the prices on all their macross collectibles as a countermeasure.

Tough times.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

You could buy the new transformers jetfire toy. He is a jet and he transforms. And he is even cooler than a valkyrie since he doesn't need an annoying fleshling human to pilot him since he is a living being.

Just put all the macross marking on him.

edit: don't put the gunpod under the nose peaugh! That looks stupid. It belongs on the fast pack to mimmic strike cannon. Much cooler that way..

Edited January 13, 2015 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[xrentonx]

Sacrilegious!

[wmkjr]

From what I read from the first post you're basically looking for the assembly kits? I'd say about 2 years ago you could find them for cheap but as you found out, they are harder and more expensive to get. Saw an VF-1D kit on yahoojapan for about $100. Dunno if it's still there though.

[mojacko]

Good thing I snag a 1D kit before they were still reasonable. But havent have the time to build it.

[chyll2]

if you are talking about the assembly kit, it was widely available during yamato days when they were actually still current. Some shops even have to discount them to move stocks.

imo, the best thing about the Yamato is the assembly kit since it allows a cheaper Valkyrie for those who can build models (it saves you the trouble of not seeing nub marks on a 100 dollar toy back then) or a lot easier to customize for veteran modellers.