Bandai DX Chogokin 1/48 VF-1

[Anasazi37]

13 hours ago, Slave IV said:

 

Yeah, I'm not worried about it at all. I've always used ferry whenever it's into the two digit mark of savings and it almost always is for larger items like Valks. Doesn't take very long for that to add up to a lot of money when you buy as many toys from Japan as I do. It seems like my post office and whatever process it takes before it gets to them has been working out for me because my packages are either always pristine inside or at the worst, I've seen slight wrinkles in corners that could have happened anywhere, with any shipping including before it was even shipped.

Seems like I'm the MW member taking one for the team when it comes to ferry shipments....Glad to hear that it's worked well for you and @jenius. Your consistent drum beat of "ferry works" is one of the main reasons why I tried it again after so many years. That didn't turn out well. On balance it's cost me more money than other methods, sadly. Will I consider using it again for bigger items that can take a serious beating, especially if there's a large savings? Probably. Like you guys, I'm not obsessed with pristine boxes for toys. I'm always pleasantly surprised when a valk shows up without some level of corner/edge damage on the box, which, as you point out, is hard to directly attribute to any one specific leg of the shipping process.

[sh9000]

I always use cheapest shipping and the majority of the time that ends up being ferry shipping.  None of my items have ever arrived damaged either.

[LRS]

Does Bandai ever upgrade or change their products in between production  runs?

[slide]

15 hours ago, DYRL VF-1S said:

I want everything and I want it now.

7 hours ago, sqidd said:

This = me^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[DYRL VF-1S]

7 hours ago, sqidd said:

This = me^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

37 minutes ago, slide said:

Yessss  

[Slave IV]

3 hours ago, Anasazi37 said:

Seems like I'm the MW member taking one for the team when it comes to ferry shipments....Glad to hear that it's worked well for you and @jenius. Your consistent drum beat of "ferry works" is one of the main reasons why I tried it again after so many years. That didn't turn out well. On balance it's cost me more money than other methods, sadly. Will I consider using it again for bigger items that can take a serious beating, especially if there's a large savings? Probably. Like you guys, I'm not obsessed with pristine boxes for toys. I'm always pleasantly surprised when a valk shows up without some level of corner/edge damage on the box, which, as you point out, is hard to directly attribute to any one specific leg of the shipping process.

Sorry to hear I contributed to some trouble for you. We are just all sharing our experience so YMMV. If you get packages in bad condition regardless of method, I suspect it has to do with your local post office. I think it all depends on location and what your package has to go through to get to you. I live on the west coast so my guess is my packages have minimal amount of handling and to get to me. 

[DYRL VF-1S]

39 minutes ago, DYRL VF-1S said:

 

Yessss  

And then when the next PO madness is announced, I’ll promptly relate to this:

 

[Anasazi37]

3 hours ago, Slave IV said:

Sorry to hear I contributed to some trouble for you. We are just all sharing our experience so YMMV. If you get packages in bad condition regardless of method, I suspect it has to do with your local post office. I think it all depends on location and what your package has to go through to get to you. I live on the west coast so my guess is my packages have minimal amount of handling and to get to me. 

Everything else shows up in good shape except ferry, thankfully. Not that the truck trip between California and New Mexico is risk-free, but it's usually pretty safe. If everything showed up in bad shape, I'd definitely suspect my local post office. I think all of their staff know *exactly* who I am (that guy who orders a bunch of stuff from Japan). Turns out that one of them is a huge anime fan, so he's always asking about my packages and seems to give them some TLC (I have to pick all of them up because I'm out in the country). Makes the trip to the post office a little more enjoyable. And I'm definitely glad that we're all sharing our experiences. For folks who ship stuff from Japan infrequently, or have never done it before, it's valuable info.

[Slave IV]

57 minutes ago, Anasazi37 said:

Everything else shows up in good shape except ferry, thankfully. Not that the truck trip between California and New Mexico is risk-free, but it's usually pretty safe. If everything showed up in bad shape, I'd definitely suspect my local post office. I think all of their staff know *exactly* who I am (that guy who orders a bunch of stuff from Japan). Turns out that one of them is a huge anime fan, so he's always asking about my packages and seems to give them some TLC (I have to pick all of them up because I'm out in the country). Makes the trip to the post office a little more enjoyable. And I'm definitely glad that we're all sharing our experiences. For folks who ship stuff from Japan infrequently, or have never done it before, it's valuable info.

If all your ferry shipments are consistently in worse shape, I’d probably go with another method too. I’m not crazy about having to have flawless packaging but I definitely prefer it to getting banged up packages. Most importantly is the toy inside but I’m a collector that keeps everything including packaging so I want it all in as good condition as possible. 

[vladykins]

On 4/15/2020 at 7:36 PM, sqidd said:

 If the video was done pre brute force pegging (don't Google that)

 

Definitely got me lolling here on a Sunday morning.

[jenius]

On 4/18/2020 at 9:41 AM, LRS said:

Does Bandai ever upgrade or change their products in between production  runs?

Yes, I'm sure there are lots of examples but this one immediately sprang to mind on the YF-29:

Edited April 19, 2020 by jenius

[505thAirborne]

Part 1 & 2. The guy has some serious skills! 

 

[Saburo]

[borgified]

Double Strike Cannons for @Shizuka the Cat's OCD right there!  

[Slave IV]

2 hours ago, Saburo said:

That looks badass!

[LRS]

7 hours ago, Saburo said:

I always imagined that dual strike cannons are reserved for the baddest badass who doesn't need to rely on a cloud of missiles to take down pods. A sharpshooter. 

 

 

[borgified]

The last available copy of DX VF-1s Hikaru (for now) is now 30k yen (Nakano branch)

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1136039527&ref=list&keyword=マクロス&lang=en

Only time will tell if Hikaru's 1s gets restocked.  

Edit: As of 9:54 am PST, April 21st; there's one for 28k yen and other for 32k yen as well. It's still available at the above link. 

Edited April 21, 2020 by borgified

[Saburo]

Another angle of the Double Strike Valkyrie

[seti88]

dammit. 

[DYRL VF-1S]

33 minutes ago, seti88 said:

dammit. 

What are we damning? I’m in.

[Bolt]

Lol

[seti88]

1 hour ago, DYRL VF-1S said:

What are we damning? I’m in.

double dipping or octadipping SSP's if you want a full double Strike Pack squadron. 

if this is a game of poker, this is where i fold hahaha...and no, not a time to throw in the keys to the falcon as ante.

Edited April 22, 2020 by seti88

[DYRL VF-1S]

13 minutes ago, seti88 said:

double dipping or octadipping SSP's if you want a full double Strike Pack squadron. 

if this is a game of poker, this is where i fold hahaha...and no, not a time to throw in the keys to the falcon as ante.

HA totally get that. 

[SUPERULTRAROBORIDER]

Is there a ko missile set, or ssp's? It looks like it would be fairly easy to mold/cast the missiles. Probably the strike parts, too. I ordered one set of ssp's, and I hope to mold/cast from them to outfit as many vf-1's I end up getting, unless there ends up being an affordable ko.

[DYRL VF-1S]

Anyone hear from NY yet on their SSPs?  Looks like Golden Week kicks off next week, and they announced they will be closed for two weeks.  Would be nice if they began shipping out before next week.

[jenius]

Every order I do with NY where I prepay feels like it will finally be the order where they just take my money and run. Still not a peep from them and I have zero expectation they will ship before vacation. Someday.... Hopefully.

Edited April 22, 2020 by jenius

[Grey728]

Even if they did ship, nothing is moving out of Japan other than through DHL. I have two packages that haven't moved for nearly a month now from Mandarake and Amiami even though technically they've shipped. I think NY will be taking advantage of that and delaying your shipment until after their golden week.

[DYRL VF-1S]

11 minutes ago, jenius said:

Every order I do with NY where I prepay feels like it will finally be there order where they just take my money and run. Still not a peep from them and I have zero expectation they will ship before vacation. Someday.... Hopefully.

Right?! Haha

Just now, Grey728 said:

Even if they did ship, nothing is moving out of Japan other than through DHL. I have two packages that haven't moved for nearly a month now from Mandarake and Amiami even though technically they've shipped. I think NY will be taking advantage of that and delaying your shipment until after their golden week.

Which is exactly why I'd rather have them ship my stuff before Golden Week.  It will just tack on more time than the already delayed shipping.

[nightmareB4macross]

13 minutes ago, jenius said:

Every order I do with NY where I prepay feels like it will finally be there order where they just take my money and run. Still not a peep from them and I have zero expectation they will ship before vacation. Someday.... Hopefully.

I’m on the same boat. And clearly I bought my set when they were on pre-order of the first round. My Paypal assurances have expired by now. I just hope NY follows through and completes their sales transactions.

[HardlyNever]

28 minutes ago, nightmareB4macross said:

I’m on the same boat. And clearly I bought my set when they were on pre-order of the first round. My Paypal assurances have expired by now. I just hope NY follows through and completes their sales transactions.

I think a lot of us are in this same situation.  I was tempted to pay there $100+ dollar shipping fee for UPS, just so I could be done with them, but I'm not sure even that would ship anytime soon.

This is the last order I have open with them, and I doubt I'll do any pre-pay order with them ever again (and do minimal business with them at all).  Giving them what will probably be a 1 year, interest-free loan is not a business I want to be involved in.

I'm still pretty confident I'll eventually get what I ordered.  I just have no confidence in when it will arrive.

[LRS]

I've learned I will never use NY for anything ever based on what I've read here. I've Blacklisted them.

[DYRL VF-1S]

6 minutes ago, HardlyNever said:

This is the last order I have open with them, and I doubt I'll do any pre-pay order with them ever again (and do minimal business with them at all).  Giving them what will probably be a 1 year, interest-free loan is not a business I want to be involved in.

Unfortunately, I have to agree here.  It makes me uneasy to give them a 1-year loan interest free when their customer service is generally lacking for my own needs.  I'll will likely still use them, but I'll diversify my portfolio so-to-speak.  For example, I could've used them for my PF VF-0D PO, but in that case, the substantial cost-savings wasn't worth it.  I went with HLJ for peace of mind at a higher cost.

If I had to go back in time, I would've put an order or two in for SSP with them, but also elsewhere like maybe AE, Okini Land, or a Proxy.

On that note, anyone hear from AE or Okini Land on their SSP yet?

[LRS]

6 minutes ago, DYRL VF-1S said:

Unfortunately, I have to agree here.  It makes me uneasy to give them a 1-year loan interest free when their customer service is generally lacking for my own needs.  I'll will likely still use them, but I'll diversify my portfolio so-to-speak.  For example, I could've used them for my PF VF-0D PO, but in that case, the substantial cost-savings wasn't worth it.  I went with HLJ for peace of mind at a higher cost.

If I had to go back in time, I would've put an order or two in for SSP with them, but also elsewhere like maybe AE, Okini Land, or a Proxy.

On that note, anyone hear from AE or Okini Land on their SSP yet?

I've gotten an email from okini saying they have shipped mine

[505thAirborne]

The attention to detail is insane, you know it's a DX VF-1 but you'd swear at times it's a Photoshop illustration. 

 

[Slave IV]

1 minute ago, 505thAirborne said:

The attention to detail is insane, you know it's a DX VF-1 but you'd swear at times it's a Photoshop illustration. 

 

That’s why LEK is the best there is at what he does.