Shelves

So, the Star Wars room is still in boxes. I really don't want to rebuild the standard wood shelves and so for the last few weeks I've been searching for a better option. Ikea has some nice shelves with glass doors that will cost me around 1000 dollars to do the room in glass.

There's this guy in Bremerton giving away some retail displays (I'd really like these) but someone else got there first. I'm the backup and the buyer is supposed to pick them up tonight. If he doesn't, they're mine....so I'm really crossing my fingers that I might get these things. It'll cost me 300 dollars in moving truck costs to get them here (and I'll need help, because they're huge) but it's totally worth it if I can get them.

Monthly Red Robin Meeting

Headed down to Southcenter with John for the monthly Red Robin collector's meeting. We got there right at 7pm despite leaving my house a little after 6:40 (the new house does have it's advantages)...and there were a lot of people there. Probably closer to 14 this month, which meant we had to get two tables.

John and I only stayed long enough to eat burgers, as we had to go get into the Superman Returns line. At this meeting, I picked up another JTA Assault pack, some Galactic Heroes, the new Clone Wars Gunship, a Tatooine Wave Sandtrooper and an Arc Lithograph from Jim. I sold him my extra Celebration 3 Sandtrooper for cost, which meant that I owed him about 45 bucks for all of that. Wasn't a bad haul and this was the cheapest meeting so far this year. :-)

I really need to post pictures of all this new stuff. I shall do so soon. Really I shall.

Blackhole Stormtrooper bust has arrived!

According to Fedex.com I have a Black Hole Stormtrooper bust waiting for me when I get home!

Pictures soon!

Sideshow Anakin has arrived!

I got my Anakin today, from AFX. Now I have two Sideshow figures. Because the Star Wars room is still in boxes, this is going to sit undisplayed for awhile (a darn shame) but at least it's here.

I'm glad I didn't have to buy this sucker on Ebay. Now, the question is....which one will I like better? This one, or the exclusive Comic Con Sith Eyes Edition that I ordered. I fear that I may not need two Anakins, but right now I'm not cancelling the other pre-order.

Pictures to come later.

Ordered Sideshow Maul

The Sideshow Collectibles Inclusive ordering program is awesome. I waited until sometime this evening to order the Maul and got through in about 1 minute. This is so much better than fighting with everyone else the minute these things go on sale on a Friday morning.

I ordered the special edition probe droids, though I'm not sure why I did that. Overall, this will be my most expensive 12" figure yet at around 80 bucks for the figure and the droids.

Sideshow Anakin shipping!

Just found out that the Anakin I ordered from AFX is actually shipping today. As I mentioned in earlier posts, this was the 2nd from the line and the only one besides Luke that I didn't order directly from Sideshow. Luckily, I snagged Anakin for retail cost and I've been ordering the rest directly from them.

Today, the Inclusive Edition of Darth Maul went on sale. This is a new way of selling "exclusive" figures for Sideshow (and for anyone). They're going to put it on sale for 4 days and then at the end of that time, they'll decide the edition size. No more fighting to get it by refreshing a web page over and over again. As long as I order it by Tuesday, I'm guaranteed to get one.

I'm going to celebrate by not ordering it until tomorrow. I'll post again when it's confirmed.

Need to make some progress on the Star Wars room

I posted some pictures of the room right after I moved in here. Unfortunately, that's exactly what the room still looks like.

We were unpacking the garage a little today (giving some extra furniture away to friends as well as re-arranging other stuff). It made me realize that the only room I've made absolutely zero progress on is probably the most important room in the house.

I'm not going to say I miss the old house (because I don't) but I miss the old Star Wars room. I know I haven't posted detailed pictures of it yet, mostly because I wanted to wait until I had comparison pics up from the new place.

Until then, here's just a tiny taste:

Finally preordered

I'm not sure about the newest wave of Gentle Giant stuff coming out (The animated series busts). I liked the Clone Wars maquettes, but I'm not sure I dig these. Perhaps once I see the cartoons.

There was one I had to pre-order though.....



79.99
Ships October 2006.

Black Hole Stormtrooper Bust hopes...

Holy crap, Gentle Giant just charged my credit card!
I did not get a confirmation number from them on Friday, but I just checked my statement (just in case) and there was a charge for 65 dollars.

I'm writing them now.

Will he be mine?

This morning, the Blackhole Stormtrooper bust went on sale at Gentle Giant. There were only 500 to be had and EVERYONE wants one, so I had multiple people trying for me. John said he'd help (but didn't log on until after it went on sale), Heather helped and Chris was helping from work. Meanwhile, I sat at home and hit the site multiple times when it went on sale at 9am.

Several times I got it into my cart, but I never got a confirmation that I had actually bought one. The only person who got through and got an email saying he had one was Chris, but there was no confirmation number. I have a tiny hope that he got one for me, but it's a very slim chance.

Will this trooper be joining my collection?








Stay tuned...

A little shot of mojo...

Over the last couple of weeks (since I returned from my honeymoon actually), I've noticed myself overwhelmed with all the things there are to do in the new house. There are still many boxes to unpack, things to set up and extra items we have no room for that we're just going to have to sell (like extra furniture).
On top of that, there's yard work and all sorts of other home project stuff we just don't have time for.

The most pressing one for me is that right now our garage has only one parking spot. I'm letting Heather park in there while I park outside, because there is so much stuff I need to get rid of in order for two cars to fit in there. Nothing special, just old furniture I've been moving from house to house with, old computer stuff I don't need anymore, a few little TVs I don't really need, etc, etc. Nothing I'm going to miss.

Still, even as daunting as those tasks are, they all pale in comparison to the state of the Star Wars room. My new Star Wars room is only about 75% of the size of the old one (if that). Meanwhile, I keep collecting, meaning I'm somehow going to have to fit a larger collection into a smaller room. Right now, the entire collection is boxed up, sitting on the floor inside of it's future home. The shelves (and the wood that will eventually become more shelves) is sitting in our basement hallway, just waiting for me to put it all together.

I find myself wondering if I want to do it again. If I want to build shelves one more time and set up that collection of thousands of figures piece by piece once more. It's a huge undertaking. On top of that, it's going to cost a LOT to set it all up again if I decide to do really nice shelving like I'd like to do. That money could be spent elsewhere, doing more grown up things.

Hell, the entire collection sometimes feels like this giant waste of money. I hate when I feel that way, but every once in awhile, I get this feeling like I want to just start getting rid of it. Or at the very least, I want to stop buying new stuff.

I was feeling a little like that today. I had just taken another box of figures out of my car and was wondering where I'd put these. I thought to myself "Maybe it's time to stop this and only keep a few things". Then, tonight I was flipping channels and found Revenge of the Sith on HBO.

Immediately, I began looking forward to my Anakin and Obi Wan Sideshow figures that are on order. I thought about hitting Target tomorrow morning to try and buy some more Senate Pod sets, so I could make a little Senate diorama (I only have two sets right now). I hit Rebelscum to see if there was any news on the Black Hole Stormtrooper bust I'm going to be trying to get.

All it takes is a shot of the movies and any doubt I have about why I do this is usually erased. That's probably why I've never quit after 11 years of collecting.

Now the Muppets on the other hand, where can I put THOSE? :-)

Large Picture update

I snapped some pictures of all my recent buys tonight. Rather than putting them in their original posts, I'm just going to post them all here:

First, today's haul. I went to TRU this morning on a tip from Chris and scored the new exclusive Clone Pack. One for me and one each for Trevor, Chris and one one of his friends. It's great when collectors can help each other out.




Next comes the Sideshow Luke I just received. I bought him from someone on Jedidefender. Luke is the figure that I missed when they were sold on Sideshow's website, so I was really happy when someone at JD emailed me to say he had one for cost.




After that wonderful specimen comes my General Grievous maquette. Yes, I already owned this, but if you remember...he had a broken ear. I sent him back to the site I bought him from and they replaced him. All I had to pay was the outbound shipping. Toynk wins my thumbs up for good customer service on that one. I buy from them all the time and I'll continue to do so, thanks to this:



While we're on the subject of Gentle Giant busts, The two that I ordered from Toynk.com and mentioned earlier both got here awhile ago. They're on my very messy dining room table right now. Here they be:



Lando is still in the plastic, but you get the idea. Someday, these will be back on the shelves.



Last but not least, this Tuesday I picked up some figures from Jim and Chris. The Lucas family Star Wars Shop exclusive, some new Unleashed figures, and a display stand for them. Here they be:




That's everything I've picked up lately. I hesitate to share the number I'm at as far as Star Wars spending goes (it makes me sound insane) but let's say for the year it's over 1000 and under 2k. Barely under. I don't anticipate buying a TON of stuff the rest of this year, but I have a goal to come in under...and I still think I can do it.

The Star Wars collection rages on!