Your Grails?

[Ken Davis]

We all have them........"Holy Grail" toys we seek, and sometimes find.

There's an axiom I've long collected toys by that goes: " If you want it badly enough, it WILL come to you, and at a price you'll be willing to pay".
Basically, it just means that, sooner or later, you'll find what you've been looking for, and you'll be willing to ( or be broken down to) pulling the trigger on buying it.
Holy grails are like that. Pretty much anything is out there already......caught in the swirl and just waiting for you and it to make the connection. Sometimes, you'll meet up early, but the price might be wrong, or the condition is off, or..........something, and you pass on it. Or you get out-bid, or sniped at the last moment, or some other collector snaps it up before you can get to it.
It happens.
But it also happens that you'll get second.....third........fourth chances as well. It'll come to you.
I've got a small variable list of Grail items--variable because the priorities change on them now and then.

One of them I pulled the trigger on today: McFarlane Toys 10th Anniversary Spawn.

Been looking for this one a long time, had a few chances to buy or deal/trade for one over the years. Never had the circumstances gel right for it to close. Today, I took a quick look, found one on Ebay, price was higher than I'd like, but this thing's worth isn't creeping south lately, so.........bah, I bit.

And in doing so, I'll have one of the figures I've been jonesing for, for a long time--in about a week or two.

And I can cross one more Grail off my list.

[packerbacker180]

Not really Holy Grails, but things I passed on before but can't get now for a reasonable price would be the Legion boxset and freaking ML Ares' legs. I'd stopped buying MLs for a bit around the Ares/Ronan waves. I've managed to complete Ronan but still can't get a set of Ares' legs. I may see if Odin's are compatible.

I also have dreams of walking into the local Savers thrift store and finding a SuperPowers Hall of Justice cheap. Really I just want the front of one to paint the proper colors for a backdrop.

What's the deal with that Spawn? Why is he so much?

[Ken Davis]

What's the deal with that Spawn? Why is he so much?

Near as I can figure, it's two factors: One, I'm buying it from a Canadian seller. I'm not sourcing US sellers because the exchange rate is awful right now. A $60 toy is going to ring up at about $90-$95 right now, AND shipping from the USA will also have the same rate. I'd end up paying $130 for the same figure I could get up here for $100 cdn.

Two, I think the mark-up is because it's one of the better Spawn figures--very poseable--probably the most POAs of any version of Spawn himself. That alone make him in-demand.
That and easily 10+ years have passed since the figure came out--making him just harder to find.
But that is par for the course, right??

The other grail items I'm always on the look-out for are Mattel Big Jim items. I'm probably a bigger fan of Big Jim than I am of any iteration of GIJOE.
Came close to getting one outfit set I wanted a couple of weeks--a red-uniform soccer set. This toy line is from the 70's, and prices are comparatively higher, but uniforms sets can go for almost reasonable--under $30-50. The thing is, like older GIJOE there's loads of used items for Big Jim, some soundly beat to rat-spit. My targets are either very good condition complete loose items, or sealed in package items....and the latter drives up the prices. A LOT of the stuff is marked up to crazy-town prices simply because sellers aren't very savvy about the actual worth. ( MIB items seem to be marked up to $300+, but really shouldn't ring up for more that $75-$100 for the most pristine examples. The reason is that there's a LOT of stuff for the toys in circulation--it's NOT rare)

[HectorHall]

Believe it or not, Solomon Grundy. I have collected DCUC from beginning to end and missed Grundy simply because wave three hit stores in my neck of the woods too close to Christmas. I just didn't want to spend the money on myself and figured I could pick up the wave after the holidays. Well, I got his legs, never saw Nightwing, Robin, or Deathstroke at retail again,(although I did pick up the all-star versions of all three). Probably the most glaring omission from my collection. I just refuse to pay over $100 for a figure. I'm stubborn like that. I had a guy at a con come down to $90 and I still balked because I have seen him go for $60 - $70.

I too would love to pick up a Super Powers Hall of Justice or a SP Batmobile at a thrift price. I have seen both at a vintage toy store, but they were definitely charging vintage toy store prices.

[packerbacker180]

Took me sometime to complete Grundy since I wasn't collecting the whole line back then. Getting his torso and left arm was pricey, but he's just about as big a must. I wouldn't mind finding Despero's left leg. It's not even that pricey on ebay it just rarely seems to even go up for auction. But that version of Despero isn't a huge need for me anyway.

The nice thing for me is I didn't really collect anything before MLs, so there aren't a lot of 'old' stuff I must have. I love my toys I had as a child, I still have some, but there isn't anything I'm so attached to that I must now get as an adult. Too busy making customs, lol.

[packerbacker180]

Oh, I suppose the 25th Joes Sgt. Slaughter would be a big Holy Grail for me.

[Ken Davis]

One of my collecting goals was to get all the Super Powers characters in DCUC format, with Plastic Man being the very last one I acquired. I've got loads of others from the various waves, but the Super Powers roster was one I was dead-set on getting.
I told myself I could stop after that, and I really can if no other deals come along. I made a list of other DCUC characters I'd "like" to have and it topped out at about 30 names. But no-one on it is a absolute priority and I'm not going to fork over more than $30 for any of them, so I'll be playing the long-game with them.

That's the thing with all of my grails, money IS an object in this..........I'm a cheapskate, until I just get impatient.

[packerbacker180]

Money is always an object. It's why I passed on the Legion boxset originally. I kind of want it, but at the same time, I'm not a major Legion fan so the price is way out of what I want to spend. $25 is normally my limit for a figure I want for my collection, usually less if I want something for fodder. I've only gone above that a few times to complete a BAF, and really the $70 I spent for Gentleman Ghost & Giganta piece is the highest I've ever gone for a single item.

[Ken Davis]

Money is always an object. It's why I passed on the Legion boxset originally. I kind of want it, but at the same time, I'm not a major Legion fan so the price is way out of what I want to spend. $25 is normally my limit for a figure I want for my collection, usually less if I want something for fodder. I've only gone above that a few times to complete a BAF, and really the $70 I spent for Gentleman Ghost & Giganta piece is the highest I've ever gone for a single item.

Yeah, being the same way, I have thresholds that need to be crossed before I'll jump.
The character HAS TO BE relevant to me, in some way. Usually in a story I've read in a comic, or...........get this........or have seen in a comics ad.
Yeah, that's nutty, but that is pretty much how I got a lot of my exposure to a lot of characters.
I seldom, if ever read Conan, Howard the Duck, or Dracula, but all those characters appeared in house ads in the comics I was reading, so that was my connection to them. As a kid, I'd get a comic book here and there and would read the things over and over until they fell apart. So certain characters would embed themselves in my memory, even though I'd probably not read much of them afterwards.
Black Canary is one example---a figure I do not have (yet), but who I know is completely simpatico with Green Arrow--who I do have, of course. But she's not an urgent want, price will have to be right before I buy.

The other thing with relevance is that the character may be essential to a team. Martian Manhunter is a good example, a character I find to be mostly quite dull/bland, but he's a cornerstone of the Justice League--so I had to have him. Kid Flash is a key character in The Teen Titans, but the DCUC figure has problems--I'm holding off on him. Beast Boy is a character I just don't like at all, and I'll probably never get him because of that dislike.

The last thing is if the character is just a cool figure. There's loads of characters I outright do not like at all. Deadpool, Cable, Punisher etc........but honestly, Marvel Legends has made them into really cool action figures. I'll bite on that criteria alone.

Right now, based on Forever Evil, I want to get the DCUC Crime Syndicate, and the prices recently have been reasonable. But, once more.........no rush. I don't think the prices will climb all that much on them.

[Idiot Savant]

Super Powers Cyborg and I'll have a complete Kenner collection; then on to the ITW Super Powers figs...

Fortress Maximus: always wanted since I was a kid and the only TF I begged for besides Prime, but at least I got Prime...I'm REALLY hoping Hasbro does a Ultra-Super-Mega Titan Class Fort Max to give Metroplex an inferiority complex...

The rest of the Palisades Muppets figures and sets I need

Mego Pocket Heroes: Captain Marvel, Aquaman, Hulk, Joker and Penguin

I have a ton more but it would take a while to write...