18 March 2012

Shmax-ing is a verb

Close to 3 months ago, I (re)discovered Shmax.com, a wonderful Transformers resource for documenting one's Transformers collection. Seriously, check it out, I'll wait - www.shmax.com.

With Shmax, I no longer have to count on my (so far) trusty spreadsheet to keep a record of when I've purchased what and at what price. With Shmax, I can update my collection online and have fun doing it, unlike my spreadsheet which I just loathe to open cos its so troublesome (to open a spreadsheet on iMac).

Need more convincing? How about hearing what Arkvander has to say about it, here. I'll wait.

Everyday, I update more and more of my spreadsheet's info onto Shmax, bit by bit, incrementally. But man, is this draining. I've been doing this for about 2 weeks now, on and off, and I still have approximately 10 more spreadsheet pages, at font 8, to go....duh.

At the end of today's updating, Shmax says that I have 898 Transformers and that I am "ranked" #105 on Shmax.

Certainly, that's approximate, but I really don't care to count how many Transformers I have or what my 'rank' is, but rather am more interested to record which ones I have, when I bought it and how much I have paid for each one.

Oh, and another interesting tidbit: according to Shmax, my "most valuable figure" is C-108: Artfire which is valued (by them) at USD$3,195 for a MIB specimen. Whoa. The second most valuable figure is TF-04: Guard City which is valued (by them) at USD$1,499.99.

Ok, back to the grind...

~ HD


15 comments:

  1. i love that site! Such a great resource.

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    1. its an awesome resource. My heart sank wgen it was down for close to 2 weeks recently....

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    2. Seriously. I was making hand written notes to remind myself what to input when the site came back.

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    3. I did something even stranger... I stopped buying stuff till it came back on.... (weird I know).

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  2. All I can say is... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. (^o^)

    This will help me greatly with my want/wish list, as well as possible recommendations. That, and figures of characters that I may want to buy both MIB (or loose) and complete... If not with AS-IS boxing at a non-specialty/collector store. (^_^)

    (And now I know what Rodimus Prime might have felt when he first touched the Matrix of Leadership... And again when he became one with it. ^^)

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    1. You're welcome dude! Really hope it helps and this is a great resource for any TF collector. It's easy to use and very detailed with beautiful pictures.

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  3. That site seems awesome. I like the fact that it'll search eBay for your wants.

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    1. Yes, that's a useful function ain't it. The one thing that it doesn't seem to succeed in is valuing figures. Some figures randomly has values, but I have no idea what its based on, perhaps recent eBay sales?

      Also figures with ??? for price means that it's taken to be worth $0 and thus does not add toward the total "worth" of your collection.

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  4. I agree that it should rank people based on the quality of their collection, not the quantity. Hypothetically a person could amass 1000 broken Insecticons and end up being the top collector on the site just by sheer number.

    But I do love Shmax, it is a great service for fans and helps me keep everything organized. I wish I could remember the exact date I bought everything so I could go back and look at a timeline of my purchases, but because it was so long ago I can only remember approximate dates for figures. I also enjoy that it allows you to look at other members' collections. I used it the other day because I was planning on buying a figure for a friend's birthday so I checked his Shmax profile first, lo and behold he had it already! So Shmax just saved me $20!

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    1. At the end of the day, I think the ranking is a bonus. If its by qty, then people could bump up their rank by having lots of duplicates, you're right. But then, it really defeats the point.

      To be the best thing about the site is that it lets me keep track of what I bought and when and for how much. That way, when I decide to sell a figure, I'd have a guage of my cost price and also when I bought it so I can make the appropriate price adjustments. For example, if I bought a complete Liokaiser for $280 (which I did) in 2000, now 12 years later, it should be worth quite a bit more than that.

      Arkvander, you gotta enlighten me here, I find that there is no way I can look at another collector's collection directly unless that collector is somehow linked to a particular toy I have (eg: contributed profile, photo, etc). I'm confused.

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    2. I'm sure there is a better way to do it, but the only way I have found is a bit of a workaround. I just look up the member on the forums using the member search and when I view their profile a number shows up at the end of the URL. Then I just go and view my own collection and replace 'my' number with the other member's number in the URL. This will pull up their collection as if I were looking at my own, but of course I can't edit it. For instance I just looked up your number using this method :)In the past I have found more direct ways to accomplish this process but I can't find them anymore. I'm sure there has to be an easier way though.

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    3. You're right Arkvander. It is a pain to look up another's collection without being able to click on those handy dandy signature links.

      I find the site a great resource. I wish more entries had pictures. I've tried to help, but they are so specific on their photo guidelines all my entries have been denied!

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    4. Thanks Arkvander for the tip. I tried it and it worked. I even found Seb too. I think if there is like a members list (which they have), but is linked directly to each members' collection, it'd be great.

      @ Flywheels: yeah, I agree with you, there should be more pictures. I was trying to see which version of Brawn I had and it was so confusing, there were so many types - slanted, not slanted, face plate, etc. How would I even know the difference, and to boot, there were no photos.

      I think with photos, its great to want high consistent quality photos, but at least populate the site first and then solicit for improvements (like TFU.info, which does not have the best photos, but at least they have reasonable photos of near everything).

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  5. @ Heroic Decepticon: these guys?

    http://www.shmax.com/part_details/19278/brawn
    http://www.shmax.com/part_details/759/brawn
    http://www.shmax.com/part_details/19276/brawn

    Photos of all three...plus a description on the right (under Comments) giving you all the information.

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    1. hi thanks for the info. I find that while some characters have good information, sometimes different variations are not described enough for me to differentiate. Of course, I completely understand that the database to still a morphing 'work in progress'.

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