Showing posts with label Admin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Admin. Show all posts

02 December 2017

Birthday 2017 - Takara 21-Reflector MIB and a delightful discovery



For my birthday this year, I did not prepare a rare and significant present like last year for myself in anticipation.

However, during the mid-afternoon, E and I had some time before our dinner and movie (Justice League) with friends and E suggested that we could go to the toy shops. We went and I visited the shop where I previously saw had a MIB Reflector (Takara version). Previously, on multiple occasions, the shop-keeper said he did not have a price in mind for the Reflector.

This time, he did. So after some haggling, I bought it - see photo above. One of the main reasons I wanted this set was because it had unpunched missiles, still on the sprue.

After dinner and the movie, I was home and looking over the 21-Reflector. I realised that the red robot had white strips at the knees of each leg. This was odd because I do not see this for most Reflectors out there, except the set that the Devstar37 showed me some years ago (yes, I remember these useless facets).

For those that has followed this blog, you would recall that Devstar37 was the good friend that I bought nearly 50 pieces of early Japanese G1 from, back in early 2013. 21-Reflector was not one of the pieces he sold to me, but he did offer it to me a few years after. I did not end up purchasing his Reflector, but had photos of it stored on my phone.

So then, I checked the photos and was quite surprised. The general wear on the box all seemed to look alike. I quickly messaged Devstar37 on Facebook and asked if he thought the set I bought from the shop could be his. After some discussion and sharing with him the photos of the contents, he quickly came to the conclusion that the set I bought was, somehow, indeed his set!

26 March 2017

VSX auction on eBay from Grimlock's Paradise


Where these were once as rarely seen as unicorns and leprechauns, these have been appearing a little more since late last year.

Here comes another VSX. It is on eBay for a BIN price of US$10,000 minus $0.01.

I have added this record to my tally here.

Link to auction is http://www.ebay.com/itm/Transformers-Takara-Vintage-VSX-Optimus-Prime-Megatron-Giftset-MIB-Unused-/172592005930?&_trksid=p2056016.l4276.

12 April 2015

just more random Transformer photos (a second part)

in keeping with the post from yesterday... just more (and more) random shots...
These shots includes items from my Australia, Singapore and also Hong Kong apartments.





11 April 2015

Just some random group shots...

I have been sorting photos.
I am really tired sorting photos.
I am too tired to go and watermark stuff.
I am too tired to write more stuff when posting.
So, for this, and maybe the next couple of posts, you're just going to see lots and lots of Transformers, randomly, without watermarks, in no particular order and with no particular intent.
Enjoy.





28 February 2015

beware of eBay seller "tfvictory1" - potentially latest new scammer

After speaking to collectors on FB and TFW2005 and also friends, I think eBay seller "tfvictory1" is potentially a scammer, so please beware!

Screen cap of this person:

On 25 February 2015, I won this Buy-It-Now auction and paid immediately - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Transformers-g1-Grimlock-Swoop-Dinobots-Prowl-Mirage-Sunstreaker-lot-/261792524338?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=4x%252F8%252F9tdtVq4PZ%252BW7PrdjhshgQ0%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc


1 to 2 days later the seller relisted the same entire lot with the same photos and the same description for sale.

This is the relisted auction, which is still live at the time of this writing and there are already 3 bids on it - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Transformers-g1-Grimlock-Swoop-Dinobots-Prowl-Mirage-Sunstreaker-lot-/261793624026?


I thought something was fishy and email the seller immediately. This is the chain of emails back and forth until he stopped replying.

Me:
"Can you let me know when you will ship this out? Also I see it has been relisted again on eBay?"

tfvictory1 (seller):
"I'm sorry can't send this lot to you I will send you cancelation email and you have to talk to paypal and ebay about this situation. I had 1 buyer buy a Defensor Giftset from paid it the same day then file a item not received the same day. Then I sold a Soundwave mp the buyer waited until I shipped Wednesday then file a unauthorized charge back to paypal. EBay always took $131 for so call fees which I only owe 101 $65 that not even due until march 15. I had $491 in my pay and now it's saying I'm 432 in the negative. After speaking with paypal and ebay for an hour they couldn't do anything but the charge back, the unauthorized fees which is not even linked to paypal. As far as the guy that filed a item not received he'll probably try to rip me off too. I'm not giving away my collection for free and I'm sorry you have be apart of this mess but I'm not losing 500 dollars and giving to ebay and paypal."
He attached this picture:


Me:
"No problem if you don't want to sell. Just refund me. Auction ended and I paid super fast in hopes of getting these.
I've not heard of issues like that with PP before, but a buyer cannot file a item not received until the expected delivery date is up and you are protected as long as you have tracking.
If you've experienced such issues, then it won't be any different when the winner of the now listed auction pays you.

I cannot accept the cancellation until I get fully refunded in any case"

tfvictory1 (seller):
"Exactly my point, I told ebay and paypal the same thing. I did ship it out on Tuesday with the tracking and signature confirmation."

Me:
"Another thing, I've checked your ended auctions and there's no Defensor or MP- Soundwave past listing and you've also sold a Seacon giftset twice it seems. Dude, tell me the truth man"

tfvictory1 (seller):
"Yes a 0 feedback bidder that hasn't responded to my emails about an hour ago and a 1 feedback buyer that bought a yoth prime from Australia which also has not responded. I'm really getting fed up and giving up on ebay."

Me:
"Dude, it's 3am in Australia now, of course the fella wouldn't have responded.

I'm sympathetic, but please recognize that each auction is a separate contract. I won. I paid you. It has NOTHING to do with another of your other auctions, BUT you're telling me that because of these other extrinsic auctions, you won't ship to me.

That just makes no sense, sorry. And you went and relisted the auction that I won"

tfvictory1 (seller):
"That's true, but I have a feeling that he's gonna say cancel my transaction because the shipping and taxes is going to be too much. I've been selling and buying on ebay for 3yrs now and know the outcome with these low feedback buyers. I ended the auction early for the Piranacon set after I noticed funds missing on paypal then relisted it. I'm attaching pics to show you I'm not a scammer or a fake. I'm just really upset. These figures were from my personal collection and I displayed them with pride and to have people try to scam me and get something for nothing just makes me mad. Again I'm really sorry about this and I hope you find it in your heart to forgive and apologize for dragging you into it"
He also attached this photo, where he shows he's doing it to another buyer too!!!

tfvictory1 (seller):
"Here another one that I sold yesterday. A scorponok"
He attached this picture:

Me:
"Only reason I bought from you is your solid feedback.
Well if he cancels the transaction after he's won, then all you're really out of pocket is the listing fees and final value fee, which I suspect would be less than $20.
Between you and me, I have PAID you, fair and square and honestly and in good faith.

Now you're telling me you won't ship to me and you won't refund and is just going to keep my money?? You can see how that comes across as a scam I'm sure"

tfvictory1 (seller):
"That's things I'm in the negative, I can't even refund you the money. I'm being honest with you."

Me:
"I've never heard of this happening before, really.

If you cannot refund, please ship the items to me. They will have a good home.

It would be absurd for you to walk off with my money after I've paid you - see attachment.
If I don't receive either the items or a refund, I will open a dispute with eBay and PayPal and you might end up being more in the negative than you are now (assuming that is even true)."
I attached a screen cap of my payment receipt:

Seller didn't respond any further.

***

Further messages on 28 Feb 2015 (around 1500hrs Hong Kong time)

tfvictory1 (seller):
"I really don't care anymore, paypal ebay and scammer on ebay think they can rip me off my collection that I work hard for. I don't think so , I'm not a charity for them and they can refund your money from their 100% money back guarantee that they offer buyer and kick the seller to the curb guarantee"

"I have sold and bought 40k worth of TF without any problems and to have buyers file fake charge backs after I shipped is a slap to my face. Again I apologize for dragging you into this conflict and hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I didn't keep your money paypal has it in their resolution center."

"BTW the scorponok guy wanted to cancel and the seacon 0 feedback bidder has responded still and the Australian dude is still down under without no response.... I send you an updated screenshot showing no 1 paid."

He attached this picture:


Me:
"hey man, I do have sympathy for you, I do. I don't deny (and do not know whether) you have been scammed before.

BUT I paid you. And you blatantly stated you won't ship the toys.
Now why would any of these other buyers pay you and risk you telling them that you will not ship the toys to them AFTER they have paid?

Or are you telling me that you will ship to the Scorponok guy, the Seacon guy or the Australian guy after they pay? In which case, WHY won't you ship to ME???
Please go think about it. Not much of what you said makes sense."

tfvictory1 (seller):
"Because I change my PayPal email account. That's why I ended all my auctions early so I can make the change. I've sold some rare diaclone TF, sealed TF, and Victory series TF without any issues until now. I'm not out to scam anyone, my issue is with paypal ebay and how charge backs are handled."


25 December 2014

... moments this year (and last), when it felt like Christmas!

This year, I didn't get any toys for Xmas.

To then get that festive feeling, I figured I should post about those times in the past year (or two), where it felt like Christmas.
Most of the shots in this post are unreleased group shots that I did when I received toys (or large lots of toys), mainly because I like to post about the toys individually before posting a large group shot. Due to my posting speed, I still have yet to complete posting about the toys I received from way back in June 2013!

23 December 2014

Today's arrivals - Takara C-64: Seaspray carded and boxed

Just got home from dinner and was handed two packages by concierge. The first was a bottle of wine from JW, a UK collector and friend (what a nice surprise!) and the second was a package from Japan.

Popped the wine below my tiny xmas tree for unwrapping on xmas day and then opened the package from Japan.

This is what's in it - boxed and carded versions of C-64: Seaspray. Will write more later.


02 December 2014

The Birthday Post 2014 - Part 1 (Diaclone blue Fairlady Z MIB unused and near casefresh)

It's my birthday.

Well, I actually only got to write this post on 3 December, but backdated it.



This year, I decided to get myself some birthday presents. There are three presents I got myself and this is one of them - hence the "Part 1" in the title of this post.


From the photos so far, you would be able to guess what nature of item I got, I suppose. Yes, it's Bluestreak related (no prizes for guessing!). While I was walking around Mong Kok with UK collector, Jason W, I chanced upon this beauty....

19 November 2014

Masterforce D-307: Overlord MIB (#3, my third one)

I wanted the title to read 'Yet another D-307: Overlord MIB', but thought that it would be too cavalier and perhaps not respectful of how difficult this piece could be to come by for some collectors.


 This is the 5th Overlord that I have in my collection (a fact). It is one of 3 MIB pieces, amongst the 5 pieces I have (or had).


I guess I have been fortunate that, as a collector of vintage TFs, Overlord (which is a holy grail to many) has been relatively easy and straightforward for me to acquire over the years. I wish I had this same good fortune with all TFs, but it seems that the good fortune only works for Overlord.

21 August 2014

Specimen-17's sale of the decade (perhaps) - lots of rare G1 figures AFA-ed, MISB, MIB

Beginning from a couple of days ago till somewhere in mid-September, long time UK seller Specimen-17 will be selling a very large lot of Transformers - mostly AFA pieces, Japanese G1 (MISB and MIB), USA G1 (carded, MIB, MISB) and other exotic paraphernalia.

For a sale of this scope and magnitude, Specimen-17 is currently in Beijing, China, assisting a long time collector auction off key pieces of his collection. The collector is known to me, was active on the Australian Transformers Boards and we are good friends - this is why I am doing a shout out here.

E and I have personally seen his collection in Australia before we all moved back to Asia. With hand to heart, I can say that his collection is one of the most breath-taking and stunning collections that I have seen. The depth of the pieces he has to the rare and exotic nature of the items are really something to behold.

Some of what is on auction right now includes such pieces as AFA Arfire MISB, AFA dino-cassettes, AFA Masterforce figures, MISB Japanese, USA and Euro-exclusive figures and more.

Okay, enough of the hard-sell, go see for yourself...

eBay.com page: http://www.ebay.com/sch/specimen-17/m.html?_ipg=50&_sop=3&_rdc=1

eBay.co.uk page: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/m.html?_ipg=50&_ssn=specimen-17&_sop=1

(I included 2 pages because eBay kind of displays strange on my browser and depending on which site I use, a different number of hits is show; weird, but I don't know why).

Good luck bidding, I know I want to win some of those puppies too!

~ HD

05 August 2014

so this year, I will be at Auto Assembly!


This weekend, I will be at Auto Assembly in the UK.

Long story short, I guess, I'd say that Auto Assembly is the UK's annual version of a TF convention by fans.

How this all came about has been pretty fortuitous. It wasn't planned, at least not from the very beginning. E and I were always going to take a vacation during this period, after her secondment at a client's office ends. This year, she wanted to go to Europe and decided on Paris, London and Switzerland. It was during the planning stages of the trip that I realised I would be in Paris on or around the time AA is happening.

Initially, we weren't supposed to be in the UK during the AA weekend, but on realising that there is a true blue TF-convention on at the time, E sort of moved mountains to make sure our schedule aligned with some part of the convention. She even booked a nice room at the hotel where AA will be held.

Needless to say, I am very excited to be attending perhaps my first even TF dedicated convention. Looking forward to meet my buddies Maz, Morg and Specimen-17 too.

Thanks a million to E for making it possible!

~ HD

06 July 2014

Some things I have sold... TF-05, C-341, C-342, C-343, C-344 and TF-06

A record of some of the later year Transformers that I have recently sold... bye bye pieces.


C-341: Gasoline Base MIB (aka Greasepit), unused with sealed paperworks packet.


11 June 2014

Re-arranged shelves - focusing on early G1

I have been off and on for awhile. The key reason is that like a few close friends of mine, I have also been re-focusing on my collecting goals and aims, although I have been less vocal about it here on the blog.

Before I continue, I would like to say I am so glad my buddy from Mostly Transformers Redux is back at blogging and to say a big 'welcome back!'.

To cut a long story short, I have decided to re-align my collecting goals to what they originally were - early G1 and the pieces that really had an impact on my childhood rather than "completion for completion's sake".


Whilst for a time, I had a very near complete G1 Japanese collection (missing 1 white Headmaster and that 1 Micromaster patrol which was a repaint), with 90% of these in box and unused, I decided that it was time to let go of the bulk of my later year Transformers.

The result was lots of private sales over the past months, and also selling on TFW2005 on the thread here - Japanese G1, American G1 and pre-TFs for sale

09 May 2014

Fukuoka / Kokura Trip April, May 2014 - Acquisition Tally

Typically, I have a wrap up post after each trip which summarises all the acquisitions for the trip. This is the post.

I have to say though, this post is probably less exciting than previous posts of this nature.

So here we have it - the sum totality of all my acquisitions for this trip.


  • D-62: Galvatron MIB, unused
  • Gakken Mospeada 1/8 Ride Armor (aka aka Robotech's The New Generation, 'Cyclone')
  • Gakken Mospeada 1/35 scale Legioss AFC-01I (aka Robotech's The New Generation 'Alpha Fighter', green)
  • Gakken Mospeada 1/35 scale Legioss AFC-01Z (aka Robotech's The New Generation 'Alpha Fighter', red, 'Rook Type')
  • Transformers Henkei Strafe
  • Shinki - Harmony Grace MIB
  • TV Artbook #22

29 March 2014

Saturday MPs with coffee and breakfast

Masterpiece 13: Soundwave and Masterpiece 13B: Soundblaster with coffee and bread


28 March 2014

Maz's ambassador series - Third Party TFs and my selection of TFX-01: City Commander



So it's now up to Part 5 of Maz's ambassador series and enter a further contribution by me - for the Third Party FansProject Ambassador - the City Commander armour!

Read Maz's article here.

I took some photos for the purposes of the article, and thought I should just share it here for everyone to see (since the article can only accommodate a limited number of photos per contributor).


23 March 2014

Weekend robots and coffee and comics

So, in the vein of what the Gassy Autobot usually does, here are some Transformers and coffee shots over the weekend (coffee from my trusty Nespresso machine).

Breakfast, coffee, Transformers and graphic novels. Lovely.

Saturday

Sunday

26 February 2014

one toy to rule them all - one ambassador to choose

In the first of his 'Ambassadors' series of articles, Maz asked the question "What toy would you choose to represent an entire toy line, if you had ONE choice, one toy you could pitch to a non-collector in order to sell the line?".

What I think he meant, was for a selection of 1 toy, from a specific line, to be an ambassador to that line of toys, in the Transformers context of course. As an example, the selection of G1 Optimus Prime as an ambassador of the G1 USA line, as a toy one could use to pitch to a non-collector in order to get the non-collector interested in that line, and so on and so forth.

I was asked to pitch in, and I have - in relation to my selection of an 'ambassador toy' for the Japanese G1 (exclusives) line.

The bad news? My pitch is not published yet.

The good new? Pitches from other stella contributors has been published already! Check them out here: Ambassadors – Part 1, featuring contributions by Gordon, Tony, Sid and Bryce.

This is also now being discussed on TFW: http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-toy-discussion/976398-ambassadors-part-1-tfsource-article.html

On Seibertron here: http://www.seibertron.com/energonpub/ambassadors-part-1-tfsource-article-t98851.php

So... one toy to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them?

Which will it be?


15 February 2014

A very special gift - Bluestreak sketch by Alex Milne on Drift #4, Canadian C4 exclusive cover

After checking my letterbox this yesterday and then again this morning, I was sure that the comics loot from Maz (and a friend) would not be arriving today (Saturday).

After lunch with E, and a relatively long drive home because the traffic was so heavy, the concierge guys downstairs passed me a package as I walked through the front lobby - whoa, it was the package from Maz, it has arrived indeed!

Maz has kindly over the past months diligently helped with acquire past MTMTE comics with covers that I previously missed out on. Mostly, these were the nice Milne covers. Now, 'hidden' in this lot of about 10+ comics, I knew there was a gift from another collector buddy, that was passed to Maz to include in this comics package. Prior to today, I had no idea what it was, but just knew it was 'a surprise'.

After opening the package (immediately on reaching home), I soon discovered that this gift was likely to be a comic - because all that the package contained were comics. To compound matters, there were not 1 but 2 comics with double backing-boards, one on the front and another at the back, so that the entire comic was covered / concealed.

Ok, it's probably one of these I thought.

I removed the boards for one of them and it was the Roche cover for MTMTE #1. Ok, this I was expecting because its one of them that Maz told me he had obtained for me.

So, I opened the next one... and here it is.


I was stunned beyond words. I just gaped at the comic. I saw...
- "For Brandon"
- I saw it was Bluestreak
- I saw it was signed by Milne!

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