Second, I'm sorry but I have all sort of robots and toys ALL over, but I am still getting all sorts of lovin'... if you know what I mean. I guess seeing all those toys sparks that "motherly" instinct in the ladies.

}D

"This must be settled the way nature intended....with a vicious, bloody fight!"
Onyx Blackman
Principal, Flatpoint High

I don't want to pay almost $300.00 for "God Mars". There are so many cool old school robots there putting out now, but when does it stop. In the end it's just a toy that sits on display or stays in a box reminding you of simpler days and ultimate robot coolness... In the end I'll spend about $120 for a robot, more is just a rip off to milk you for more bills.

"Awww man, that’s one ugly zord..." Tommy about BA Drivemax Megazord.

Even the prohibitively high prices can be a good thing, because I have to be extremely discriminative with what I buy, and not flood my house with toys. So I'll be willing to buy a toy in the $150+ range, as long as the toy represents that value in my opinion.

Yesterday I had the chance to view the toy at Frank in Sons and it just looked cheap, the box art design and the toy itself. The review on Collection DX isn't too positive either. The art design on the box looks like something that one would see on a cheap toy at the swap meet. At $300.00 a unit they could at least put some effort into the box, have some Tokyo art student design some great looking box that just screams " I need to own this!" $300.00 is a lot of money and i expect to get a well fitting nice looking toy as the end product. At $300 I expect a family heirloom!

The Soul of Chogokin Toys are great example of an expensive toy that you certainly pay for but it usually meets and surpasses all expectations and they are usually a classy toy that displays well.

The point is that if a manufacture is going to charge the punters a lot of money for their product, the product should worth the value one paid for it.

Cheers
Leonardo

We'll fight them on the Beaches!

1) Any price of a toy is fine if I genuinely feel like I received that much value out of it, both on the levels of "fun" and "monetary" perception. But the current elitist price trends almost never deliver a product that feels truly justified. Personally I don't give a damn whether a figure is ltd. edition or any of that crap. Whatever the cost of a brand new figure is AT RETAIL, I expect that much value out of it when comparing/contrasting to the other figures in my collection and the comparative prices I have paid for them.
This is exactly why I will not be buying the CM Dancouga Nova for the ridiculous price of $600.

2) There is never an excuse for the extremes of poor QC that are currently taking place. I can handle an overspray, but if a company can't put out a figure that holds itself together, then that company needs to hop back on their damn pony and get the hell out of dodge.

3) Part of the appeal of toy and figure collecting has always been the low-brow kitsch of it all. It's always been a -relatively- cheap and easy hobby, and this accessability keeps us around and brings new people in, but with this current trend of elitist "perceived value" pricing, a large portion of appeal goes right out the door.

Lastly, I agree with Sanjeev about the amount of fun that can be found in real toys. More often than not my $10 purchases at Target are just as fun as the $100+ purchases. Cases in point: I love my $20 Mugenbine Pharoah, and the Ben 10 Wildvine is awesome.

I live in the heart of the Agriculture circle, and the prices of necessitites: fuel, feed, and selling prices (livestock) are rediculously out of whack: last week alone we spent $320.01 for Dyed-Diesel at $3.99 a gallon, which will be used sparingly over the next four months in which time the cost will most likely reach the expected $5.99 a gallon, for a fuel that is almost exclusive to farm equipment. Our farm also sees a $200-250 cost for feed each month, which again is likely to increase due to the current state of the agricultural business. Two months ago the feed was less than $7.28 a bag, now its climbed to nearly $9.28. There is almost No corn for Feed because many of the large scale farms around here (from Tifton to Alapaha)that sought to profit from the 'demand' for Ethanol production, and this last year's crops were terrible due to the drought conditions. So no corn for fuel turned into no corn for feed either. As a response to that, the prices of Livestock at Market are miserable and the retuns of a two man operation (Such my family farm) are bearly at the break-even point, let alone on the much larger operations where groups are just 'dropping' their herds because they cannot afford to feed them. So the market becomes cheaper when the market is flooded. So we can't sell our herd to make any money because nobody's buying. Add in the recent string of tainted meat reports, nobody wants to buy sick looking, malnurished cows. Thats just me being paranoid but so be it.

So like I said, Its not so much for me the quality or the price of the toy that I'd collect that sets me off, but the priorities that must be paid for. If something is available somewhere at some other time, then perhaps I can get it then, but first things first: I've got to buy feed for my cows, dog food and maybe something to eat myself. I've been staring at some things for years now, but because I have other things that need to be paid for, I let them go.

I just get angry when I see people second-guessing themselves due to pressure from the masses' concept of "normal" lifestyles. Do what you like, don't let others' ideals influence yours simply because they don't like what you do. You're not hurting anybody, your obsession is no different from some dude into sports memorabilia or Nascar stuff.

But the answer to the battle betwixt nerd-desire and social-acceptance is a simple one really: Hang out with hipsters. 'Cause toys and comics have just as much cred with them as rolled pant legs, fixed-gear bikes and coke habits.