Maul and probe droid ES

[LordAzrael]

Was he an X-Man too?

Boom boom ain't it great to be crazy? Boom Boom ain't it great to be crazy. Silly and foolish the whole day through, boom boom ain't it great to be crazy.

Never liked that character. Boom Boom was a stupid name. Oh hang on - that's Bam Bam. My mistake - please continue.:maul

 

[The Josh]

Well, I can't agree with this at all. If my boss comes to me and tells me that, due to slow sales, a tight economy, or whatever reason, I am going to have to take a 5% pay cut, that's significant. But if he tells me I have to take a 40% pay cut, it is far more significant, and not at all in the same category as the first scenario.

This doesn't even fit what we are talking about because ones pay is far more important. The amount in pay in those is very significant so you can't use that as a comparison. That's your lively hood on the line. What we're talking about is the amount of toys being produced and its relevance to "collectivity" not the amount of ones paycheck which no matter the numbers it's significant.

Apples and Oranges

If a collector views a relative size difference of 5x (10K vs 50K) as being less significant than a 40x difference (1250 vs 50K), they have every right to do so. No matter how you slice it, the 1250 piece is 8 times more exclusive than the 10K piece.

The size is significant in both cases. That was my point.

 

[daelith]

I don't care what you meant. These in no way compare to toys from BK, McDonalds, Hardee's, etc. Those are usually made in the 100k+ area even something from SS made say in the 10k+ range is much more exclusive than something you can get from a fast food joint. So therefore I think the comparison is pretty damn silly. I'm calling it for what it is. If you can't deal with someone saying they don't agree with you fly. I say this TOUGHEN UP!! You and others with this soft skin like Darth Rage really need to toughen up. Folks like you wanna blame me for being rude or whatever and in the end what it comes down to is you're not tough enough to handle when someone says you're opinion is too far out there. Deal with it! Not every freaking post I make where I disagree with you or someone is an insult!

I don't think it's silly at all. If we're talking about the items in terms of collectibility and exclusivity, I think there's a pretty good analysis to be found:

Given:
Each BK sells 12 pokemon toy day (1 per hour)
Each BK sells 84 per week
Each BK sells 2,520 per month
2,000 BK restaurants nationwide sell 5,040,000 in a month-long promotion.
5,040,000 / X number of characters
= HUGE ES for each character (there were quite a few)

When that promotion began, there were shortages nationwide, but especially acute in California and Texas; just google it and you'll see what I mean. Hell, I should know, I went to BK for 2 straight weeks trying to 'catch them all.' Imagine trying to compete against a legion of crazed 10 year olds and their parents. They had to ramp up production substantially to meet demand, which abated in the 3d

So given that scenario, I'd say it's quite possible to say that a BK item can be more exclusive than a Sideshow 10K item.

In contrast, a 10K sideshow item would probably languish as a 2nd, 3rd, 4th chance offer and then make its way to Ebay where it'll sell for 50% of its value. For comparison, the BK Pokemon items are doing pretty well. And for a better perspective, a BK halloween mask, which had an ES of 10K is selling for ~100.00, almost the same price of a Gandalf on Shadowfax statue (5K ES). A burger king Uruk-hai Mail-in with an ES of 5k sells for about 75.00. I can go on and on, but you get the point.

To me, 'exclusive' to me means an ES is lower than demand, which is signified by appreciation in secondary market values. What if, in reality, they actually produced 200k of a the BK pikachu item? And what if they had decided to go with 100k instead? Would we have seen a crisis of Cabbage Patch proportions?

 

[bluesparrow]

Aw man, we have to start doing math now?

 

[TOE]

I wouldn't mind knowing the ES, just for curiousity reasons.

 

[daelith]

Guess my numbers were totally off...the initial shipment for Pokemon items was for 100,000,000 for the month-long promotion...and you still had angry parents and crying kids =/

https://www.eonline.com/News/Items/Pf/0,1527,5727,00.html:

====================================================
Pokémon Crowns Burger King
by Emily Farache
Dec 10, 1999, 1:30 PM PT

Talk about your happy meal.

Thanks to its hugely successful Pokémon promotion, Burger King sales are up 30 percent compared to last year.

A Burger King spokesperson says the $22-million promotion, tied to the Warner Bros. film Pokémon: The First Movie and featuring 57 collectible toys and 151 trading cards, is the company's most successful. Some of its 8,000 restaurants in the U.S. are selling 1,000 Kids Meals a day, the company reports.

In fact, sales of Kids Meals, which include the Pokémon swag, are so hot stores are running out of inventory, forcing the fast-food chain to run newspaper ads announcing when restaurants will be restocked with Pikachu playthings.

The ads came after several restaurants couldn't keep up with the demand, making for many angry parents and crying kids--a PR nightmare for Burger King. This, despite the chain ordering 100 million toys for the promotion that launched in November.

That's a marked changed from this year's other big name, big time merchandising story. A line of Phantom Menace-inspired toys was a big bomb at the Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut cash registers, failing to recoup the substantial price paid for the merchandising license. Disney's deal with McDonalds has yet to prove itself with Toy Story 2 merchandise.

To help solve the chronic toy shortage, Burger King said this week that it is offering sheets of Pokémon trading cards to its restaurants that should last through December, when the promotion ends.

Additionally, to keep customers coming back, Burger King has also introduced Tuesday trading nights, where kids can come into a restaurant to trade any of their Pokémon merchandise with other kids.

"By hosting trading night dinners on Tuesdays, we're presenting another opportunity for our customers to get a particular toy or trading card they might not have gotten their hands on yet," says Richard Taylor, VP of marketing.

And, he forgot to add, sell more fries.

====================================================

 

[Dusty]

ES is important to me because:
1) I can set my priorities/budget so I don't miss out on other SW stuff.
2) I can save some money by purchasing it later.
3) I feel better knowing it won't depreciate to pennies on the dollar like the 100k worth of Hasbro stuff I bought in the 90's thinking I could buy another house with it, but then it turned out that Habro churned out something like half a million of each figure so I got hosed...
4) I feel better knowing I have something that's unique.
5) Sideshow said they would let me know and dammit, I just wanna know.
6) Don't really care, since I'm going to buy it anyway, but I'm curious.
7) I've been traumatized by quality control issues with larger ES in the past.
8) I'm a hardcore completist and if they set the ES too big, I will have to rob more homes for those hold-outs that won't sell me their piece/s.
9) There is no thrill of the hunt if the ES is too big.
10) I'm allergic to large ES collectibles like Daelith.

ES is unimportant to me because:
1) I just want the item. Period. Other peoples' opinions be damned! If I see a post discussing ES, I'm either gonna chime in by asking 'who cares?' or I'm gonna explode on them!

I know this was meant to be a silly post, but I'd just like to chime in about #3 because it scares me that some people may actually think like this.... collecting for monetary reasons is like the playing the stock market - or even more, like gambling in Vegas. Even IF the company keeps the numbers low and things are looking good, there is NO guarantee that the market will hold up and your figures will be worth lots of money in 5, 10, 20 years. NONE, zip, zilch. There's nothing that Sideshow can do, or you can do, to change that - there are SO many variables above and beyond the edition size.

So, if you are banking on making a fortune on your collection in the future, please remember to keep in mind that you are gambling - which is not necessarily a bad thing (and sometimes it's really fun), but it's no one's fault but your own if that's your mindset and the prices end up dropping in the future. Bank on them *meaning* a lot to you instead - a story for each piece, bringing back fond memories of favorite movies, the thrill of the hunt, etc - and you won't be disappointed, whether they raise or drop in value.

Now, please understand that it's not my opinion that collecting for monetary reasons is bad - just that it is inherently dangerous, and that by adopting this mindset, understand you are accepting the danger, along with any joy, that comes from it. That's my PSA for the day.

Perhaps we should start a 'Collectors Anonymous' group that helps those collectors out there who are addicted to the gamble of collecting for money and have lost their homes and relationships because of it (I'm only half joking, because it really does worry me.)

 

[Fritz]

...Perhaps we should start a 'Collectors Anonymous' group that helps those collectors out there who are addicted to the gamble of collecting for money and have lost their homes and relationships because of it (I'm only half joking, because it really does worry me.)

I have a 'friend' who might be interested in a 'Collectors Anonymous' group for collectors out there who are addicted to collecting period and spend way too much money on it? For argument sake, lets call him Frits. PM me if you have any info.