hardest to find vintage cyborg costumes

[yojugod]

Hey Guy, what would you consider to be some of the hardest to find vintage Cyborg costumes? I don't necessarily mean the most expensive, but the ones that seem to be hardest to locate, aside from the pre-Henshin GI Joe versions?

Silver Mask Giant and Jumborg A seem to be difficult to locate, though not all that expensive in the scheme of things.

Just curious.

[GUYx1]

I can rattle off names, but unless you are trying to write your own book on the subject, the point is to just buy what you WANT.

Everything depends on your budget and you want to be careful to stay within that budget.

When you are talking hard to find, some of the vintage rarities are sweet, but a lot of it is not the most amazing stuff to look at and has been remade by companies like Medicom and Rommando.
(The Rommando 12" remake of the X-Akron was quite nice!)

For vintage stuff, Beauty clearly is in the Eye of the Beholder.
If you didn’t grow up with these Vintage toys, you probably aren’t going to want to try sending YJ auctions into OVERTIME just to outbid a Japanese collector who is only trying to rekindle childhood memories.

If what you WANT to find happens to never seems to get listed on Yahoo Japan, l then chances are, that the item MAY be rather tough and it may be a toss up as far as how much you will need to spend.
No way to truly gauge the current price since the market fell. You could get lucky.

I want to avoid the term RARE, because the really “OMIGOD I GOTTA HAVE IT” outfits like DevilMan have been Reissued , thus no collector in their right mind wants to list that vintage high end stuff anymore.

Just try and find a Vintage Devil Man!


Most of the harder yet obtainable stuff that is currently out there these days shouldn’t cost you over 40,000 yen each.

You can even get a dark blue Blue Walder figure for 40,000-50,000 now.
That is actually a NOT BAD price considering they used to be IMPOSSIBLE 6 years ago.

If those prices are a little steep, you aren’t going to want to venture into the questionable unknown of unobtainable items. Could go low, could go high.

The toughest items won’t be on the open market every week. People like those items and don’t wish to part withl them (or at least don't want to sell them for the current market value).

If you never see the item you are after you need to make offers and see if anyone bites.

Some of the better High end items are the Vintage DevilMan, the MAT Member vinyl suits, Jumborg 9, The Accessory sets for the Invaders, etc.
Otherwise it’s mainly a lot of variations.

Trust me, before you find yourself in the position to be actually purchasing any of those items, you will probably find 20 microman items and modern 1/6 scale figures that are a better value. Remember when there was a Microman collector (R.T.) with a great collection of Lady Command figures that he paid $300 - $350 for?
You don't want to find yourself in that sort of situation if you can help it.

Be careful about overpaying on this stuff.
- Guy

[cyborgbushcricket]

the effect of reissues is interesting, they do push prices down for vintage, i suppose that even though the reissue may not be identical to original and even inferior (as we all know) it does calm the urge once youve bought say 4 reissue walders to have a vintage one. Without the reissues i'd be wanting a vintage walder but with them i'd only get one at a much lower price than they actually go for.

I remember when micronauts centaurus would fetch over $100 loose and carded regularly $250-300, ive seen a carded on go for as low as $75, with a glut of pretty decent palisades reissues the desire for vintage drops down.

consder the reissue TF's!! most of those except collection #1 meister have been very good indeed, im sure thay have brought even diaclone figure prices down (even if not TF's as such), im just waiting with baited breath for the original dinobots!!

CBC.

[thebigr]

Yeah, the re-issues do really affect the price quite a bit. I didn't know this was the case with Cyborg as well, I figured a vintage is a vintage and a re-issue is a re-issue; you want one or the other...

but being new to the land of Cyborg, i've noticed how you really CAN overpay for some of these pieces. I mean, if you don't want a $100 Secret Base costume, or think that's a little pricey, then it's not worth $100, is it? You may think a fair price is $40, so i guess you have to wait until one comes up on the Bay or YJ for $40 or less, or not get it at all...


I went through the whole "rarest" or "toughest" thing with collecting a while back with Macross collecting. It's very difficult to get a true gauge as far as how truely "rare" a piece is, because there are no definte ### out here on the Net. Sometimes, if you watch IDs, you can watch "rare" pieces make the rounds, from re-seller to re-seller... I watched this Takatoku VF-1J Armor set MIB go around and around for months last year on ebay, from collector to collector to store, as I tried to buy it. for 8 months that bad boy made 5 laps around the world! Ended up selling for $700. is that piece really worth $700? maybe not. maybe so. but that guy won it, and to him it was rare and worth $700.

i don't know where i'm going with this. but i guess i'm trying to say that rare is truely in the eye of the beholder and price isn't any object when it comes to love.

[yojugod]

Well, my feet are firmly planted on the ground as far as vintage Cyborg prices go. I know what I want and I know my limits. And if I forget, my wife will remind me!

Reissues are interesting. In many cases, I find that the reissues are lacking in quality in one way or another. I find the cyborg reissue figures a bit flimsier than the originals. They don't have that solidity to them.

I haven't yet picked up a Devilman reissue, but will eventually. I do have the Retro Action Heroes Devilman and Yoju God and think they both rock. They have a very vintage feel to them and the sculpts seem to maintain the lack of preciseness or detail that makes the vintage ones a product of their era. In fact the entire Retro Action Heroes and Villians line manages to pull this off quite well. I'm pretty happy with all of the ones I've gotten.

Having a reissue Devilman doesn't quite kill my desire to eventually pick up a vintage one though.

The things I've learned in my ten years of collecting these damned toys is that you must be patient, know your limits, and enjoy the process of slowly obtaining your collection just as much as you enjoy having the actual piece in hand. One sweet vintage piece obtained can tide me over with good toy karma for months and months!

I figure I'll be 60 or so before I'm done!

[GUYx1]

Sorry to reply back a message, but $40 for a Secret Base Costume?
You do realize that Secret Base sells the “CHEAP” suits for more money than that?
Heck, everybody in Japan sells the cheap suits for more than that. (Unless they are broke and the economy is in the crapper... Hmm wait a second...!)

Just talking MODERN stuff as an example here:
I have been sent photos of collectors standing in line all night for a chance to purchase an item when the Secret Base store opened, because only 30 – 50 were produced and the item was only for sale for ONE DAY.
One day toy sales are pretty common in Japan. FAN CLUB exclusive toys are also pretty common. Many hurdles for Gaijin.
Dealers have to purchase the suits before they get to Yahoo Japan. Every step the price goes up.
Dealers were getting $40 just for the inner heads for the suits
(Heads which were initially obtained by making large purchases of over $100 at the shop.)

By talking about modern toys, You have just illustrated why vintage Henshin Cyborg as a whole never really caught on.

Would you stand in line all night just to get a good spot at WONDERFEST toy show, to obtain a choice vintage Costume?
People do that still in Japan.
As Gaijin, often we are completely unaware of what goes on to obtain these toys in Japan.
If I were to tell you that you would have to drop over $2000 - $4000 for a certain difficult Vintage outfit,
You would totally lose interest. The suits are not all affordable like Rainbow man and Diamond Eyes.
Even if you don’t spend a fortune, there are going to be hurdles of some sort.

Gaijin often do not concern themselves with the initial
struggles to obtain the toys, or their history.

Vintage toys are all vastly under priced today. It is a buyers market. Act now if you want something, because it won't stay this cheap.
On most of this stuff you are getting it for a song.
If you have any qualms with the current prices, just look at Billy Galaxy’s prices on Ebay.
That is how much people paid in my day. Billy Just got in at the wrong time and is taking a bath on all of it.
It could have happened to anyone. It could have been you with a $500 Invader figure, or loose $350 Lady Command figures.
When in doubt, you can always trade with Japanese collectors.

If you want a comprehensive look at all the vintage stuff,
I believe that this is the Magazine that contained the CYBORG poster detailing every vintage costume.



Just keep checking Yahoo Japan, eventually you will
find some good deals. Consider yourself one of the lucky ones. You are paying less than I did...

- Guy

[johnnyhaggis]

WHen it comes to vintages vs reissues in terms of cyborgs, the only vintages i'd want are the ones that never got re-issued: blue waldar, yellow waldar. I think it was guy that was telling me that the re-issues are just like the originals, minus cracks, loseness, blotches, yellowing etc!

When it comes to microman it's another story - the reissues' faces are quite less detailed than the originals for certain figures, particularly the m11x/m14x and m12x/m13x figures. It sucks to only have the re-issues of those.

[thebigr]

just clarifying here: I think what i was trying to say in my reply was this:

"if the price is too high, then don't buy."

my re-issue comment was more in reference to other toy lines and NOT HC, and definetly not the YJ! scene or the retail Japan scene at all.

I am very much a HC nube and while I have just started with my obession, collecting is my bread & butter, it's how i make my living. I deal more with US toys & rare vinyl records.

Again, i think i was more trying to say: rare is a temporary state of mind, and value is very subjective nowadays, it's better to just get what you're into than what's rare.

basically what guy said but less elloquently and from a different angle.


please folks ...not trying to say $40 was a realistic price or give anybody false ideas.

[thebigr]

i just coped a KWJr. reissue yellow for $30 or so.

of course i KNOW i'm lucky! wooooooho!

[boogeyman]

some pics of this costumes?