Cryptoarticula.
 

from Greek κρυπτός, kryptos, "hidden" + Articula; Action figures, literally "study of hidden Figures") refers to the search for figures which are considered to be legendary or otherwise nonexistent by mainstream collectors.

So what figures are the elusive "Death worms" of the collectors world?

Gentleman Ghost?
Kamakura?
the Matrix Albino Twins?
Clear Wraith.

We all have one , our white whale. That one figure you can never track down or maybe will never even be made. maybe its a vehicle or a play set.
Its My intention to make this a regular article and review these Hard to find figs, or at least report on the sightings of them,
Maybe they are under produced, maybe never produced. which ever.
Like Loren Coleman with a beta cam Ill sniff out the truth behind

CryptoArticula...

The Matrix Twins.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...x_twin1-01.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...2matrix-01.jpg

One thing I have learned from collecting over the years is that if you find it once , buy it. you may never see it again. well these two were never seen , not once, ever, even at cons.
I have never seen these two in the real world, I cant even be sure they actually exist except they pop up randomly on ebay now and then at $40.00 plus carded, and never loose. ever.
I think there is only like 8 of these guys being passed back and forth from collector to collector.
I own every single toy from this line, opened, and displayed. except these two....... do they really exist?
Morpheus to this day looks so lonely fighting no one...

Clear Wraith.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...h_variant2.jpg
Let me begin this by saying it I hate Variants, but I love clear figures... go figure. Its a ridiculous but effective marketing ploy by the toy companies to keep us on the look out, and when we make our weekly, and some times daily trips. If we don't find that one rare beauty we will just pick up something else.
This little sucker was impossible to find, and generated much irritation among Joe collectors world wide.
Now I have heard he is starting to appear at Outlet stores, some reports say in large numbers, this makes the speculators and scalpers nuts and on HISS there was a brief blood bath of people trying to unload these guys.

I hope they become common...

Nice idea, Otto!

Wraith always annoyed me, mostly because I never saw one on the pegs anywhere - clear or otherwise. It's one of the few gaps in my carded 25th line, but I haven't had the heart to track him down via Ebay or the boards. Mostly because there's been too much good stuff coming out for MU and Transformers.

You know, if the next figure you do is DCUC's Gentleman Ghost, you'll have a ghost theme going for the thread. Which is rather appropriate, since most of these figures are ghosts as far as collectors are concerned.

You read My mind Trebleshot....


Gentleman Ghost.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ew_dcuc8_7.jpg
Borrowed from MWCtoys


How is it , in this modern society of ours could one figure be so elusive?
Now granted I can confirm the existence of GG as I have purchased 2!
One loose from ebay, one packaged from a bloke in the UK I met here. (which subsequently is being resold) But with the cost steadily rising , he is getting harder and harder to find.

Its not that he is that desirable of a character, granted the phasing is kinda keen and the headless bit is , well, pretty awesome. No, it was for the C&C part that this bugger is so sought after.
I mean Giganta! and a mini Atom!? come on! If Mattel is deliberately, or heck even unintentionally make a figure in a lower number please for the love of mike make it an "All Star" with a stand!!!
I have several theories as to why this guy is so rare , but Ive filled many a page on them so I wont go into them in this article, but needless to say, this is one Ghost that TAPS would have a hard time finding.

I guess that I have been lucky. I never did find myself a Clear Wraith, but friends did find them for thier own collections and I was able to look at them.

As for the Roc Kamakura... i found him at a K-Mart and snagged him because everyone was clammoring about how rare he is. He is still in a box along with Resolute SE... Some of those other are truly mythilogical creatures.

Mezco's Lochness Monster

I really wanted this guy, sadly Mezco decided not to release him, I absolutely love Monsters and Giant robots and this sucker was supposed to be an 18inch rotocast figure!!
Likely it was a retailer issue with space that torpedoed this monster but I for one would love to have him!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...y/lochness.jpg