[Morgan]

Here's a rare Vorgon with pog on a Canadian card, doubly rare because of the 7th season card. Very excited to have gotten this one, as this is genuinely one of the rarest variations out there, even compared to Red Data. This is one of four variants of Vorgon (yes, four). And they are:

1. SkyBox card on 2nd release US card
2. pog on 2nd release US card
3. pog on 7th season Canadian card
4. Australian on 2nd release card with no Skybox card or pog & different equipment tray

There were a few other Canadian-market figures from the 2nd release that were sold on 7th season cards. Out of all of these, Guinan appears to be the easiest to come by, but that's all relative.

When it comes to Canadian-only pog-equipped figures, there were of course also Sarek and Lwaxana -- they're the two best known ones -- and they also came on 7th season boards with SkyBox cards in Canada. But Dathon was not released with a pog in Canada on 7th season board, nor on a 7th season board with a SkyBox card. All photos of Dathon with pog that I've seen show him on the usual 2nd release boards.

There are a few more mysteries out there when it comes to rare packaging, true "unicorns" that make Tapestry Picard & company look common. There are still unexplored and unnoticed items out there.

As for the figure itselt, Vorgon was a classic, classic weird alien that was made in pretty solid numbers, but was named generically, like the Nausicaan. Esoqq also played this role (though he was given a name) and there were other figures like that starting with the generic Romulan, generic Borg, generic Ferengi, generic Mugato. I'm kinda surprised there was never a generic Klingon. The Vorgons themselves -- there were two of them -- appear only briefly on TNG, and the release of the Vorgon was a lot like the old Galoob figures of Selay and Antican. So people went: what the hell are these about? I have to confess I've never even seen the episode with Selay and Antican, they just don't show it.

The weird alien figure subtype was great -- Esoqq and Nausicaan are some of my favorites -- and the Vorgon itself was a bit of a rare figure back when these were new. But speaking of the Vorgon with a pog, I remember these were advertised for like $200 in the mid-1990s. That's a lot of dough, about $250 today adjusted for inflation, and there weren't a lot of them in the states because there was no eBay and the internets were still a newfangled thing. So it was hard to get a real sense for just how many were out here, and trading/selling figures was a slow-moving exercise. Think Homestead and Tripod pages that barely got updated. ::shudders:: Even though figures like that were advertised for those prices, I'm not sure that a lot of them actually traded hands for that much. I mean, I'm sure there were instances of obscene gouging and speculation, but it's hard to wrap one's head around some of those numbers. It was a different time, what can I say.