[atomicsmurf]

Hey guys and gals, I thought I would share a tactic I have recently tried in hunting down hard to find action figures, or any figure you may be having trouble acquiring. As some of you may know from my BST list I’ve been looking for a few rare older figures, and since I don’t have paypal, or a credit card (and I’m merrily not in debt because of it – that doesn’t mean I’m not broke! Ha, ha, ha!) I can only pay by cash or money order. This also rules out the use of evilbay, which is fine by me considering the infection of scalpers on that thing.

Anyway, I’ve had to try other ways of getting what I want and one has been to join awesome sites like this one, work trades, and buy from fellow members. It works and I’m grateful for it. But still there are some action figures that remain elusive. So I got to thinkin’ about all those comic shops across the nation that are sitting in small towns with action figures they can’t seem to move because the comic-book fan base just isn’t in the area, and that if I could just reach those comic shops and ask if they had what I was looking for, maybe, just maybe they’d have it sitting there!

Here’s what I did. The internet is your friend. I started googling comic shops in certain towns I thought were small, and would have a small geek-population (I’m a proud member, don’t get your panties in a bunch) not to be picked clean of popular action figures. I called a few, and hit gold on the second call for an Arkham Asylum Bane action figure. Unfortunately, the owner wanted scalper prices, forty-one bucks. I passed on the deal, but it proved that my theory had some merit. However, I can’t afford to make long distance phone calls across the country.

So, I switched tactics to emailing, and stumbled upon this nifty little site to assist in my endeavor:

ComicShopLocator.com

Down at the bottom you’ll see a list of states across the nation, clicking a link will take you to the cities and a list of comic shops in that area. Some of those comic shops have websites and e-mail addresses.

I typed up a polite query letter in MS Word with the items I was hunting for, saved it and used it to copy and paste into each email I sent to these comic shops. Yes, it is time consuming, and repetitive, and I got a LOT of replies stating that the items I was looking for were not in stock, sold-out, and no longer available from DC Direct. That’s okay, at least I was getting replies from people who cared and took the time to investigate.

Well, finally all that emailing paid off and I struck gold. I’ve officially got an AA Bane figure bought at a price I can stomach. Not only that, but another shop has replied that they have one in their store, as well – slightly cheaper than the one I just paid for, but it proves what I had thought… those HTF figures are out there, sitting in poor neglected comic shops just waiting for someone to take the time to hunt them down.

So to all my fellow collectors out there, I gladly share my figure-hunting tip with you, and hope it brings you a little plastic chunk of gold to add to your collection. Hope this has been helpful!

-Atomicsmurf