[Greg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shin Densetsu

2006 brought about the Evolutions sets and surprisingly I missed out. I had waited too long and the parents/kids/collectors nabbed them all during xmas shopping season. 2007 brought about a line that did many things right in my eyes the TAC(Thirtieth Anniversary Collection). I collected a good number of figures in this line and this is where I can truly say I started collecting Star Wars with more emphasis. I liked how a lot of figures had close to full articulation(super articulation at the time). I liked the character selection. I liked most of the McQuarrie concept figures.

2007 really was the best year... Such a great selection of figures, good prices, stuff was selling, and stores were actually stocking! That was the last time I didn't have to "work" to find stuff, which is really disappointing.

While 2008-2011 weren't terrible, I had to strategically hit stores (i.e. go at opening, and on truck days) and order online to get what I wanted. Figure selection was good in the collector-targeted lines, but the Legends and Clone Wars assortments got bogged down with pegwarmers. Prices were also creeping up, which sucked.

2012 has easily been the worst year in recent memory for Star Wars collecting. I'm not sure if it has EVER been this bad. The Target closest to me finally restocked Vintage figures for the first time since the spring... my local Wal-Mart, however, hasn't stocked since February. This is the first year ever where most of my figure purchases have been made online, either by the case or individually via HTS or Amazon. I have found fewer than ten new Vintage figures since the Deleted Scene wave came out back in February... even Movie Heroes and Clone Wars bombed hard this year, with very few restocks in my area.

The one, and only one, bright spot this year has been the exclusives. We have gotten some great items like the Speeder Bike and K-Mart 2-packs, and best of all they have been plentiful (at least in my neck of the woods).

I'm hoping stuff can actually be found in stores next year. Beyond that, I'm hoping the upcoming movies rekindle interest in Star Wars, so we can enjoy more "movie years" with plenty of (hopefully quality) toys. This year overall was really terrible, and if next year ends up being more of the same I'll be very upset.