[Trivial Psychic]

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Originally Posted by kylactus

OK, so I'm in, I just bought the Hive Wars, Viper, cracked tusk, series 8 25th, darkhorse concrete hunter, night storn, and elder v2. I've got some questions for anyone who's been collecting the line for a while.
1. I've noticed there are very few of these loose on the secondary market, and when one comes up it costs as much as MIP, is this usual for this line?
2. what is the retail price on these? I saw people in forums mentioning under 20, but I've never seen one for less than 20 (with shipping)
3. where can I find these at retail?

Hey Kylactus...welcome to the thread! I might be able to answer some of your questions....

1. Yes, for some reason, Predators (at least on ebay anyway) follow the trend of other horror monster figures and seem to carry quite a bit of high resale value. This is especially true with certain variants of the classic predators (unmasked,open mouthed Jungle Hunter and City Hunter tend to go for higher prices than their masked counterparts) and certain members of the Lost Tribe that for some reason are more rare than others (Scout, Snake, and ESPECIALLY Unmasked Lost Predator.) If possible, I almost always recommend buying MIP with these when purchasing online, as due to the fragile nature of some of the accessories and the figures themselves, it would be very easy for loose figures to be damaged during shipping if your postman has a case of butterfingers.

2. When found in the wild, usually they retail at around 19.99, but I've seen a price increase on them with the last one or two waves, as they seem to be averaging now around $22 and up. If you know there is a wave coming up, I highly recommend pre-ordering when possible, as sites like BBTS will almost always offer a discount on the figures when purchasing a wave. And since these again tend to drive a high price on the secondary market, chances are you will be able to sell off any predators that you might not want, and make a buck or two in profit.

3. As far as retail, your best bet is TRU depending on how their distribution is. Certain stores like FYE and Hastings also carry them. Since I'm sort of a completionist with these, I usually pre-order them ahead of time through BBTS to save myself the hassle.

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Originally Posted by kylactus

I'm planning to hit it the same way, I'm also going to get a couple aliens to go with. but I don't really like the humans or the more outrageous preds (except for the kenner re-doo series). I don't think i'm going completion crazy on it. I've been kicking around the idea of opening and displaying them also. how's the articulation?

Like En Sabah Nur said earlier, the articulation on the newer Predators are pretty nice, with the only real thing you could ask for being an ab-crunch maybe. Now the older waves, not so good. They're still poseable, but they had those Y-joint style legs, which don't allow them to kick out, or kick forward unless it's at an angle. All predators made after the Masked Jungle Hunter (series 8) use the newer style ball joints on the legs...UNLESS they are the Kenner Series figures with designs incorporating the super predator molds. Those still use the classic Y-joints found in the earlier series.

Also...cause I really feel inclined to mention them, but you have to at least get the Jungle Patrol and Jungle Disguise Dutch figures. They are epic...and you can pair them with a Rambo figure to get your own Contra groove going on...lol.

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Originally Posted by 3233rafael

Nice! Yeah, I do collect them but I don't have them all. I usually just get the ones I like the most and it's one of my few loose collections. I think Trivial will be your best bet to answer any question you have though. He has all if not most of these MOC.

Whoo hoo...shout outs from Raf!...lol. I don't quite have all of these bad boys MOC (Remember my rant about how ridiculous some of the variants are?) but I'm still plugging away at em wherever I can find them!

I'm glad that you are enjoying your purchases so far Kylactus. With this line, I really do have to warn you, the amount of variants, which usually boil down to whether a predator is either masked or unmasked, or has an open or closed mouth, is ridiculous. For a long time, I tried collecting them all, until my wallet bowed out from the ridiculous secondary market prices. Raf is right though, I do have most of these, but I've narrowed it down to the version of each predator that I like the most. No need dropping cash on an open mouth, closed mouth, helmeted, cracked mask, battle damaged, etc, of the same predator, After a while...it gets ridiculous. =P