[Lionheart]

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£23 to your door.... Amazon US is a bit cheaper but the shipping is more and might get hit with a customs charge coming from US (looks over shoulder after mentioning taboo subject) where as from Hong Kong you will not get hit.

Who'da thunk that complaining about customs charges would create a stink? Amazon US calculate customs charges right off the bat based on price and you pay them upfront, so I try not to use them.

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Element Plus

That's not a bad price. I fully expect people to start seeing them discounted at Target soon though, as things seem to come out and then immediately go on sale in the US. At that point the regular priced ones ($20) will drop to far less on eBay - that's when I'll strike.

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Bottom line... the price increase for us sucks donkey balls. The line is more expensive than ever. The quality is lower than ever. Now they are are slowly creeping up the scale so they no longer fit in with the rest.

The scale thing never made sense to me. There isn't any reason someone - right at the start of a line - couldn't create a database of figure sizes based on Marvel Wiki with 4" as representing 6 feet and just keep adding to it. It's such an easy thing to do.

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I'm sort of taking a break as I have mentioned. Going backwards, filling a few gaps. Army building Ultron, and Moloids. Buying 400+ protech stands. Building a display area....that sort of stuff. There are many ways to stay in the game, keep buying stuff for the collection AND not give HASBRO my money to support the current state of things. When you pay them for crap, you are basically saying not only is it acceptable, but encouraging it.

I know what you mean. Just looking at what Toybiz created in the 90's - so many characters and so much variety of sculpt and it was all durable and high quality - it just puts Hasbro to shame. Yes, the artic sucked, but it was also much much cheaper. Frankly, Hasbro even manage to suck on 'premium' lines, just like with the AT-AT, and the constant re-doing of Star Wars Black figures meaning collectors have to double-dip, which works great for making money, but really shows what they think of the people that buy their stuff.

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In the next two weeks we will either be underwhelmed with this year's SDCC 3.75" Marvel offering or be completely disappointed when we get absolutely nothing at all. As you know, in 2014 we got Ant Man with a coat and in 2015 we got COLLECTOR. Basically two figures in two years and one was a slightly modified existing figure.... so I am keeping my hopes REALLY low this year. I mean really low. I'm expecting nothing at all or maybe a piece of paper printed and they call it Flat Man from the MidWest Avengers.

Underwhelmed is my guess. I think the Collector set would have been fine... at half the price, and in a normal sized box. Fuck that over the top packaging - it matters more what's in it! That said - I did like the Giant Man set, 6 inch Goliath and Pym were nice, and it would have been a great set for anyone that didn't have a BAF Giant Man or a Goliath. Can you imagine them doing a Masters of Evil set with Bad Goliath like that? Dream come true...