Tag Archives: Rants & Raves

Hasbro’s The Vintage Collection presentation today was disappointing. I don’t know anyone who can find complete satisfaction in what was offered today. The ONLY saving grace is the Tusken Raider which has new tooling to forgive its past sins, but we’ve been complaining about that for a decade and a half too. But the new announcements are entirely problematic. (more….)

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Hasbro, you know that The Vintage Collection packaging is a HUGE part of the collecting experience. And it appears there is a STRONG possibility that the TVC Smuggler’s Run Millennium Falcon will ship WITHOUT an outer box to protect the original packaging. From the explanation on their website to confirmations made by Guest Relations at the 1-800 number, it seems collectors won’t be getting their investment protected. If the interpretation of this is incorrect, we’ll happily issue a correction, but please confirm either way. We understand they’re going to slap a shipping label right on the front of the actual TVC box. If required, can you please work with your great retail partner and advise them against this practice? Can you work with them so they can offer collectors something that will protect the packaging/box of this treasured item? Let’s prevent disaster and an angry collecting community. Thank you! Also, thank you for getting more units up for pre-order today. That was the right thing to do. But so is ensuring these large vehicles ship with protection too.

And it’s getting worse. As if the debacle of TARGET’s Galaxy’s Edge exclusives wasn’t enough, JTA reader blueharvestcollector tagged us on Instagram, showing what the few who secured the TVC Millennium Falcon are doing with their pre-orders. It’s salt in the wound. Now, the irritation doesn’t come from an anti-capitalist attitude. Scalpers can do what they want, but only after the demand is met. This item lasted a mere moments online. Hasbro, you have to meet the demand for these exclusives better. All we hear is how you can’t price anything out. Then you finally release what collectors have begged for years to have another opportunity to purchase, and you make it limited. Why do you make these exclusives IMPOSSIBLE to secure? You need to work with TARGET ASAP and get more units available for pre-order. You’ve essentially ticked off most of your customers who wanted this, the TVC community that still remains. This is not how a relationship works. If there are more coming, then please let us know immediately. Because right now, people are walking away angry.

Hasbro, if you don’t MILK the appearance of Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker for an opportunity to bring The Vintage Collection collectors a super-articulated 3.75″ action figure of Emperor Palpatine, it may go down as one of the biggest mistakes of your career developing toys for the Star Wars brand license. Now, we know you’d likely be tempted to release it on a TROS card back, but we’re sorry to inform you it would have to go on a Return Of The Jedi card back so we can check off one of the Kenner original 92. Thank you. (Feel free to release a second version in a box with a throne too.)

There are ten (10) specific things I have been obsessing about that I want to see get done when the return of The Vintage Collection comes this Spring 2018. (A lot of it has to do with the original Kenner line.) While it would be wise for all of us to not count our chickens before they hatch, TVC’s return is likely to be a scaled down version of what we encountered between 2010 through parts of 2013. However, there is no reason why Hasbro can’t make most of their existing tooling budgets, parking lots, checklists and brainstorming to help us complete modern releases of the figures we grew up with as kids. Doing this will benefit everyone involved in the Hasbro/collecting community universe. While this unofficial Top 10 list of mine is really “all over the place’ with regards to what it covers, you will notice that it hones in on one repeated topic: getting those original “Collect All 92” out/completed in this line and offers suggestions on how to do it. Please click through and be sure to leave your own two cents in our comments. We have to keep the conversations going about The Vintage Collection. It’s the most important thing Hasbro has done for us in over half a decade.

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