Starting out, looking for some advice

[KesselRunPDX]

Hi everyone,

So here's where I'm at. I have a decent starter collection of loose vintage figures, loose POTF figures, several loose vintage vehicles and a few carded POTF figures. Right now I'm mainly focusing on the vintage vehicles, trying to complete the ones I have and on the look-out for a few others as well as a few of the vintage playsets. After that I'm looking at rounding out my figures and finding their various weapons/gear/clothes that I know they're missing.

Now here's where the advice comes into play: how do I go about this?

I'm in the US on the West Coast, and while off the top of my head ebay comes to mind, I rarely believe the prices people put their various items up for, seems a bit inflated to be honest. Also, I get a bit sick of starting the bid, have it stay at that first price for days then have it skyrocket at the last few hours or minutes because a friend of the seller or the seller themselves is bidding it up to potentially make more money off me, or whoever continues to bid on it.

Any sort of stores around my area are lackluster at best, or completely lacking at worst. I found one hobby store quite a ways from where I live that had figures, vehicles and parts available for decent prices, but most of the time the person who sells the items rarely has the harder to find pieces I'm looking for, or for the boxed/carded items wants quite a bit for them. I stuck with buying parts (mainly for my Falcons) and haven't been disappointed.

So where do I go from here? Repros are always a concern, and while I'm willing to pay a decent price for harder to find items, I don't want to be robbed blind either, you know?

Generally I've been using http://www.12back.com/ to figure out what I'm looking for, vehicles wise, but other than that, this forum so far looks to be the first honest dealing place I've found, so I'd appreciate help.

Thanks in advance!

 

[itfciain]

Sounds like you have a plan Sir !

There are some great sellers on here and at least you can be pretty confident that what you get will be the real McCoy. I also find that sellers on here tend to play down their items whilst on Ebay it is the opposite (saw a Yak face with a missing hand described as 'in excellent condition' the other day)

Most of the lads on here are based in the UK and although you are looking for vehicles, shipping costs will not be too bad for the smaller ones.

You can also take a look at the sales threads of the Rebel Scum site as a lot more of the sellers are based in the States so shipping costs will be lower.

I would like to think there is a good bunch on here and there are some experts in the vehicle field that will be able to help you if you do have any questions

Cheers
Iain

 

[KesselRunPDX]

Thanks Iain!

So right now for vehicle parts, I'm looking for the following:

AT-AT:
- 2 chin guns
- 1 canopy
Haven't thrown batteries in it to see if the electronics work. I know there's a button on the inside handle, but what was the atat supposed to do when powered up?

Snowspeeder:
- 1 canopy with glass
- 1 harpoon with connecting bit (I have the harpoon gun already)
By the way, is there a right way for the turbines in the back to go on? I have both and put them on but it seems if you look at them wrong they tend to fall off...Also haven't tried the electronics.

Millenium Falcon:
- 1 Jedi practice ball and support arm
- (Possible) 2 landing door struts
I already have landing struts for the door, but I think one of them is damaged (showing the white coloring of being bent). Also, electronics not tested.

Darth Vader's Tie Fighter:
- 1 battery compartment door.
This one is odd because I did test the electronics, and while the light under the cockpit lights up when activated, there isn't any noise.

1 of the mini rigs (the white one with the bubble dome on top):
-1 bubble dome

2 Slave-1s:
A is only missing the Han in Carbonite, B is missing the canopy, side door, ramp and Han.

I'll put up pictures a bit later tonight when I get back from trivia.

Other than that, of the vehicles I'm looking for:
- Imperial Shuttle (every time I seem to get out bid on it at the last second)
- Y-Wing
- Ewok Battle Wagon
(Yeah, I know these are somewhat hard to find, but hey, gotta go with whats interesting)

Playsets:
-Death Star
-Ewok Village (have to have somewhere to put them right?)
-Imperial Star Destroyer
-Dagobah

 

[aussiejames]

AT_AT chin guns move back & forward & light up. Try putting the tie fighter batteries in backwards (opposite to the picture)

 

[Dark Sith Lord]

Many of the items you are looking for are for sale here Clark - http://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7538

Although postage would be a bummer!

 

[tigerham]

Yeah, as Iain mentioned dude, Rebel Scum is probably your best bet as the price for shipping vehicles etc would be pretty high plus you'd receive the items you're looking for alot quicker!

Good to have you on board all the same.

Ham