By the time you read this, I’ll be dead…
…tired and on an early train to Toronto. Don’t worry, I’m not expiring or expatriating, I’ll just be there for a good old fashioned Canadian comedy show and I’ll be back in the states where things are soooo much better before you know it.
Carrying on from Josh’s column last week, I’m just not feeling it when it comes to toy collecting these days. I’ve got $20 in rewards credit burning a virtual hole in my pocket at my local toy shop, which I intended on using this last week, but upon stopping in, nothing jumped out at me to purchase. Is this why Alexander wept when he had no more worlds to conquer?
I’m sure it has everything to do with me being bored with the hobby and not the absolute state of the world right now.
BBP! EiC Andy Burns has me pounding the pavement looking for the newest McFarlane Superman release, but when I went to my local Target, I found the shelves to be bare (sorry). Stores are in the post-holiday toy limbo at the moment, and the Midwest tends to see new products a week or two after they start hitting the East and West Coast ports, which can foster collector FoMo if you’re not careful.
As it stands currently, my TMNT, Transformers, The Flash, and Spider-Man displays are at capacity. I feel like I have enough, which is a good “problem” to have. Maybe it’s fleeting, and I’ll likely be back on the hunt soon enough, but the lull is apparent.
Last I canceled my Fanhome Star Trek Starships subscription after sixteen months. That’s a whole starfleet, and I think I’ve now achieved the rank of commodore. With the delivery of my last monthly shipment, the USS Protostar from Star Trek: Prodigy, I felt I had reached a natural stopping point. I got the ships that I wanted (plus a few I did not), and I wasn’t entirely enthused about what was coming down the pipeline.
To that end, I wasn’t entirely sure there would be a pipeline. Only one model had been revealed beyond this month, and nothing else was announced until late last week (you can check out the list here). After viewing the list, there wasn’t anything that made me want to live long and prosper. I’m sure that someone has a favourite ship on the list, and I may even pick up one or two at a later date, but I just don’t want any of them enough to sign on for another year-plus of recurring monthly charges.
My experience with Fanhome has been largely positive. I never received any broken models or missing shipments, but there were some bumps in the road. From the outset, I think Fanhome underestimated the absolute ravenous hunger of Trek collectors, and they were treading water getting these ships out of port. The Excelsior II ship arrived with a typo (“Excelcion”), which they’ve promised to replace at no cost at some unnamed date in the future. The omnipresent threat of tariffs affected the business and collectors alike, and eventually, fulfillment issues arose.
Some collectors missed shipments, while others got DOUBLE orders despite only being charged for a single model. Back in December, I ordered an XL Enterprise D (“XL D” tee-hee), and I’m still waiting for it. Allegedly, it shipped this week.
But that’s where I’m at right now, I’m not enjoying the chase too much, and I feel like I have had enough.
