I wondered if any other $80 vintage vehicle would accompany the Tank when it was announced. Now I find these TIEs every time I go in Wally, but no Tanks to be found yet at retail. I know it is akin to Luddite behavior, but I really wanna buy my Tank at brick n mortar to support the business model...

And I will gladly pick up the Solo TIE over the Vintage version too...again, if and when I find one. Plenty of Walkers to be had, no little TIEs.

The detail about the tooling being built from digital files is interesting.  Because it would seemingly give Hasbro the ability to send those files to the factory so that they could build their own tooling.  So going forward, ownership of the molds might not be such a problem when it comes to reissuing a figure that was previously produced in a factory that is no longer working with Hasbro on figure production.

Excellent points. Certainly Hasbro had no compunctions about having the same digital file being tooled up at two different factories (in two different countries) at the same time to produce essentially identical figures (paint apps notwithstanding.) The issue is in the pricing: tooling makes up a large chunk of production costs, which is why a reuse/rehash of existing tooling cuts costs. During a movie push and making the 5POA movie line figures the biggest crunch Hasbro is feeling is time, so having multiple new molds cranking out figures everywhere they can makes sense. It's not the same with Vintage Collection figures.

Hasbro now builds a Vintage Collection wave to balance costs between new tooling and old tooling, essentially selling the more cheaply produced "old tool" figures at the same price as the new ones to have the ability to bring us the newly tooled figures at a better price. Just looking at the figures, they are as intricate as the 6" figures, so you can make the leap that the tooling is just as expensive no matter the scale. (Heck, I could even argue there is some threshold where it begins to cost more for the miniaturized detail.)

All this is just a long way around of saying the old tools are still very valuable and necessary to Hasbro's Vintage Collection strategy. And until they get us to accept that a 4" and a 6" figure will cost the same at retail, it will remain that way.

I have told this story before, but back about ten years ago I finally gave up trying to put together a "complete" collection of modern stuff. (I had all the vintage figures, minus a couple of the POTFs, as a kid and was never interested in completing a new collection of them. The modern line, however, held onto me with the promise of new figures and a "complete" collection.

So I sat down and made my own list of the figures that I needed in my complete collection, and stuck to it as much as was humanly possible. I also gave up on vehicles at that point--there's a whole rationale there, but basically I loved playing with them as a kid but never thought they displayed well among the figures.

Once I had a set of what I thought was going to be my complete collection, I went about designing customized shelves to display them on, broken down by themes (Imperials, Hoth, Cantina, etc.) I had a thread about those back then, but the links are busted. Here's a couple of the shelf designs I made to give you the idea:





And I was pretty satisfied with those...though I didn't put the finishing touches on acouple of them, and never built the Jabba themed shelf I wanted.

Since then I have moved, and had a couple kids, and I never got the office space back that I wanted. So these shelves are still packed away too.

These days I make cardstock and cardboard displays to sell as Cardboard Galaxy, and my collection mostly rotates through those new designs as I make new ones and need to photograph them. The latest thing I have been making is "archival displays" designed to show off the vintage figures on cardstock displays reminiscent of the Action Display Stand Kenner made for the first 12. Here's the "Empire Strikes Back" segment of that:







I have enjoyed seeing my modern figures broken down into the vintage equivalents, I like them set up this way lately.

Good luck Brian, and please share pictures when you have the set-up you're dreaming of!

Some people think her dad is Darth Maul which is stupid.

Okay, I'll say it...would that even be possible for someone who doesn't have any body parts left below the waist?

So is this a "real" character or something they made up just to have an exclusive repaint and get the money for little work? Because that mark-up is insane, and you know they are going to try to capitalize on that collector insanity themselves!

I have never heard of Anti He-Man before two weeks ago...I really really wanted to like and collect these Super7 He-Man figures but they missed the mark for me...now I am starting to count myself lucky if this is going to be the standard for the line.

Weren't there also scenes of her trying to track down Poe and sending a delegation to the Republic looking for more help? I seem to remember that from the novelization. Not that I can begin to figure out how to use those moments post-TLJ, either...

Last week a client suggested a simple set based on the above 8-bit SMB with the bespin gantry walkway in place of Bowser's bridge. We talked about it as a commission piece but once I got to work on it I got so excited I wanted to share it with everybody.

So here is the newest "Pop-Up Playset:" Gantry Duel!









This one is a limited edition of 50 pieces, and I'm trying to rush the edition with an introductory price of just $15 shipped. PM me if interested, and as always thanks for taking the moment to look at the pictures!

Great coverage today guys! Thanks from all of us shut-ins!