My thoughts on the subject:

-I feel if you can't grade things yourself, you're in the wrong hobby...  Just a personal gripe about what grading things has done to the "accessability" of the hobby to more people.

I feel it takes figures and inflates prices beyond necessity...  It changes dynamics of things, and it splits an already divided hobby up even further between collectors.

-Grading's very subjective...  I know "experts" on the hobby whose opinion differs from mine in terms of condition, and only clearly perfect items or destroyed ones are generally agreed on.  THat leaves basically the C2 to C9 range wide open to interpretation... 

In short, there's never going to be a "standard", even among friends who value each other's opinions greatly.

I mean, I may grade something slightly higher than say a guy like Tatoo Shane would, but that doesn't mean I don't value Shane's opinion (I sure as hell would!), it just means he and I have differing opinions when things get greyer...

(BTW, Shane's just a name drop I'm using to make a point)

-My collection's on my home's insurance policy already, and I graded it myself...  So for insurance purposes it's unnecessary, at least as far as I see.  To me it's irrelevant for this then.


So this is a few reasons I'm not in favor of it...  I'd never use the service myself, and I'd honestly be ashamed of myself as a vinty collector if I felt I "had" to entrust another's opinion when buying.

Also, if I don't trust an auction on Ebay 100%, then I'm not buying into it...  I tend to deal in vintage either from known trustworthy people, or from something I can inspect in person.

Hit here in Pittsburgh I guess...  Can't say I'm going nuts, but if there were an AT-AT or AT-ST I'd likely nab it just for a reference piece.

JD.com is proud to present our first ever Review-A-Thon...  It's a way we're going to clean out some old reviews we've got backlogged and get a little something for you, the viewer, to read over theholidays.

I'm moving right along now with Imperial Dignitaries, since they're older on the list.



So what do you get when Hasbro decides to start reusing parts left and right?  You get two kooky old farts, and not the one you actually were probably wanting the most!

And no, I'm not talking about the old guys in the balcony on the Muppet Show, but atually the Imperial Dignitaries...

Actually, these two turned out pretty great, though they're not much good for standing around and looking old.  The reuse of parts was great for the most part, however the spread-apart fingers of the 2nd released dignitary looked odd.

Still, Hasbro dished out two new figures, and they look good, and that's what counts...  OK, they could've used more accessories...  And let's face it, most of us wanted the VINTAGE dignitary before we wanted these two, but nonetheless they're cool.

Read the review, share your comments, live long and prosper...  And stuff.

Who'd have thought that MTV's "Real World" TV show could ever educate someone?  Not I!

But as I sit here tonight, I tell you that I've learned more about Phobias through this show than ever in my life...  I'm obviously far from an expert on them.

Tonight's re-run featured a phobia I'd never have guessed, and last season of the show featured yet another!

My fascination of tonight's episode was when the one girl in the house decided that she didn't want to participate in a benefit that her "job" that she's set up with via the show was not something she could handle.

Her problem?  She's "afraid" of people with disabilities apparantly...  Yes, this is I guess a phobia, and not discrimination of any kind.  Just a fear.

Now, of course there's some sarcasm in my voice as I mock this...  The girl's excuse was along the lines of, "When I was little, they let the special ed kids out to play with us and they would push us around on the playground and now I'm afraid of them so I don't want to participate at the benefit for our organization".

The kids had Cerebal Palsy...  It had to be explained to the girl about what that is exactly, and how they're not mentally challenged...

I wonder why the show, and the people on it, felt justified in calling it a "phobia" instead of blatant intollerance towards a group of people...  It was one of the dumbest things I've seen on TV...  Yeah I should expect it from "The Real World", but this moment truly triumphed over every benchmark of stupidity that show has ever set...

Case in point:

Last season, the other "phobia" brought to my attention was that apparantly you can be afraid of REALLY big boats.  The "punker" chick that season, who signed up for a RW taping which took place at a major city on the West Coast, and on top of that a major harbor (I forget the city off-hand), was afraid any time she saw a boat...  NOt like dingy's, but like a big boat.

She ran, crying, back to her house when she was at the docks for their first day of their job the show gave them that season...  There was a passenger liner within her line of sight.

See, I had no idea there was so much stupidity, errr, I mean so many types of phobias out there.  Learn something new every day, huh?

BTW yes, I do kill brain cells watching the show some.  I like watching people fight, and always like to see who the most psycho person is every season.

Ah ok...  I thought you meant the forcefile pack-in that CAME with the Bespin Guard.    Very confusing.

Oh the pack-in with the Carbon Freeze set...  Yeah, while I kinda dig the headsculpt, the figure is nasty...  I wouldn't say it's the worst thing I've ever seen though.  I think the X-Wing pilot pack-ins are worse for instance.

I'd put him above those.  I'd put him above some of the figures in some of the 4-packs lately...  Still not a good figure though, haha.

Wow...

OK, even though this is locked, I'm adding some things to it since I just got to read what started this at Scum.

The short of it is that everything you said at Scum was baseless Cory, and I frankly do think you owe JD.com overall (and its members) an apology for insinuating what you did.  Matt apologized for Vator only out of kindness, not because he ever had to.

The whole thing's silly, and this topic is dead...  Well, dead after I'm done anyway.

Cory, you're not gonna have any friends here if you keep it up...  Scum's problems, even if they're GOOD members here (and Vator, KBZ, and anyone else you implicated openly) are their problems...  So DBB and Lady Jaye simply have their work cut out.

We get our problems too, and we're left to deal with them and not establishing asinine "theories" about other sites.

I hope nothing this stupid shows up here again, or at Rebelscum, because this really was one of the dumbest things I've read in a LONG time.

Oh hell dude, I saw that at Wal-Mart last night too Paul and it's a great little piece of armor but HORRIBLE pack-ins (though you do get 2).

Worst figures that company has ever done, and that's saying a lot since their modern figures sucked pretty bad too. 

21st addressed the figures in that actually, not too long ago, and they've said they're going to be changing how they do figures...  That those are indeed an embarassement.  They said to look for good things in the future.

That's fine, but what about now?  They should offer replacements for those knock-off looking POS's...  i'd say they changed production facilities and got the shaft when they did so.