2011 "Vintage" Collection Wave 3.5 - Wedge!

[Jabba the Slug]

Well, I know all those ones showing up on eBay aren't just from online sellers. Dude is out there somewhere.

JTA has a front-page report of one eBay auction that sold him for $460... I wonder if Hasbro thought over putting Wedge in just one case before they actually did it.

[McMetal]

I'm very tempted to start a whole new "The Wedge Fiasco" thread here in this forum because it is such an interesting topic of conversation right now. Does not seem to generate much discussion around here but it really gets ranted about ad nauseam at some otheR Sites.

I mean, people are really irate about this stuff, and the blame is being spewed everywhere. They're mad at Hasbro, they're mad at the brick and mortar stores, they're mad at the onlines sellers, they're mad at the eBay scalpers, they're even mad at the people paying the crazy prices for these things.

I don't have the historical perspective that some of you do, having been out of the hobby for a long while in the 90's, but I don't ever recall this level of hysteria about an action figure before. It's actually pretty amusing, and sort of fascinating from a sociological perspective.

I honestly think if they had just released Wedge as part of a regular wave with proper distribution that it would have killed about 90% of the hype. But by doing it as part of a revision wave, for a wave that was already flying off shelves, seems at best clueless and at worse cruel. I really think this is a great example of demand being fed purely by lack of availability. Like the South Park episode where Cartman bought his own amusement park and then closed it to the public, thereby instantly making it the most popular amusement park in the world.

That whole card revision thing did not help either. It's like a perfect storm of of insanity.

Oh, and I love that one online seller that cancelled all their pre-orders so they could sell Wedge on Amazon for twice as much.    That's just brutal!

Sorry no actual purchases to detail with this post...I drove 40 minutes to a TRU in Fredericksburg yesterday but no sigh of Wave 7 yet. 

[Jeff]

I don't ever recall this level of hysteria about an action figure before. It's actually pretty amusing, and sort of fascinating from a sociological perspective.

Oh, there have been plenty of these "figure hysteria" moments over the years - Freeze Frame Weequay, CommTech R2-D2, 2007 EU Wave, CW Talz wave, etc.  Sometimes they turn out valid (FF Weequay still commands some good $$) and sometimes they turn out as plentiful as every other figure ($1.99 CommTech R2 bins at TRU).

For me, the jury is still out on Wedge.  Is he hard to find because of scalpers and speculators?  Or is he hard to find because EVERY figure is sort of hard to find thanks to the crappy retail situation at most stores?  I don't know.

For me, if I can find the new Wedge, fine.  If for some reason I never find one, that's fine too - I'll just buy him when they repack him in some pilot set or with some ship in a few years. 

[Pete_Fett]

I haven't been paying as close attention to things as I normally do 'cause things at work have been hectic, but I have one question: Has it been confirmed that they are NEVER putting him in another case assortment somewhere?

It seems to me that we don't know what the case assortments are going to be beyond the Revenge of the Jedi wave so it's entirely possible he'll be slotted into a wave after that isn't there?

Since I wanted at least one of him to open, I saw that EE had ONE non-mint one in stock so I ordered it.

If I have to, I'll order a whole Wave 3 revision case to secure a MOC one.

[Jesse James]

There's absolutely no clue how Wedge may resurface...  He could come out again a year from now in Legends or something.  Revenge carded figures are the only current pre-order though (Since Wave 7 has shipped), and so he could very easily wind up in future cases that haven't been announced yet, yes.

[Matt R.]

BBTS has Wedge by himself for 39.99... Screw that he not worth that much for a kit-bash.

[Jesse James]

All it'll take to kill that is someone casting his head in flesh tones, haha.

[Sybeck1]

Sadly going to settle with the one with the X wing.

[Jayson]

Sadly going to settle with the one with the X wing.

That one is better anyway.

[evenflow]

This situation is just ridiculous. I dont get the logic and its killing my love for this line.

[Scockery]

See, stuff like this makes any collector a scalper. I'd be a fool not to buy this release and turn around and sell it. It's ridiculous and detrimental to the hobby.

[darth broem 2]

This situation is just ridiculous. I dont get the logic and its killing my love for this line.

Yep, I love the fact that they finally put these figures on these cardbacks but yet they kill it with crap like that.  It's sad because it literally is killing my love for the line as well.  It's bad enough that you do have to pay $10 per figure.  Now to get a background character like Wedge you have to pay way more than what the figure should be worth.  Hasbro has really pissed me off with with these figures.  Yet you can find Clone Wars figure (the supposed golden child of line now) all over creation.  Yet, they can't make the vintage line readily available??? 

[warinthefloor]

Hasbros executives and marketing asshats are completely tonedeaf and stupid about this line.
You can tell them I said so.
There is no excuse for how hard it is to find the Vintage figures, there are so many I have never even seen in person
Instead of a fans choice poll, they should let fans vote on case assortments as far out as is possible. For soem reason I bet they would hate that idea

[Adam_Pawlus]

Yet you can find Clone Wars figure (the supposed golden child of line now) all over creation.  Yet, they can't make the vintage line readily available???

Some of the minor Clone Wars guys were/are really hard to get.  Prices vary but several of the minor characters climbed to $20-$40, and the ARC Troopers Battle Pack topped $150 a few weeks ago.  The same distribution problems are occurring on every line right now-- Iron Man 2 had its final comic assortment not hit brick and mortar toy retail (I saw it in a grocery store, and we got them at work), Thor's later waves are very difficult to come by, and the bulk of 2011 Transformers never hit ANY US shelves other than online and closeout.  And GI Joe has worse distribution than Star Wars, by and large, as some stores dropped the line entirely and a lot of fans (myself included) flat-out never saw certain figures hit.

The problem isn't necessarily Hasbro either, unless you want to blame the sheer quantity of stuff they put out in a year.  The assortment system with its 12-piece cases and limited pegspace isn't really ideally suited to assortments which rotate in and out 50 figures over the course of a year, and the bizarre shutting-down of new product at some stores (Transformers everywhere in early 2011, Star Wars at TRU past vintage wave 2 last year) makes very little sense in the grand scheme of how retail toy business works.

I have to assume Wedge will be coming in a later case, if not, Hasbro has a golden opportunity to reship it in future assortments.  Obviously, the demand is here... and it could even show up as a 2012 SDCC exclusive like we saw with the Stormtrooper Commander in 2009.  (Although I'd love to see him on a POTF coin card if they went that way, but that's me.)

All I can say is I hope everybody keeps complaining.  Complain at SDCC.  Complain at NYCC if Hasbro's there.  Complain in the Q&As.  Make it front page news.  Hasbro doesn't ignore mandates from the fanbase if they're loud enough.  A figure commanding $450 on the secondary market benefits no one in the grand scheme of things, and I think the last time something like that happened was Playmates Star Trek.  That wasn't good.  And today we got word ShopStarWars.com is shutting down next week.  That's not good either.

[Jesse James]

Squeaky wheel gets the grease...

Of course I think some have it already assumed that they'll re-release him for cheap, and that the figure's value is a non-issue and people should just wait it out and not "feed the scalper"...  I guess that kind of goes against making front page news of the complaints, despite desire for the same goal to be attained.

Myself, I am not too worried...  I kind of like the X-Wing version better anyway, but if I saw it I'd of course buy.  Even just for the cardback really.