(I wasn't sure how to capitalize that. I feel like A.A. Milne, capitalizing Random Things just to make them seem Important.)

Anyway. After a hiatus of several years, I'm on the hunt for 1987 Decoys again. I'd like to actually complete my collection at some point before I become so old that I can't tell the characters apart any longer. (I also feel like I need to make Decoys for the characters who never got any. At the absolute bare minimum, I would want to do Gears. The awful, ugly sculpt I am envisioning for him is absolutely glorious and terrible. But, I digress.)

I'm finding, to my utter shock, that the process has been remarkably easy of late. People set prices, and either I feel like it's too high and refuse to spend the money, or I feel like it's still too high, but buy it anyway. Those are the choices. No waiting seven days for an auction to end, no being worried about being at work when the auction is closing, no spending an unexpectedly large amount of money after being drawn into a bidding war. (If I'm already prepared to pay $30 for something and somebody else gets it for $30.25, that's a crime in my book.)

I remember fretting and stressing out about auctions on a regular basis, being constantly disappointed and missing out on things I really wanted. I eventually discovered Auction Stealer, a third-party web site that could place bids on your behalf at specific intervals (like, say, fifteen seconds before the end of the auction). That reduced some, but not all, of the inherent frustration. But there were limitations, as the site was sometimes fraught with technical difficulties, and there was a limit to how many times they would snipe for you per month.

Somehow, I feel like everybody has just universally abandoned the auction format and has set their own pricing. You want this Decoy of Shrapnel? It's eleven bucks. You're in the market for Inferno? The price is $14.99 shipped, please. (Unfortunately, I have already gobbled up all the characters I could get for cheap, which means the ones I have yet to buy are the hardest to find, and the most expensive. People charge up to $60 for a Decoy of Grimlock. Suffice to say, I do not own a Decoy of Grimlock as yet. I really don't know how I'm going to get around paying that much for a two-inch tall eraser.)

But the process itself is frustration-free now. I love it. Sellers will occasionally set up auctions with the Make An Offer format, so they set their pricing but there's a bit of wiggle room. I freely admit I am pennywise but pound foolish, so I will haggle with a seller who's got a Jakks-Pacific Smurfs figurine I want, taking the price from six dollars to five. It's not that I can't afford the extra buck. That's not the point. I guess I just want to feel like I'm getting a deal somehow. (And if I do that sixty times in a row, then suddenly getting the Decoy of Grimlock doesn't seem so bad.)

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I invite you all to check out an auction I'm running for an action figure I have absolutely no use for:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/174978684147

The short version of the story is that I got a wresting figure of Rey Mysterio because I wanted the parts for one of my He-Man toys (the wings he's wearing will look great on the Stratos character), but the toy absolutely reeks of cigarette smoke, which I didn't know, and I won't contaminate the rest of my collection by putting it in the same box with other toys. I've tried washing it and the stink just doesn't go away. It's hard-baked into the plastic.

Here's something crazy that happened! I gave him a bath in a water-and-bleach solution, and the bleach changed the color of the toy... but only temporarily. His reds turned to pink and his blues changed to sky blue, but by the end of the day he had returned to normal. I can't explain it.

Anyway, the reason I'm selling it is not because I'm desperate for cash (eBay tends to side with the buyers when it comes to refunds for things like this) but because it would be amazing poetic justice if the bids actually exceed the amount I originally paid (around $20).

I'm running the exact sort of auction that I just spent all that time complaining about. It's going for seven days, with the highest bidder in the final seconds taking home this disgustingly smelly toy. It's already up to about ten dollars, which is positively flabbergasting to me, and I can only assume the top bid will be something a bit higher. I guess we'll see!

Zob (if nothing else, you need to see the ridiculous photos I took of the toy for the auction)

On Saturday, October 16, 2021 at 9:06:14 AM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

> Anyway, the reason I'm selling it is not because I'm desperate for cash (eBay tends to side with the buyers when it comes to refunds for things like this) but because it would be amazing poetic justice if the bids actually exceed the amount I originally paid (around $20).

Well, I got $20.50 for it, which seems extremely reasonable for a toy I was fully prepared to just chuck in the garbage.

Zob (and that money went towards yet another Rey Mysterio action figure, because I am now obsessed with the idea of putting Rey Mysterio parts on my MOTU Stratos toy)