On Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 4:53:32 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
>
> CROSSHAIRS
>

This review is just before covid lockdowns blew up the secondary market and within a month of when Siege Crosshairs started hitting stores. Comparing the post-covid, post-update market for a relatively obscure and unloved G1 toy like Crosshairs shows how different the new normal is. I recently developed Very Legitimate Reasons for needing a better Crosshairs and wow did the new prices give me whiplash. Strange times.

> So, Crosshairs is a toy I've actually owned since 1987. However, as a child I may have played with my toys perhaps a bit more excessively than some kids.
> My original Crosshairs is pretty worn out, with fraying stickers and scratched paint, and he wasn't suitable for my current G1 display.

What makes this one maddening to find a good copy of are two major issues every loose version has-that darn canopy/chest window paint and the two little square blue stickers on the side of each leg. That white chest window paint is always scratched or dinged up at the corners or has little pinpoint holes mottled all over the surface. And the stickers on the sides of the legs are always applied wrong. I can't describe it here but there is a definite correct orientation and they're alwyas wrong on the loose examples like a bunch of five year olds applied stickers to these things.

I remember buying my first Crosshairs complete in decent shape for 40 bucks a few years ago. Now the BINS are that much for either the figure or the partner alone so $12 for a good one was an absolute steal. Actual auctions are not too bad but complete sets are going in the 60-70 dollar range. And I just shake my head and go-FOR CROSSHAIRS? WHY?
> So the toy's vehicle mode is kind of an off-road fantasy vehicle, with oversized tires unencumbered by wheel wells.
>The way the wheels jut out from the sides of the vehicle kind of remind me of a moon rover.

I've been trying to figure out just what this thing is supposed to be. With kid eyes I thought it was a cybertronian monster truck. I've been watching the commercial animation footage Crosshairs and Sureshot appear in for a total of about five seconds. I think they may have been going for more of an F-1 racer type depiction because there's a lot of fast and furious hairpin turn drifting by those two so Who knows. It's definitely a neat looking vehicle. I can live with high performance moon rover.

> However, the rear wheels do fold during transformation, and on my old, used copy of the toy these hinges are very floppy.

Yeah that's major issue number three with loose specimens.

> I was taking a gamble without clear photos to know exactly what I was buying, but it ended up paying off.

Oh boy I was in a very similar situation. I needed it in as complete a condition as possible and there was only one on ebay for the longest time with the box seemingly in decent shape. But the auction only had one picture of the loose figure and opened box with a BIN of a preposterous $199. There was no bubble insert in the picture even though the description stated "You will receive the item with its original unopened packaging." I needed the bubble badly and the latest person doing reprobubbles on ebay hasn't gotten around to doing Crosshairs (I should have jumped when the last reprobubble guy was making them before he closed up shop and went away). I was just really put off by the price for what you got. It was highway robbery. I offered a respectable $125 back in May of last year but they turned me down. IT'S JUST CROSSHAIRS. GEEZ.

But then the reality started sinking in. All the other loose ones had dinged up, scratched up paint. And Crosshairs boxes were rarely put up for sale. And this one had the inner baggie with the catalog and instructions and mailaway offer. So my resolve softened and I caved. I offered 150 and they took it.

Then surprise of surprises, when it arrived it had the bubble inserts including the extra inner piece that supports the vehicle inside the bubble. The paint is immaculate. The leg stickers are wrong but overall I was super happy. This one was on ebay forrrreeevvvveeerrrr so you may have seen it when you were in the market for yours.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/333237330350

> CHROMEDOME
>
> I paid around $100 for the toy plus shipping, which is roughly what you can expect to pay for most of the first-year Headmasters if they're in good condition and complete.

I feel like the Japanese cartoon made these ridiculously expensive and Chromedome is the worst. A couple years ago I paid $40 for just a beat up smashed up Chromedome box and I feel like that was a steal.

> If you want to watch my unboxing of these toys, here are the links:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95s-HMeAOyE
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKuQuZ-fotE
>
>
> Zob (ah, the curse of the content creator...)

On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 10:44:59 AM UTC-7, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:

<snip>

Dude, I love it when you pop out of the woodwork. You show up out of the blue and start rapid-firing responses. I try to respond to as many of your posts as I can find, but I always worry I've missed one or two.

> I recently developed Very Legitimate Reasons for needing a better Crosshairs and wow did the new prices give me whiplash. Strange times.

Yeah, the secondary market pricing was far more favorable for buyers in 2020. I'm glad the stars and planets aligned the way they did, because the only reason I dipped my toes into the vintage G1 collecting market was because I came into some money, was able to pay off some debt, and was able to incorporate that kind of spending into my monthly budget. I recognize that I had more disposable income during a time when people were losing their jobs and selling off collections just to make ends meet.

> And the stickers on the sides of the legs are always applied wrong. I can't describe it here but there is a definite correct orientation and they're alwyas wrong on the loose examples like a bunch of five year olds applied stickers to these things.

Even when I was a kid myself, it was maddening to me when my friends who had Transformers put the stickers on wrong. I mean, they all came with a sticker application map. It wasn't rocket science. I wonder how many of those kids ended up graduating with such sloppy sticker-application skills.
> I remember buying my first Crosshairs complete in decent shape for 40 bucks a few years ago.

I imagine the existence of the Siege toy drove up the secondary market pricing for Crosshairs. What I envision is that fans who want to do YouTube reviews of the neo-G1 toy decide to track down the vintage G1 toy in order to be able to compare the two. I have no idea if that's accurate or not. Pricing for vintage units always seems to jump when a modern version of the same character rolls around, so there's obviously some kind of synergy at play.

> I was super happy. This one was on ebay forrrreeevvvveeerrrr so you may have seen it when you were in the market for yours.

I will confess that boxed toys are outside my budget. I usually scroll right past them, if we're being honest. I mean, even if I went after them, I'd just open them and horribly devalue them, and I'd be directly contributing to the scarcity of boxed toys. I will say that, yes, if money was no object, I'd be cracking open minty-new boxes from 1988 and being the first human to touch them since they were assembled at the factory. If I tried that now, I'd only be able to get, like, two or three G1 toys a year instead of once a month.

> I feel like the Japanese cartoon made these ridiculously expensive and Chromedome is the worst. A couple years ago I paid $40 for just a beat up smashed up Chromedome box and I feel like that was a steal.

So, I've got to ask you something. I am not a collector of boxed toys so I don't know how this works. Do you take a good-condition toy and put it in the packaging and then put the entire completed package on display? If it's missing the baggie with the checklist and mail-order form and instructions, do you consider that incomplete? How do you deal with instances where the bubble isn't attached to the card?

Zob (has three examples of G1 packaging now and I honestly have no idea what to do with any of it)

On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 5:18:42 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:

> I imagine the existence of the Siege toy drove up the secondary market pricing for Crosshairs. What I envision is that fans who want to do YouTube
> reviews of the neo-G1 toy decide to track down the vintage G1 toy in order to be able to compare the two. I have no idea if that's accurate or not.
> Pricing for vintage units always seems to jump when a modern version of the same character rolls around, so there's obviously some kind of synergy at play.

OMG this is so very highly probable at least in this case given the considerable number of YouTuber Transformer reviewers out there and the limited number of Crosshairs figures in good shape on ebay at any given moment. I never made the connection before between reviewer demand for older figures and the somewhat limited market for later years G1 figures in good shape but it makes sense. Any G1 figure released post 1986 seems more scarce than G1 figures from previous years and YouTubers tend to be younger people who most likely didn't catch these G1s the first time around. So they're at the mercy of the market and what G1s are available when updated versions hit. (Titans Return must have been a real headache for reviewers with Black Shadow and Overlord in the same line.)

I kinda feel like a jerk for it but I really do expect a video to show the new updated figure alongside the original G1 version and if the reviewer doesn't do that I think lesser of their work. I don't care if the reviewer wasn't alive in the 80s but those old toy/new toy comparisons should be standard.

> I will confess that boxed toys are outside my budget. I usually scroll right past them, if we're being honest. I mean, even if I went after them, I'd just open
> them and horribly devalue them, and I'd be directly contributing to the scarcity of boxed toys. I will say that, yes, if money was no object, I'd be cracking
> open minty-new boxes from 1988 and being the first human to touch them since they were assembled at the factory.

I think it's important to make the distinction between actual mint-in-sealed box specimens and the 'loose figure with box' that is most common on ebay.. Sealed stuff is truly rare and astronomically expensive. However, just finding an empty box for any given figure is highly doable over a long enough time frame. Wait long enough and empty boxes for almost everything from '84 through '86 will pop up regularly. In pre-covid times auctions for box lots were almost what I'd call affordable. But then the world went crazy. Prices of course get higher when the original inserts, sticker sheets and bubbles are included. The closer you get to that completely sealed condition the more you have to pay. So there are certain degrees of box hunting depending on how complete you care to go and what display you're after.

> So, I've got to ask you something. I am not a collector of boxed toys so I don't know how this works. Do you take a good-condition toy and put it in the
> packaging and then put the entire completed package on display? If it's missing the baggie with the checklist and mail-order form and instructions,
> do you consider that incomplete?

This of course depends on the collector. Most people will always want to display as pristine and complete an example as possible, or work towards presenting something that by all outwards appearances looks like a complete specimen. I'm not like that. My only goal in collecting these things is to help me recreate and colorize old newspaper ads (like this https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=729985414141238 ). As long as I can create the illusion of a packaged Transformer from a certain angle that a given ad demands I don't care if the tech specs are cut out of the back or side flaps are missing or it doesn't have the sticker sheet & catalogs inside or whatever. I do find myself needing inner bubbles to complete my illusions but thankfully there are a few repro resources out there that help with that. So they almost don't even have to be 100% authentic inner packaging for my purposes. But at a minimum I do require the box itself to be the real deal. Personally I don't have a display beyond the digital images I create. The physical stuff mostly goes into tubs and boxes and shelving. I do have a four foot Toys R Us endcap I bought so that I could recreate a small Transformer section with boxed stuff from 1984/85 so I guess that counts.

I'm kind of the worst person to ask this very good question but I imagine most collectors just want a decent box and intact inner bubble at a minimum to display them that way. I do know of some people who collect rare boxes for the boxes' sake-mostly variant stuff like the no grey border stuff or the early 5770 Dinobots boxes and stuff like that. But those are variant collector box aficionados on another level.

> How do you deal with instances where the bubble isn't attached to the card?

Again for my Very Legitimate Reasons I am only collecting enough of the packaging to help me create an illusion of completeness to photograph and embellish. Carded figures are the most difficult challenge for me because that type of packaging is the most thoroughly destroyed and discarded. So legit carded originals with bubbles intact and the cardbacks not all ripped to hell are like holy grails and the competition is numerous and fierce. (That said I did get lucky last week and found a Bumblebee with the bubble intact for 65 bucks- https://www.ebay.com/itm/325009444839 . And those Micromaster combiners and Erector you recently scored are good examples of great opened but still packaged display pieces that may as well be considered boxed condition.)

Give me a halfway decent card and as long as I have that bubble there's nothing I can't convincingly photoshop into sealed looking condition. Although I don't actually own any sealed carded '84 minicars I do own enough parts of various packaging to create the illusion that I do. And for what I'm doing that's good enough.