Frank's Blog

To make a long story kind of short... The Tarkin figure that I've been trying to locate for some friends was packaged with the Wal-Mart exclusive Separation of Twins figures. Sunday night I did a run and at one local Wal-Mart, just before they closed at midnight, I got the staff to open a box that said SW Exclusives + Basic Figures. I purchased the Tarkin, Count Dooku and 3 pair of the Bail and Obi-Wan figures holding the Leah and Luke babies. I placed the figures in the car and returned for more. I asked a manager this time, and he agreed to open up another box. When we arrived at the pallet the boxes with the figures had been moved. I told him that I was pretty sure that I saw 4 boxes total, and now they were gone. I think the lady that helped me put the rest away to avoid me taking too many.

Next I drove to the 24-hour Wal-Mart and found more boxes of the exclusives. After opening one when no one was around and grabbing a Tarkin and Count Dooku figure, I asked a worker for help and he allowed me to take another Tarkin, Dooku and twins pair. I then tried to call a friend of mine who excels at late night runs, but the phone at the Wal-Mart was broken. At home I called him and he informed me that he hit the jackpot, to which I asked if he found the exclusive figures at Wal-Mart. He asked me if I had just been there, and I explained that I was and told him where to look for the boxes that I saw on the pallet. He couldn't find them, so we guessed that the staff had moved them. I quickly drove back to Wal-Mart, now 2:15 a.m., and found another 2 boxes that my friend overlooked. Staff was nice enough to let us go through the boxes and take what we wanted. I grabbed another pair of the twins figures, and gave the Tarkin from the box to my friend who needed it. So, when all was said and done, late Sunday night/early Monday morning, I came away with 3 Tarkin and 5 Count Dooku figures, 5 pairs of the Bail and Obi-Wan figures carrying the twin babies, and a couple other hard-to-find figures that were packed in the exclusive case! Not too bad for one late night/early evening. My friend said it was probably the best single find yet!

The next morning a saw my friend at the local Target, who then informs me that I was right in guessing that the first Wal-Mart put away the remaining 3 boxes that I thought I had originally seen. He explained that they had plenty of twins figures, and he bought 3 more Tarkin figures. I asked how he managed that with the local collectors and he said that he drove by on the way to K-Mart and noticed that the store was open, so he quickly ran in at about 6:45 a.m. He thought that the collectors had already been there, but to his surprise, apparently they weren't aware that the store was operating under holiday hours and had opened an hour earlier than normal, at 6:00 a.m.

Arriving at home from work today I called a collector friend who lives near the 24-hour Wal-Mart and he informed me that he found a Tarkin figure earlier in the day. Knowing that this figure comes packaged with the case of exclusive figures, led me to believe that I was again correct in thinking that the staff at the 24-hour Wal-Mart put away the other cases I had originally seen that my friend could not find. Still, my friend and I got enough figures for ourselves and our friends, and I feel better about being correct in believing that staff at both Wal-Marts hid boxes after I originally seen them. It was my eyes playing tricks on me after all!

Click on this link to see a picture of the spoils!
http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/tarkintwins.jpg

I picked up the latest Burger King toys which were released this 3rd week of the promotion. See the links below to view them.
http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/BK05week3.jpg

Where have we all heard that before? So a Star Wars collector bud who does recon work at the local TRU called me yesterday with a pretty good find. The TRU had again gotten in the Mega Buy 2-packs of figures at a discounted price of $8.99, which had some common figures that I had initially passed up and need to finish my collection. I wound up buying 4 of the Mega Buy packs which added 4 older figures to my collection that I needed. I now only need 3 older figures to complete my collection. The local Target actually has them in stock, but I'm being picky and am trying to find them where the card is in mint condition.
The links below are to pictures of the last 3 figures I need to buy in order for me to complete my basic figure collection.
http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/superbattledroid.jpg
http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/palpatinechancellor.jpg
http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/polismassanloose.jpg

Ok, I picked up the 4 toys and the 2 watches that are out for week two. I put an "X" over Vader because his figure is released each of the four weeks that the promotion runs, so it's not really a new figure for any one week. The picture of the watches appears to show 12 individual watches, but it's actually only 6 total. They are bunched in pairs to show what the back and front of the watch and colletor tin looks like. During this 2nd week the 1st and 4th watch pictured are available. I've seen the watches up close and they are nothing special, better left in the collector tin.
That's it :-)
http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/BK05-week2.jpg
http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/bkwatches.jpg

Earlier this summer I picked up an evolution pack of the Anakin character, which displays 3 figures. The evolution set displays what the Anakin character looked like over different movie episodes in a window of the box, the last figure transforming into Darth Vader. Since this initial evolution pack there has been a Sith, Clone, and now a second Clone pack. Earlier this week I found the Evolution pack on a pallet at a out of town Target store. There was an employee opening cases of toys and then placing their contents on display. I asked him if he could open the cases marked Star Wars Evolution, and to my surprise the cases contained the new clone evolution series. On a side note.. The employee apparently wasn't having a good day, and he carelessly opened the box with box cutters. From the two cases, 2 of the Clone Evolution packs had box cutter tears from the employee pressing hard when cuttin the tape.
http://frankgemignani.com/images/cloneevo.jpg

Ok, so I picked up the week 1 Burger King Star Wars toys tonight. I actually got a good deal too! Tonight I had decided to do a small run and hit a couple Wal-Mart stores as they were closing, well one is actually a 24-hr store, and thought I'd take a chance and see if the employees would put stock out on the floor before they closed. After being unlucky I decided to pick up the first week BK toys from a local BK's drive-thru. This series of BK toys consists of plastic toys as well as watches in colletor tins.

Pulling up to the drive-thru window I asked for the two watches in the collector tins, and the 3 figures, and one space ship. The cashier told me it would be $8. The toys are sold 2/$2, and each watch is $2. I asked about the tax, and he said not to worry about it. So I engaged about Star Wars and asked if he was a fan, and he said he collected all the first series of Burger King Star Wars toys, and because I was buying the toys he'd give me a deal. Seeing as how I had a $10 bill on me, I asked him how much a large fries would be, as I would have $2 left as change from the toys. He replied, "No problem, I'll comp you." Part of me was thinking this kid is just going to pocket the money I give him, and the other part of me thought it was getting late and this isn't an issue I need to deal with. Then he begins to tell me about the Vader chase (limited to one per box) figure, and how it's being packaged one per box. I asked if I could buy one, as looked at the $2 change I had. He left the drive-thru window and when he returned he had all the figures and watches for the first week, and the Darth Vader figure! Not too bad for the first week of BK figures.

http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/BK05-week1.jpg
http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/bkwatches.jpg

So, this morning I went to the Bay Area to hangout with my sisters and catch the morning football games at the El Torito. Afterwards, to walk off the breakfast, we went to a few stores. Yes, one or two of the stores that we visited was a Target! I had just called ahead to another Target in the next area code and they had secured 4 Target Exclusive Shadow Troopers for me, when I began to interact with the Employees at this Bay Area Target. I was approached by this teenager who quickly responded to my request by saying, "We can't go in the back and look for collectibles", when I told him I was looking for the Shadow Trooper. Lucky for me, I had been talking to a nice older man in the bicycle area just before, and when he returned from helping another customer he again asked me what I was looking for. Upon him having typed in the DPCI# for the Shadow Trooper, his price gun beeped and displayed the message that there was stock in the back. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to call for help on his radio to check the location, he went into the back himself to look. After 10 minutes of me worrying that another store employee might have informed him that he can't look for collectibles, he came out. At the time I was asking a young female employee about the Shadow Trooper and she was about to go look herself as we had thought that he may have gotten lost. Though, when he returned he told us that he found them and they were being sent up the elevator (this was a two-story Target). He asked the young female employee to get them, as people needed his help in bikes. I asked her if I could follow, to be sure that what he found was what I was looking for and she said yes. When she returned from the back room she had a case marked Utapau Shadow Trooper! She commented that it was an entire box, and not just a couple figures like she thought, implying that she'd have to stock them. I asked if I can see how many were in the box, and told her that I was buying Christmas presents for Star Wars fans and could need a few, and she agreed. The box had 8 figures in it. I asked if I could buy all of them and she said yes. After thanking her, the thought had hit me that I should probably get out of the store ASAP, as a manager type figure might catch wind of this and stop the transaction. I explained to her that I had my family waiting in a car for me outside, and I was in a hurry. I asked if she could show me the quickest way out, and surprisingly enough, she did. She led me past large groups of guests and straight to the quick checkout. I was a little nervous up until the point where the cashier offered to bag the case of Star Wars figures. Once the case was in the bag I didn't need to worry about whether store employees would think that a guest walking out the front door with a case of collectible toys looks funny.

At a Target that my sisters and I stopped at prior to this I had purchased the Mace Windu Attacktix series no.1 chrome based figure. This is worthwhile to point out because I collect the small Attacktix figures, and had already completed the entire series #1 collection, and all with chrome bases! Chrome bases on these figures is the variant, and much less common. I became so efficient at finding the rare chrome base Attacktix figures that it led me to collect a second series #1 with chrome bases. I had 27/30 chrome base figures in my second set, and only needed Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Palpatine. Now I only need to more chrome base figures to complete my second set! An entire set of these chrome base figures goes for well over $100 if I were to sell it on eBay. And with series #2 out now, series #1 is going to become even more difficult to find.
So, this was a very good collecting day.
Below is a link to a picture of the exclusive Target Shadow Trooper!
http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/shadow.jpg

Ok, so ROTS was released yesterday and there were some goodies to be had. Wal-Mart had a special DVD 2-pack, which included a special DVD that told the stories of both Anakin and Luke, told by C3-PO. Wal-Mart also had three commemorative figure sets that had 3 figures in each. They were a Sith, Clone Trooper and Jedi commemorative set. These are supposedly limited, so first come, and first serve. Target offered a commemorative coin with the purchase of the DVD, which is limited in number, but not nearly as limited as the DVD figure packs that Wal-Mart offered.
So, I began my *hunt* the night of the 31st. I checked on local Wal-Mart that closes at 11pm, in the chance that the figure sets would be put out early. I witnessed Employees moving an entire pallet of Star Wars boxed goods into the garden section, not to be put out on the sales floor until the over-night crew arrived said a salesperson. I then decided to try my luck at the 24/7 Wal-Mart just down the highway. Upon arriving there I saw 2 of the 3 commemorative DVD figure packs, so apparently they released them before the DVD. I spoke to a sales person and they informed me that they had released them over the weekend. This was unfortunate for me as now I had to go back to the other Wal-Mart and compete with the other collectors and scalpers for the commemorative packs.
The day before I had spoken to my collector Less, who told me that he would also be at this Wal-Mart at 7am. Arriving I decided to go through the automotive section, having before noted that the clock was a few minutes faster. I spoke to the employee at the register and she allowed me to wait until the store lights came on, and the clock said 7am...er...6:57 by my watch. So, when the time came she told me I could proceed, and as I made my way toward the Star Wars section of the store I listened for the flock of competition that would be coming from the front doors. I kid you not; when I arrived I was alone for a good 3 minutes! There were store staff still setting up the display, and one management figure informed me that the store wasn't open yet. I explained that I had my car in automotive, and the staff told me I could go in, explaining that the staff at automotive made their decision to let me in based on the traffic they had been listening to on their work radio. The management figure then replied "Ok." I then looked at their completely restocked pegs of figures and was quickly disappointed that there was nothing my friends or I had needed. I then asked the staff about the commemorative DVD figures and they pointed them out to me. I proceeded to grab enough for me, Less and another couple. Then after talking about Star Wars with the staff for another minute I heard another staff member say, "Here they all come." She was referring to the collectors and scalpers that had just been let in from the front of the store. Each one of them had a shopping basket and as they made their way toward the section of the store I saw my friend Less in the group and with a smug smile I waved. It is moments like this one, when I feel I've out-witted another collector/scalper, which makes the hunt all worthwhile!
http://www.frankgemignani.com/images/dvdpack.jpg