Frank's Blog

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