Rare Showa retrospective hero member <Tiger's face>? Made of bullmark Approximately 27 cm in size The auction ended today and the figure went for: 40,500 yen
Thanks for sharing Roger! That is an awfully high price to pay for such a worn tiger! His belt is badly scraped. Not sure why the price is so high, he's a standard tiger, is he not?
@Mr. Humphreys yes Grace is the standard size but apparently at the end they went crazy with the bets because three hours before the auction ended the max bet was around the 15,000 ¥, I also think that 40,500¥ it is a very high price for the conditions of the figure.
Shame to see the prices not coming back to reality. As Grace said, this is not such a great example, and if the bidding activity and the end price for this guy are to be taken as a new metric, well, I guess I might as well just give up on the going on a Tiger hunt anytime soon. Vintage is getting pricey to collect anyways, but there is definitely far more affordable goals out there.
Thanks for the update and bidding details Roger! Let's hope this was a crazy battle of egos, not wanting to let go of a toy. I would've passed on it and waited for a nicer one! Even if it does clean up well, the scrape on the belt and the blemishes on the back, are hard to ignore. p.s. Don't give up Stevie! There has to be a stripey tiger yet, with your name on it!
Also if I could weight in, you never know if those were shill bids at the end. Not saying thats the case, but it does seem unusual to have a ton of bids right at the end on such a beat up toy when there is one in better shape for not much more. I honestly think the bubble has burst on these. Barring a gloved or packaged one you'll see these go for real prices- 40K range. Where it should be.
^^^That was my thought too Chris! I'm thinking it was someone desperate to add a Tiger to their collection, and then someone else got in to up the bids. My Toy Angel did share a basic but sage piece of info, in that it's better to wait for a decent figure to come along, then to throw money on vintage right away. In the end, you'll be unhappy, and if you go after another figure in better condition, you'd have paid a lot more. You just have to get over that feeling of uncertainty that your grail will never come along again, because at some point it does, but a nice figure will be a lot more. I let a Tsuburaya Enterprise Sufendon slip by recently (with a heavy heart), because it was marginally beat up. Still looking for the Bullmark Standard graily grail version! p.s. Still mentally kicking myself that I didn't greedily adopt all FOUR Tigers from Super 7, and only adopted one. They were in super condition, and $300 back then! So, I guess I'll have to give up my dreams of.... Since now, it will cost +$15K!!!
@Mr. Humphreys The auction of this specimen with gloves ended on April 29, one more for your statistics Grace. Went for: 75,000 yen
Hi Roger, thanks for sharing and saving the pics. I was hoping that a kind Boardie would have a chance to adopt him, but it looks like it was a very competitive listing at the end. I think the lighting is deceiving, giving the kittee a much older appearance. I bet it's in wonderful shape, and if the seller took better pics, the price would have been higher! Henry gets to come home from the vets tomorrow, after 2 weeks of treatment. I think his "spa" fee will be higher, poor kittee. p.s. I don't ever think I'll tire of those Tigers. They're the perfect toy.
Dedicated to Chris, who had hoped to adopt a Tiger... Finally unearthed the seven Tiger 7's. There are two yellow heads, one on the outermost left and right for comparison. High resolution photo, for your downloading pleasure
Awesome dedication Grace! That's an amazing group of tigers there. I'm going to be coming back to drool at your photo repeatedly. I've got to find me one of them yellow-headed fellers. I joined the tiger club a while ago but forgot to post a pic here. View this post on Instagram
@Mr. Humphreys Grace thank you very much for sharing your amazing collection of tigers, I think I would spend hours watching them without getting tired. Who says that luck does not exist; you have had it on seven occasions @Michael Beverage You have a very handsome tiger
@Mr. Humphreys - Whaaaa! 7 Tiger 7's. Sounds like a kid book, lol. Do they fight over the gloves are share?
Anthony, they are very well behaved. They don't fight over the gloves, because when i tell them they look like they are preparing to wash dishes, they become sheepish ... I figured that seven adoptions is a good stopping point . That, and it's now too expensive to amass an army of 25
Still playing with my Tigers, but @Mark K asked for a pic to compare the yellow vs. orange heads. I'm still curious as to why the Yellow version seems to be scarcer (at least from the buying point of view!). I wonder if both colors were released at the same time, or if there were two releases. Please chime in if you know! Here's a close up Mark! Sorry it took me so long to post the photo
Totally agree with you Grace; the auction ended higher than I would have liked too. I hope in the future to be able to adopt one of these Tigers, it does not matter if it is not in a bag or it does not have the gloves, I believe that with this figure I can not get so demanding.
Tiger Seven Soft Vinyl At that time Phantom Poppy Bullmark Went for: 21,000 yen I find it somewhat expensive to be an incomplete figure, I want to think that the fact that it comes with one of the gloves is a plus.
Time for another auction update. This Bullmark Tiger7 came complete with gloves, but had quite a few condition issues, including noticeable spotting/staining, areas of paint wear, transfer/rubs, and a discoloured (or possibly painted) eye [see more photos below for detail]. Then gloves also seems to have some spots where the vinyl might have been torn or nicked. Even so, it was a really nice version for my opinion. The seller had originally listed it several times at elevated pricing (see below) and I kept on watching the listing. Naturally, with the issues, and the Japanese collector base being very focused on condition, there wasn't any activity. Well, months later and the seller finally decided to drop the price and do a straight up auction for it. Still had a fairly hefty starting price though, at 39.8k yen, but given that he came with the glvoes, I admit I was wistfully hopeful it might be a possibility for me. [One of the] Original listings: https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/o276643620 And ended just this past week at 70,600円 : https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/b398801656 I tried to play for this guy, but just could not make it happen. Really hurts to see yet another one slip by me, but, as with any vintage collecting, I am not losing hope. Sadly the price for this one ended up climbing way up there all the same, in spite of the issues it had, which seems to be more the norm rather than an exception. But in any case, one more listing to add to our little 'history' here. Spoiler: The full photo set
Hmmmm, well it may be just as well Stevie. I blew up the photo to see what was going on with that dark eye Notice the contrast between the shiny black nose patch on the left and the faded and rubbed black on the right. It may be that the nose was touched up with paint, and some of the paint got on the eye. Also notice the dark areas on the shoulders, arms and back. This looks like one of the dark shoulder patches on one of my tigers. This is due to small micro bubbles in the vinyl, which are actually small holes filled with dirt that is impossible to scrub clean. There was a discussion re. yugore or mold infecting vinyl, but Mr. Flynn corrected us with the afore mentioned explanation. There is no way I'd adopt a toy that was repainted like that! Also, it's super duper hard to tell, but i'm wondering if this one is a yellow head? Above is a pic of the tiger i have with the pitted shoulders. Fortunately the pitting is limited to just the shoulders. The rest of the tiger is nice (this was my very first tiger)
