Yeah, we were discussing this here:

http://toyboxdx.com/phorum/read.php?4,188325

If any American collectors end up with these, there's not much they can do with them, but they would probably look cool hanging from your ceiling.

I can't keep track of what we post where, anymore.

Thanks for the links re. the toy making process. Interesting read.

Arrrrrrrrgh! I just missed this bundle of goodies by 200 yen!

I really wanted that Banderu. And, there were so many good Kanegon figures too! The winning bid was 21700 yen.

I recently saw some items come up to auction, where the figures are disassembled. That is, the head, hands, and legs are all loosely packaged together. Is it fairly easy to assemble the figures when you get them? Do you just pop the limbs and head back onto the torso, or is it more complicated? Why would the figures be sold like that? Is it common for factories to ship out toys in this form? Thanks for any light you can shed on this.

For newer vinyls you generally heat up the pieces with hot water or a hair dryer and they become quite pliable. If the material is older, I would probably be more careful about heating it up. But it depends on the fit as well- some may just pop back together if there is enough wiggle room in the joints.

The seller may have disassembled them to show the color of the base vinyl (visible on the seams of the joints and the interior of the pieces). This is sometimes a way to distinguish originals from fakes.

If the figures you are talking about are capsule toys like the Soul of Bullmark sets, they are sold that way to pack them into the capsules. They are super easy, and fun, to put together and don't even need heating because the vinyl is so soft.

http://page7.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/g68474958



A few of us got sniped by really not much here; ouch. Didn't know what to expect.
Didn't know that there was a pre-rainbow version, let alone a mini out there.
So my question is this; were these fairly common or rare to start with? Other question; single maker or multi versions?
Really liked it, even when I saw which direction the price was heading.
After all, you can always eat ramen. You can't always get Doruge.

never even knew this robocon exsisted until i saw this auction . dont
know what it closed at but last i had seen it was at 300 000 yen

Thanks for the info akum6n and Mark K! I would post the auction pic, but it keeps getting re-posted as an active auction, when it has closed without bids . What I saw were 3-10 figures (4-5 inches?). Each figure was in its own little plastic bag, with header card. They didn't look very old, but the price was pretty decent.

Still trying to improve my Engrish. Does anyone know what "Yogore" means (JP Google translation). It seems to describe something about being old, but does this refer to mold?

Yes, yogore seems to be the mold word; based that on running into it in my own searches and by looking for it in context thereafter.
Still think we ought to be able to spray it with "jock itch" aerosol or athlete's foot powder or something.
BTW: not strange but rare, wanted it but lost by a country mile:



Yonezawa. Darn I thought that was nice! Did someone here nail it or can I post final price?

There's this one along with a mini black Doruge with gold (if I remember correctly).
Winning bid for this one is almost half of what I usually see them at.

I have used my primitive and childlike search powers and found nothing.( Found some related live auctions, so nothing to say about those). Now that I know, I'll keep looking.
That's the nice thing about having a YJA window open and having a short attention span. About every 96 hours I see something that I've never known existed and it just blows my mind (and wallet).

Thank you poysntixels, for verifying yogore=mold. A hazard of collecting vintage I suppose. Does this mold look like little spots or stains? It's difficult to see in the auction pics, and try to distinguish discoloration from mold

汚れ = accumulated dirt, discoloration. I don't think it specifically means mold in the fungal sense.

Does anyone have the kanji for Yonezawa handy? I just cannot find it.

Try this: ヨネザワ for Yonezawa, but I'm not 100% on this. Note my earlier mis-identification of yogore and be warned!
Umm, I just double-checked; it comes up as " [yonezawa ". Anyone know how to change the character and drop the bracket?

this is the yonesawa i picked up a couple of years ago .it went for 45000 yen . saw another go for 55000 . im kinda curious what this last one went for .

Wow. Them's purty much la creme! Nice prices too, relatively as this last one went at 65000. The more I find out about yonezawa, the more sense it makes. Highly diversified toy lines with a lot of tin and diecast as well. So vinyl kaiju was probably a smaller side line for them. Beautiful stuff.

Something really weird just happened. I just got confirmation from Celga that I did indeed win the auction...
http://page10.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/m62584653

The auction had ended on 12/24/08, and the winning bid that I saw at the time was 21700 yen! Now when I click back on the auction page, it shows the winning bid to be 21200. I'm happy of course, but I am really confused, and I'm sure I wasn't imagining things. Is there a chance that the original winning bidder backed out on the auction? Or should I be paranoid and worried that the auction may have been "bidded up"? I just sent Celga an email to question them on this. Has anyone experienced this before? Thanks in advance!

Odd. Just checked and you can see the detailed bidding history here.

[12月 31日 15時 39分] cel***** 入札が確認されました。(translation: The bid was confirmed.)
[12月 30日 20時 58分] gm1***** 入札の取り消し (translation: Cancellation of tender)
[12月 24日 21時 34分] gm1***** 自動入札。 21,700 (translation: Automatic bid.)

Don't know how YJA works when someone backs out, but this looks like the original winner backed out 6 days later for some reason. If bids were cancelled or a bidder blocked (and I've seen that happen) all of their previous bids would have been wiped away. Odd indeed and the price would have been tons lower.

Thanks for the input MicromanZone. Now I am somewhat worried that the auction was artificially bidded up . I'm still waiting to hear from Celga, and I'll keep you posted. I'm still a newbie on JPYahoo, but I've purchased many times on the "Bay" and haven't seen anything like this.

Love that pink soft finish. He reminds me a llittle of Kemur?

im not positive, but i believe there is a third version as well. a darker blue vinyl i think?

either way, the ending price on this one is pretty good, even with a rough exchange rate.