Been looking for a few missing Max Toy KIng Negoras for - well, it seems like forever now - and just moments ago I had the blue one I have been seriously wanting in my cart at Mandarake. But by the time I finished checkout, it was sold! Gone, poof!

I couldn't figure out at first why the page would not go to the final order page, and then I saw it - the stock was over available quantity.

What's worse is that I would have had it if I had been a little ruder to my husband - whose mindless chatter over nothing held me up a few minutes from getting to mandarake to see today's new items.I am normally on when they reload, but not today. I was a good 5 minutes late to the party, today of all days.

Going off to get a hot tea and shed a few tears into it.

Cindy

It gets so frustrating at times. Part of my problem is that in order to keep my collecting (and expenses) under control, I have limited my collection to just a few areas (basically monsters from cryptozoology and folklore, like cryptids and yokai, and also monster flowers and monster cats). So I am pretty focused on what I want - which is good or else I'd be buying everything - but they come up so rarely and then sell out so fast, it gets discouraging. KIng Negoras, in particular, are so hard to find. And Marmits. Darn those Marmits.

cindy

i was crushed to see a green skullOrm on mandarake vanish when I was ready to pull the trigger. I've wanted that color ever since I got the "sold out'' email from the Base.

next time tell hubby, wait a second honey, i've got to take care of this.

when it comes to SB drops, the wife eases back when 'go time' approaches.

Your first post on SB was in February . . . . it is now the end of March.
I think you need to re-evaluate your understanding of the word forever

Many, many people on this board have been looking for certain toys for years!
Many of those people are still looking.
It does make it all the more sweet when you finally score an elusive beast.

You just have to be more patient. Persistence will pay off in the end.

Well, it it true my first post was in February, and I am new to the big toys. But I have been collecting for years. True, though, that I have been hunting Negoras only since mid 2013, but heck, months and months does feel like forever. The problem is I started years ago with gashapon and they almost always turn up in a month or two, so I am used to not having so much of a wait.

But yes, I am impatient and it hurts to look for something for months and be seconds too late to buy it when finally you spot it. It is hard to imagine going years! I wish these toys could be just a bit less limited.

cindy

This is could turn into a nice heartbreak thread.

Here's one of my favorites. I was at Nakano Broadway Manadarake and there was a flesh giant size Garamon in the window for ¥30,000, this was not long after they were going for nearly a grand. The store was going to open in a few minutes so I walked around the loop and came back so I'd time it when they opened. Got back and poof! The doors were open and the new friend I was hoping to take home was gone! This was at least 10 years ago and I'm still looking for one at a good price. I did get the GID rainbow Gezora recently after seven years looking and that felt great!!!!

oh my god...ten years! And then seven years for the Gezora. I do not believe that kind of patience will ever be mine. I am clearly in the wrong hobby, but I can't seem to give it up either.

Whether you have the patience or not doesn't matter in the case of Negoras. I hardly see people flipping them, let alone selling.
So either way, time to play the waiting game

Yes, I have noticed that too. What is up with that? Why are there not more Negoras on the marketplace? And the funny thing is - the ones that I see that do come up are almost always still mint in bag. So the original owners are not even opening them. I cannot imagine why that is - they need to be out of the bag and prancing around. Are they all buying them thinking they will go up in value down the road or something? I must admit - while I know many do it - I have never been able to keep a toy I truly loved in the package. I tear them open like a kid. Well, ok, I open them gently and neatly fold up the header card and bag and tuck them away because I feel I must. But - if I love it - it is opened. If not, it gets traded or sold right away.

cindy

It's not a practice I partake in, but this thread proved very insightful as to why some collectors choose to keep their toys bagged:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=47349

I had a similar experience. Woke up one morning and checked mandarake like I always do. And there it was, my #1 want at the time. I rushed out of bed, went into my study, fired up the pc, opened mandarake and as soon as I clicked on "add to cart" it was gone.

There was a silver lining, though. Though this figure still eludes me, I had more money for other big wants that popped up later that week.

Which one was it?

This has happened me to countless times, not only for toys but for records, prints, etc.

It sucks!

It also sucks to think that you scored, only to receive a refund and the disappointing (over sold) email

It's been known to ruin days and break hearts.

I've got some on my wants list that are there for the long haul... stuff I'll likely never see, but a man can hope.... BUT, there's one thing I think more then a few collectors overlook, and I'll be honest took me a while to realize- If you missed something you were after, or can't find something I have good news for you: There will always be more toys, or whatever toy buy. Nowadays if I miss a release I moan and groan for a day and then something else inevitably catches my eye. So don't get too hung up on what you missed... unless you're a vintage and/or completist.... then you're just SOL.

mine's by no means a grail story but still hurts to think about it.

Back In december, i had the time to be completely on the ball with online hunting.

Then, a day or so before Christmas, i saw an almost entire collection of pop sodas drop on M. A toy that is very overlooked and discarded and so, doesn't come up as often as i'd like.
(I've been looking for several popsodas since i started collecting (roughly 3-4 years) and have been looking for them daily on M for the past 2 years.) They were priced really well, and my brain went into overload mode. Feelin' the full grip of that special toy anxiety and not wanting my lady to see my checkout cart of like 20 toys over breakfast, I decided to go shovel the drive-way quickly and make a last decision on items before submitting. When I came back, 90 per cent of them were gone. Just when i thought the canadian winter couldn't fuck me any more than it had...

oh man, I feel your pain there. I did the same thing when I first was pointed to Mandarake a while ago. There were, at the time, like a dozen King Negoras up all at once and I did not understand then how limited they were. I thought Mandarake just had a lot of them and even multiples of them (I didn't really understand what Mandarake was then either - I thought they sold new stock as well) and felt no rush to order. I spent several hours deciding which ones to buy and then when I went to place the order - almost all were gone. I could have pretty much collected the whole lot right then. Now I will take forever tracking them down. Someone must have sold their entire collection all at once and I had a chance at the whole lot and blew it. And ever since, I have been checking mandarake religiously and now I blew it again!

I have no idea when I will stop kicking myself on this. The one that sold the other day, in blue, was one of the two I most wanted. I know it is jut a toy, but it hurts to miss it by seconds. And now I found out today that they are even more limited than I thought - only ten. I probably will never see that one available again. I can't believe it sold for so little either. Only $80. I would have paid so much more for it.

I have to stop being a completist. I do. I started with gashapon and those series sets encourage you to collect the whole series and so you develop that mentality as a collector. It is hard to shake.

on the positive side, though, someone here was super nice and sold me a different negora, one I also wanted terribly. I am enormously grateful for that!

I hate when a bunch of items show up at once on M and then you have to decide which ones to get. That's always tough. I passed up on 2 skullmen I really wanted to get a different toy and wish I hadn't made that decision. It happens.