Sorry to hear about the impact the COVID19 situation has had on your work and collecting. Hope it ends up well for you and you get to enjoy Haslab Unicron.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bidoofdude
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Sorry to hear about the impact the COVID19 situation has had on your work and collecting. Hope it ends up well for you and you get to enjoy Haslab Unicron.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bidoofdude
Wife cracked down this year, when 84-86 made a big comeback which annoyed the heck out of me. Really wanted those Seekers.
OTOH next year is looking naturally bare for me. Minimal interest in Beastwars neo. Not many SS leap out at me. Except maybe the rumored 86 movie ones, whatever happens there. Even MP is turning me off, too expensive, too MPM, and with only Arcee announced so far, not up to standard. So I guess this works out for me.
The Australian economy runs off household consumption, so I'll help out our hyper-consumerism based capitalistic society by continuing to purchasing Transformers. (Its the least I can do).
In reality, I'm lucky to have been relatively unaffected by the pandemic, and am very much looking forward to upcoming Netflix, Kingdom and SS releases. 2020 may well turn out to be my biggest collecting year so far.
My best wishes go out to any forum members that have been negatively impacted by COVID.
I just read the below from https://www.watoday.com.au/business/...10-p55u9a.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by klystron
"Not only does household consumption account for more than 60 per cent of economic activity, the thrifty mindset also complicates attempts at government stimulus, because people might choose to save the proceeds of tax cuts or payments. And when consumers are so cautious, businesses are also reluctant to invest their capital."
Klystron the Keynesian economist!
ThisQuote:
Originally Posted by Thurmus
With MP-52 Starscream at preorder for $400, these are valid points. But I suspect Hasbro and Takara Tomy have crunched the numbers and perhaps view the MP line as a luxury that wealthy collectors will keep buying (like luxury cars). I do wonder about the Kingdom toys perhaps going up in price. That's their bread and butter.
It would be interesting to see behind the scenes how buying one line affects decisions to develop new toys (less famous characters) or new lines especially when consumer confidence is generally low.
My work is recession resistant, I have a limited TF focus and I missed out on the MP-11 series. So I'll probably buy MP-52 and the (more expensive) Thundercracker and Skywarp variants. I'll draw the line at the coneheads. Masterpieces are close to prohibitive now but I don't want them to fail. Still, Hasbro/TT is strangling the golden goose.
The recession itself hasn't changed my collecting. I've had the good fortune to have had two significant pay increases this year, and also to work in an industry that hasn't been affected by COVID.
That said, I'm also in the process of buying a home, which is changing my collecting habits. Naturally I've tended to be a bit more choosy with my retail purchases, and most 3P stuff is just beyond me financially. The only upcoming retail figures I have any interest in are WFCE Sunstreaker, WFCK Cyclonus and WFCK Megatron. Aside from needing to pick up the two leadr class SS Constructicons at some point, that's about it for me.
In all, 2020 is looking like a pretty quiet year for me. I'm not particularly moved by any of the SS86 stuff or the WFCK stuff, and I lost interest in Masterpiece a good half decade ago.
I've got a few 3P bits and bobs on order from OMP though, but it's all sub $100AUD stuff.
We've been through recessions before.
* 1990
https://i.ibb.co/2vrKkwj/temp.jpg
"The recession we had to have" - although TF collecting got a lot cheaper thanks to Micromasters. I wasn't importing anything at this time.
* 2000
https://i.ibb.co/kDZFY63/temp.jpg
Although Australia managed to avoid the recession that hit many other countries at this time, we did experience a massive dip in the AUD, down to <45USc at one stage, which made importing Car Robot and the new Takara G1 reissues more costly. I collected CR sparingly, but then RiD in 2001 helped me complete a lot of the CR figures that I'd missed out on. I also skipped Brave Maximus but got the Korean version in '02.
* 2008
https://i.ibb.co/nkyFvBx/temp.jpg
GFC - Australia did recover relatively quickly compared to some other countries, but again, sudden dip in the AUD did make importing suddenly expensive. My Encore Metroplex and eHobby GADEP suddenly cost a lot more than I'd expected just due to loss in currency conversion. Thankfully I hadn't pre-ordered Encore Omega Supreme too, but for those of you who did it would've been an extra punch in the gut.
* 2020
https://i.ibb.co/bR9TPLr/temp.jpg
I'm doing more online purchasing than I've ever done before. Otherwise it's still all steam ahead with TF collecting as it's always been, really.
I was always collecting figures that haven't had a CHUG upgrade, and even though there's alot that are coming or have come out, I haven't had the desire. Mostly because it seems I'm being priced out of collecting because of the prices of the exclusives, and the rise of wages not keeping in line with the rise in costs of living. Toys are on the chopping block in favour of living.
I've slowed way down on my collecting in recent years, mostly because I feel the quality of figures and content has been declining.
Unfortunately(?) for me, I'm mostly just interested in beast-formers these days... so I guess Kingdom will be pretty tempting.
I'm cautiously optimistic about the security of my job, but I think I'll maintain a healthy level of restraint and be a bit more discretionary. Not toooooo discretionary though. ;P