Quote Originally Posted by griffin View Post
- the kid who isn't a collector and didn't even know this toy existed (given it as a random present and just trashes it or throws it away within a few months),
- the adult who had something similar as a kid (but isn't a collector of any other TFs, so could import it if they really wanted something nostalgic at any cost),
- the short-term collector who is going through a phase so doesn't have much interest interacting with other fans (may join up here, but never see any activity from them, and just sells off, hands off or throws away their toys a few months later),
Any one of these three "examples", getting hold of something like this could easily become a much more serious collector as a result of exposure to such good engineering.

I think, as a community, we have to realise that there are a lot of Transformers collectors who are very serious about collecting who just aren't aware of the forum or couldn't be bothered becoming involved in the forum, but are still very dedicated collectors in one way or another.

I know I was collecting pretty seriously before I was ever aware of the forum and prior to joining this forum had never been a member of any online community, even after being made aware of the forum it was months before I even considered joining as online socializing was something I just never did.

the sightings threads are very useful to us, and others will use them as well, it's an open forum so I can only assume they are welcome to. If Scalpers use us, that's crap but if these threads promote more sales, all it's going to do in the long run is give Hasbro and Takara more incentive to develop more cool toys for us. win.