Hi fellow Trans-fans,
My name's Wade and I'm an Aussie Transformer since the early 80's.
I have a fairly decent collection of original G1 figures. I have lived in Tokyo, Japan for the last 15 years, the hallowed birthplace of the original toys.
I've been particularly fascinated with the MasterPiece figures these last so many years as they are the way I always wanted my old G1 toys to look. Japan puts out some very spectacular versions over here which I've noticed can be hard to get outside Japan and at reasonable prices. There's a lot of treasures to be picked up cheap over here with some Japanese language skills and a lot of web surfing and haggling with sellers and suppliers. .
I'm decided to finally do what I've wanted to all my life, and start a small home side business called Transformers Treasure Chest, where I source hard to find Japan exclusives and/or find lower prices on regular figures lower than the big toy stores. I've dug up a heap of small and large suppliers here in Japan and I want to help Trans-fans get the bots and cons they are looking for.
I will be using YouTube and a blog or site eventually to let people know what figures I have found, but for now I am will work by word of mouth in the community as I work on the nuts and bolts of my system in my spare time, and gauge interest in such a service, when I'm not at work or looking after my little daughter.

There are two common ways I will be sourcing TF figures over here for people.

First way : I will will dig up good deals on set price figures from big and small suppliers over here. These I will probably post image links to here or make a YouTube video on or put on a blog until I've made a proper site. With a young daughter and a son due in Jan, it will take me a while to set things up properly.
These set price items will be ordered when the Oz side buyer pays me through PayPal. If stock runs out before I get my Japan side order processed then I immediately refund you.

Second way : I find good deals on Japanese toy fan auction sites and announce here. Or a member here asks me to try to dig up a particular figure and I do find the item in question. . As auctions don't give set prices except for occasional Buy Now type deals, then if the member agrees to transfer their max amount by PayPal, I start bidding on in your behalf to win the item within that price. If the bidding on the auction site I'm bidding through goes past that max amount, then I just refund the payment immediately. This 'second way' is probably for really keen collectors who really want to nab the figure they are after.

Any thoughts on the above two methods ? And feedback ? I'm trying to think of fair ways for this to work out for you guys and me and the same time. I am planning on doing things like this as I can't just buy up heaps of figures and hope someone buys them at some stage. (And that's of like scalping too.) At least, I can't do that at the beginning.

Feel free to give me a shout out and talk Trans-stuff,
Cheers,
Wade
Transformers Treasure Chest