You might remember some time ago when I told the story about
how I acquired my Masking Brace from Maskman. It is probably the biggest score in my toy collection...especially since I paid a fraction of the 1,000USD price tag that one in comparable condition seems to command these days. There have been plenty of exciting purchases since then that I'll probably write about, but I was on a serious roll between 2003 and 2007 while I was building up my collection. This week I will talk about the final stop before landing my Masking Brace in November of 2007...
Right around the same week that I started my Youtube channel I decided to treat myself to another elusive 80s Super Sentai Henshin Brace. Searching the back channels of Yahoo Japan Auctions is still a pretty good way to land a bargain on a more obscure toy if you're willing to be patient. This is one of those times where I was just beginning a search and almost immediately found a good deal. It was a "junk" lot of seemingly random Sentai toys from different eras. If I recall correctly it had toys from Bioman, Flashman, Turboranger, Gingaman, and Abaranger. The one I had my eye on was the Flashman toy...which was a boxed DX Prism Flash!
Now because I've won hundreds of auctions since then I can only remember ballpark figures on this one (that Masking Brace price will be etched in my head forever, though). The auction ended in late June of 2007 for a little bit under 100USD. Not bad for five toys, especially with the majority of them being from the 80s. Even though the auction was labeled "junk", the lousy photos did show a little bit of promise in the winnings. I was mostly concerned with the Prism Flash since that is all I was planning on keeping.
Before my junk lot could even reach my contact in Japan...a very clean Prism Flash showed up on auction. As a strong-minded adult with incredible will power I was able to walk away easily since I had already purchased said toy... ... ...is what I would be saying if I didn't buy the damn thing. This time around I paid a much heftier sum of around 150USD but did atleast have the peace of mind that I was getting a solid toy.
So I pretty much paid somewhere around 240USD for two of the same toy. Since I wasn't bidding on my own auctions at the time, I did have to fork over a bit more money to cover the hassle of taking care of my dirty work along with shipping, bank fees, etc. As I am usually never in a rush to get things from Japan, my September birthday (oh shit, would you look at the calendar??) was coming up by the time I actually had the toys on their way to me. My then-girlfriend/now-wife ended up coughing up the money for the nicer Prism Flash (this was pretty early in our relationship--unthinkable these days!) and I was only on the hook for the junk lot when it came time to pay off the credit card.
I didn't really get excited until the stuff was definitely on it's way to me. I was very curious to see what kind of condition the junk lot stuff was in. The Bioman toy, which was a strapless Techno Brace had a leaking screen like 80% of them (this was clear in the pics) but did come with complete packaging...which was a plus! The Turboranger toy, a Pladera Turborobo was unused with a small ding in the box's window. The Gingaman toy was an odd unopened set of out of scale figures by Yutaka (one was Gingaioh and the other was probably the only figure of Zahab ever released). The Abaranger set was a used, but good set of Abare Killer toys.
I'm happy to report that the junk lot Prism Flash was actually is quite good condition. It didn't include the battery or missiles (which can be replaced easily), but included the instructions and all-important cardboard insert tray. There was some minor paint wear on the toy itself, but the flash and missile function worked beautifully and the strap was very good. The packaging itself was even in pretty good shape with only some minor wear to it. Not museum quality, but based on the used-but-good condition this was definitely owned by the same type of junior collector kid that I was--which kinda adds its own charm to it. I'd like to think this toy ended up being worn to the playground on more than a few occasions and carefully tucked away in the box and shelved before bedtime.
The new Prism Flash was...just that. There are some very minor creases around window on the packaging but that's it. The missiles are all there as is the original battery. The Prism Flash itself is probably the cleanest of all of my 80s Henshin Braces. Something about the excellent detail and finish of this toy just makes a very clean one look even shinier in person when you get a solid example like this. It doesn't exactly put the other one to shame...but it definitely shines brighter.
I own doubles of a lot of toys, but I can't think of any other time I had them arrive at the same time. It really lead to an unintentional experiment to compare the two. Knowing what I know now...should I have just called it a day with the junk lot? Nah. The price gap between the two has definitely widened over time by hundreds of dollars, I mean that right there is a pretty good reason for my insanity.
As a little epilogue to this tale of exciting purchases...there is the matter of the rest of the junk lot. Over time I resold that stuff on both ebay and to friends. I reckon I was actually 20USD or so up at the end of the day.
To recap...I paid nothing for two DX Prism Flashes and got 20 dollars for my troubles. Not bad! I wish they could all be this way.
The whole gang...sitting on my original backdrop
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That might not have been the most exciting acquisition story, but I was definitely thrilled at the time. It was pretty much overshadowed by the
Masking Brace when that came along a few months later, but there is nothing wrong with getting back-to-back wins.
Anyway... That's all for now. I've been having a very hard time recently--my schedule has been bananas. Apologies for the late and kinda rushed blog. The DVD review I had planned is kinda involved and requires quite a lot more effort for me to finish it. I'll get to it. Promise.
See ya!
-CC
