coreystinson

Attention fans of Lanard's vintage classic 3 3/4" action figures! I am selling from my personal collection a variety of obscure and hard to find figures from Lanard's "heydey" of quality figure production. Among the lines I have for sale are: - WOW! Girls (all 12 of the original articulated female 3 3/4" figures ever produced) - Civilian Emergency Rescue and Construction Crew 3 3/4" figures - All six chromed Galatic Force figures (a rare Sam's Club-only exclusive from the 90's) - Bio-Wing Battle Squadron - another obscure line of 3 3/4" figures with Cobra Claw-like flight wings - A variety of the rarer STAR Force figures (carded) - Atomic Ranger Warriors! I also have a few obscure 3 3/4" articulated Japanese wrestling figures MOC. To view these items up for sale, click here: http://tinyurl.com/25v9cvw Thanks for reading!

ROFLMAO!

Regular consumer demand for GI JOE in India started dropping off around the same time as did GI JOE here in the U.S. (2002/2003 or so). Worse, though, in India so I am told. Beyblade and Pokeman became bonafied crazes and kids did not want GI JOE. Also, GI JOE cartoon used to be in syndication in India but I believe was dropped somewhere around that time frame - so that definitely did not help!

Yeah, although the Manimals were bizarre they are a part of GI JOE history so it will be too bad if the last three can't be produced in some way but it does seem unlikely. However, I strongly suspect other online retailer(s) were also contacted about this, so maybe one of them wants to take the plunge but I would urge caution. I was told that the Manimal tooling had been picked sight-unseen from a list provided by Hasbro (to replace other tooling Hasbro recalled). I guess they were surprised when they got it - oops!

Sorry, we kind of have two topics going in this thread. Funskool stopped making GI JOE figures sometime in 2004, IIRC. Windmill was the last release. Some others (such as a carded Armadillo) were planned but cancelled. Funskool clearanced out a lot of inventory at the end of 2004. They probably don't have much if anything left in warehouse over in India. As it stands, I perceive that the GI JOE community is kind of bored/tired or over-satured with Funskool GI JOE product, so once items sell down no attempt will be made by me to restock them (probably no longer available anyway). As it relates to Funskool, I posted this the other day at joecustoms and you guys might find it interesting: BTW, you guys might find it interesting to know that the tooling for all six Manimals is currently with Funskool in India. (I think I may have mentioned this before.) However, the product will never be made in the Indian market because I am made to understand that such products don't go over well there (monstrous looking creatures, etc.) Very recently, an "entreprenuer" in India has been shopping U.S. vendors (or, me at least) to buy a poly-bagged production run of the figures. Unfortunately: 1) the quantity requirments are very high (too high for the demand the U.S. market is currently prepared to present) 2) There would be no formal packaging and probably no accessories 3) Hasbro would not have tacitly authorized the production. ...so I decided that the situation smelled like a turd and turned the opportunity down.

But, but..., but... aren't you Airtight, one of the mods and the inner circle over at JC? Sorry man, you may well have gotten the last of them. Budo, Croc Master, and Street Hawk are gone forever.

Not necessarily - I mean I could write an editorial and send it out to 20,000 collectors on my mailing list. But, in the overall scheme of things that will not be necessary. Most of the people I wanted to address (the people who follow the forums closely) have already read my side of this GI JOE CC bashing issue, so my point has been made. Getting banned at JoeCustoms is merely a side issue that was bound to happen sooner or later anyway...

It was closer to half initially but some have already been removed from sale because the quantities allocated for sale have been exhausted. And, of course, stuff like CGI and Night-Viper are not going to be placed on sale because a) they are not overstocked, and B] they sell very well at their regular retail price.

This is the biggest load of B.S. marketing spin I have ever heard!

I'd be surprised if you didn't do this considering the assortment they put out. Exactly. Case assortments not at all optimized to collector interest compounds the problem. It's like being hit with a double-whammie. Or, even worse, a rotten 2-pack gets packed into not one but two case assortments! (I call that the triple-whammie!!) Any retailer that markets to the collector but fails to take this into account will end up with a warehouse full of Kamakura w/ motorcyle packs and will thus have cash tied up in worthless inventory, unable to make investments in future product to sell. However, the first DTC assortment was pretty well balanced so they're on the right track.

A few comments about this thread as I only recently noticed it: (1) I don't care if folks buy DTC product from SMALLJOES or somewhere else. Just buy it. Like many other collectors, I want to see this product around for awhile but it won't be unless we support it. Instead of buying 30 Crimson Guards, how about 29 Crimson Guards and a Major Barrage.? Know what I mean? Will it kill ya to get at least ONE of each? This stuff is about as good as it is ever going to get, by my reckoning. (2) There is no gorilla marketing going on here with respect to my editorial. I was using the soapbox of my newsletter to accomplish a few things: express my excitement over the DTC product line, prod some people a little about their buying habits, and make a few points about the unusual and possibly tenuous nature of this marketing excercise by Hasbro. I don't have anyone in the community reposting my newsletters. I sometimes post them myself (such as on USENET) or they are posted on sites that I pay for advertising on (Yo Joe!, RTM, etc.). I suppose there will always be conspiracy theorists out there looking for the nefarious in everything, and I cannot help you with your problem. Consider counseling. (3) Someone griped about the prices on a few of the figures I sell. Those prices are there to balance inventory, not to gouge. I know yall's buying habits, I am no fool, and will not have my inventory raped of certain popular items at a detriment to my business. Buy the complete sets and you get a great deal! I WANT to sell you a complete set at a fair price. I don't really care about selling you the latest hip figure, at a high price, that everyone else on the boards are going ga-ga over and thus someone feels they need to buy 12 and resell them on the eBay. I went over all of this a few months ago so I will not rehash it. (4) Hasbro and their hiatus talk - not fond of Hasbro's little games. I don't know whether this was an exercise in stupidity, secrecy, confusion, or all of the above. Even Inside Sales knew all about this DTC stuff and were not telling their wholesale customers. Why?! Anyone who assumed the 3 3/4" line was cancelled in light of the Sigma Six introduction could REASONABLY assume that in light of past history. This DTC / HasbroToyShop.Com exercise is, historically, a very unusual move for Hasbro although I applaud them for taking this step and giving their brands an option to end-run around lowest-common-denominator mass-market retailers. Hopefully it works out for them.

I think you may be referring to David Kunitz, who along with a few others presided over some of the gayest GI JOE 3 3/4" product ever released circa early 90's. And yes, IIRC, he was back working on the product line again these last few years. He was at one of the round-tables at the convention last year. All it took was about 5 minutes of listening to this guy to understand why everything he put his hands on turned to sh*t. I wonder if I was the only person at that round-table discussion who was about ready to strangle this guy?

This is a superb post, very interesting reading, which demonstrates the spin that shifts the blame of a failed product away from the designers and marketers, and onto the consumer. Your post is entirely on the mark and a very relevant example. Hasbro and only Hasbro are to blame for 3 3/4" Joe failing. I had been pointing out still significant problems with this line for a year and a half, predicting (ask Prozac and others) that the line would get canned after 1st quarter 2005 if they didn't get fixed - then low and behold... - Almost complete lack of interesting accessories for figures - Completely abusive re-use of tooling (repainting), combined with sticking those items in packs with all-new items forcing a then-irritated consumer to buy the unwanted item to get a new item. - Abusive re-use of the same characters over and over, when we had many, many classic popular characters that were screaming for new renditions - Lame case pack-outs that resulted in peg-warmers. - Consistently ugly packaging. - Inside-sales related problems that are absurd beyond justification. (The fan community is not aware of these particulars, but I can assure you they are ridiculous.) Corey SMALLJOES.COM

That's also quite true. Last time it was Duke, Scarlett, and Heavy Duty that got double packed. Duke and Heavy Duty would have been my DEAD LAST picks for a double pack. Alley-Viper, BAT, something else should have been the double-packs, at least to come closer to satisfying collector demand. When it comes to these issues, Hasbro decision making process is very, very scary. This time I predict the double packs will be: Storm Shadow Snake Eyes Kamakura (or maybe Baroness)

Re: new Microman Acroyear X2 is coming in today (finally, nearly a month late due to freight company foolishness) and hopefully I can get them listed this evening, but no later than this weekend. Street Fighter and some more Godzilla Microman figures in about another week.