Hi all! I thought we would take a break from showcasing my collection to talk about a serious issue that faces all blind box collectors, DOUBLES. (was that dramatic enough for you?)

I think the main reason why I started collecting blind box toys was the element of surprise. I also admit, I really love to gamble. A lot. But I don’t, because I spend all my money on toys. There is something exciting when it comes to mulling over which box you are going to take (or bag if you are referring to Lego minifigs, which I also have a collection of). I would say it almost feels like Christmas morning when you are a kid. Does it rattle? Is it heavy? Compare and contrast with other boxes in the lot. As stated before, I am not a completionist. This applies to many aspects of my life such as video games, crafts, web blogs… wait. Honestly I blame it on being constantly distracted. There is usually one or two figures in a series that I want, but I also don’t usually get all gun-ho about trying to find them immediately. Usually I can find an open one online for a decent price, or lady luck will sometimes throw me a solid, that really sounds like shes throwing poop at me, and I will open up the one I’ve been lusting over.

I have purchased my fair share of blind box toys (well over 100 to date) and I can honestly say with the small exception of a mass purchase of Hello Kitty blind box toys when they went on clearance at Urban Outfitters, I am not often the victim of the blind box double. This is not to say that it doesn’t happen, as noted in my previous post when I purchased two of the Misko figures. Luckily I have friends who also collect and often just give them away, and in return I occasionally get their doubles. I would have to say that I have the worst luck with doubles when it comes to Lego minifigs. There are a couple from the series 6 collection that I have 3-4 each of, but despite my initial frustration (more comical than anything) it doesn’t bum me out nearly as much as when I buy higher priced doubles – think $3.00 vs $9.00-12.00.

I read an interesting 5 part article over at Jeremyriad recently about blind box toys. Little did I know that they were such the bane of peoples existence. I believe blind boxes fall into the same category as packs of trading cards and those awesome sticker story books that you had to buy tons of packs to complete. Sure the price tag is a bit more, but I still find that they fall into the affordable range. The element of gambling and surprise does it for me, but I understand that others prefer to obtain the piece they are looking for and move on, without shelling out dollar after dollar on other figures they don’t want. I enjoy the way that Disney handles their figures in that they have 3 (sometimes more if you ask) on display and you can trade any of yours for what they have. Is this financially reasonable for smaller mom and pop toy/art dealers? No. But sometimes it gifts me the opportunity to pick up an older figure from a discontinued series that I find interesting. For example, in the case of the Star Wars Vinylmation figures that are park exclusives, I didn’t return home to find that I had doubles, instead was able to trade them for other figures from the Star Wars series while still on vacation. I also really respect that the makers of the Ugly Doll brand decided to make their cases of blinds the entire series in one spot, instead of getting mixed cases and having to hunt them all down. I see that as a win win for everyone. It gives me the confidence knowing that even if I only plan on buying a couple, more than likely I will not end up with two of the same kind and for the die hard collector/completionists, they can simply purchase a whole case and have all of them. So I vote, bring on the blinds! I will continue to buy them as long as I find them interesting.

So friends, do you like blind box toys? Why or why not? Tell me about it!

Check back next Thursday for another edition of Toy Thursday. Rumor has it that I will be hitting my favorite place to find vintage toys in Sacramento, Toy Fusion, this weekend – and we know I can’t leave that place empty handed.

Happy Thursday ya’ll! Instead of featuring some of my already existing toy collection – I am excited to present to you my newest members of the family! The first is the Ice Blue Skelanimal Qee by Jason Freeny. The second is a Crappy Cat blind box figure (named Puked) by Unacat, designed by VanBeater. The third is a Jibibuts blind box figure (named Suii) by Nofern. Last but not least is a Misko blind box figure by Nathan Jurevicius. Sadly I bought two of these and managed to get doubles. Ohhhh well, such is the life of a blind box fiend.

After picking up and putting down the Ice Blue Skelanimal Qee, Richard was sick of me whining so he bought it for me. Being the medical nerd that I am, and my super secret love of all toys clear, I was excited to finally get to check this one out closely. I love all the detail that was put into the painting, my only qualm is that the little bugger will not stand up, so I must lean him against my display.

Originally I told myself that I would hold off on buying more blind box toys, save up and buy some larger figures for my collection. We can apparently see how that went down. My first purchase was going to be a larger Crappy Cat figure, but to my dismay, it was no where to be found on Saturday. Apprehensively I picked up one of the Crappy Cat blind box figures. I say apprehensively because the entire series is not completely made of Crappy Cat figures. They also have Flunk Monkey and M. Skull in the mix as well – and despite liking both of those figures, I really wanted one of the Crappy Cat figures. Alas fate was on my side (or the odds of probability) and I scored Puked.

The Jibibut was a spur of the moment decision. There were only a handful of them left, and I do not have any wooden figures in my collection. I can’t say I was very excited about the figure I got. Am I the only one that noticed that the sticker seal is misspelled?

Finally, the main reason why we went to Dragatomi. As I mentioned before, I lacked wooden figures in my collection, how did I manage to get 2 (technically 3, but I gave Richard my Misko double) in one day?! If you are unfamiliar with Nathan Jurevicius – he created Scary Girl. The art stylings of the game made me fall completely in love with it, not to mention that you get to buy vinyl figures in the game, how meta. These figures come apart and you can mix and match them. Non matching things stress me out hardcore – so these little hoots will be staying as is. Anyhoot, check back next Thursday for more toy-yee.. toyeee, toy goodness.

Well kids, it’s that time again for another edition of Toy Thursday! I was previously asked on instagram (follow me! @pyropixie) to take a close up of some of the toys I posted last week. I figured I would pick and choose a few of my favorite pieces and talk a little bit about them. I was originally introduced to the Skelanimals brand when I was still working at Hot Topic. Who couldn’t resist those cute little animals with their little skeletons. I don’t recall buying much other than a plush skeleton cat, but I’ve always adored the brand. I was quite surprised to see the Skelanimal brand pop up when I was working at Target. I was even more excited to see that they came out with a toy line exclusively for Halloween – though I guess every day is Halloween in a Skelanimal world… and if you are Al Jourgensen. ANYWAYS. I guess one of the perks of working at a big box retailer that has something that you enjoy is that you are able to look up the inventory to make sure that you are buying all of the entire series. Let it be known that I am not really a rabid collector of series, I prefer to own the pieces I like instead of having 20 other pieces from the series that are OK. But, I’m also of the mindset of more is more. So why not have more?

I like that the bases of each of the animals are completely flat, and that they are light, which makes it easy to display them in various ways. I have a few toys, such as a couple of Dunnys that are a bit top heavy and like to fall down if they are not leaning up against the back of the display area or wall, thus creating a huge domino effect. The only downside is that they are wider than most of the toys that I have, which tends to take up more space. Currently these are featured in a row in the very front of my collection ontop of my book case-cube storage-upstairs pantry-type deal. I always check out the seasonal section to see if they put out any other series, but alas I have not seen any new ones since.

Well there you have it! Check back next Thursday for another feature on some of my toys! (a little birdy tells me that they will be brand new toys next week!)

Behold! I’ve been on the look out for creative ways to display my massive collection of toys. A couple of weeks ago I begrudgingly packed most of these up because I had no room for them. I live in a tiny little shoebox room that is mostly taken up by my bed and desk, so it’s always a challenge when I acquire more toys. I was at work the other day dinging through filters in the shop when I stumbled across this gem. I asked my boss what it was and he explained that it was a plastic pallet for putting residential air conditioning units on because you cant set them directly on a roof, etc. At least that’s what I think he said. I’m pretty sure that he said it was an awesome plastic display case for my toys. So I bartered with him on a price *coughfreecough* and raced home to unpack all of my beauties. It currently holds about half of my collection – but that is better than having it all boxed up.

In case you are wondering what you are looking at, it consists of my collection of the following pieces:

– Disney Vinylmation
– Various Kid Robot blind box toys
– Kid Robot Dunnys
– Bearbricks
– Skeleanimals
– my R2D2 mouse ears and classic mouse ears
– Julie West
– Adventure time figures

Not pictured – most of my robots, my collection of hello kitty toys and many other blind box toys that I currently don’t have room for.