Tag Archives: Popy

GW Acrylic – there is no better place to buy your acrylic goodness

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Hi guys,

I’ve been meaning to post a quick shout out to Christian from GW Acrylic – the second coolest person with that name on the forums.

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For more than a year I’ve heard only good things about Christian and his acrylic business. The thing is, I already had a decent supplier of acrylic in the UK and I do my best to be a loyal customer to those who merit it. More and more though I noticed how much Christian contributed to the forums, not just through his acrylic supply but through his thoughtful and knowledgeable posts on SW vintage topics. I’m the kind of the guy, like most of us, who prefers to give his business to like-minded people.

The decision to switch suppliers was also made easier by Christian’s new range of popy display cases. They are brilliant! Not only that but they are priced well and shipping costs are decent. Christian will also package all his products up better than anyone. I received a big box from him a couple of days ago and I actually caught myself commenting to my wife that they were packed TOO WELL. I didn’t think the day would ever come when I’d say that!

Christian has been collecting SW vintage for years and when I spoke to him he told me that he only decided to start up the business because back then there wasn’t a good supplier of cases in the EU/UK for his own collecting needs. Obviously things have kicked on pretty well since then. GW Acrylic plan to continue designing new cases for us until they’ve covered every SW collectible, a huge task but one that you can feel that they will relish.

Check out these boxes of acrylic ready to be dispatched. Christian and his crew will be busy boys…

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Here’s my Popy Luke Bespin below, plus another shot of it with a bunch of fresh cases from Christian. While I sometimes hear collectors refer to acrylic cases as ‘prisons’, I think they really bring that extra edge to my display cabinet. I do have AFA cases as well but I’m still on the fence about the value AFA brings to our beloved hobby – that’s a debate for another day!

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You can buy fantastic cases for your MOCs (including Meccano and GI Joes), Japanese Popy figures, early bird kits, proof cards and even riser steps for your loosies. So if you ever need a hit of acrylic – you can’t say I didn’t tell you where to go. Here’s a sample of their early bird cases – just beautiful.

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You can order from GW Acrylic’s Facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/GWAcrylic

Or from this link on the TIG  forum:

http://www.imperialgunneryforum.com/t2140-gw-acrylic-new-stock-products-now-available-moc-loose-steps

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

Strange conversation at the ‘Toy Tokyo’ store in NYC

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A couple of weeks ago I had a weird experience in NYC. I was keen as mustard to check out vintage comic and toy stores to whet my geeky appetite but I was extremely disappointed when I didn’t find much vintage star wars in some of the more well-known places.

I did though stumble upon a really cool vintage toy shop named ‘Toy Tokyo’ in East Village. If you’re interested in vintage Japanese toys and you live in New York then this will be your shrine. There were also some nice star wars items, such as playsets and a few loose figures. I didn’t spot any MOCs though.

Toy Tokyo in East Village, NYC

Toy Tokyo in East Village, NYC

Although this shop was great, this post isn’t really about giving it a review. Rather, I want to mention a conversation I had with an employee there, whose opinion don’t  necessarily represents that of the store owner. Anyway I’ve been chasing down two Japanese figures – the ESB Luke Farmboy and Luke X-Wing, made by Popy (If you have some for sale let me know!) so I asked one of the employees if they had any in stock. He told me that the owner definitely had some but they had been moved to the warehouse because there wasn’t much financial value in vintage SW these days. He then tried me to convince me to buy a Cloud City playset and went on to explain what a great set it was I told him that as far as I knew vintage SW were rapidly on the rise. He looked at me like I had three heads and questioned my sources. Of course I referenced Ebay, the forums etc and told him I was an informed collector. He told me that Ebay prices should not be trusted and that they aren’t a sound indication of market value. While I understand that Ebay prices are usually inflated, they are a huge indicator of the SW market. They are what they are, whether or not we agree (which I for one don’t!).

While I understand the nature of sales tactics, I was flabbergasted with his comments. Was he straight up lying to me, thinking I had no idea what I was talking about or was he the one with no idea? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle? I’m confused, as far as I know there is a huge SW bubble right now.

What do you guys think? Am I missing something here?

This is the store’s link if you are ever in New York. Definitely worth the visit:

https://www.toytokyo.com/

If you’d like to learn more about the Popy line and other Japanese SW lines, click here for a great article from Japanese collector extraordinaire Toru Komoru himself:

http://www.rebelscum.com/japanswhistory-japan.asp

Thanks for tuning in!