Over the last few days I canceled three pre-orders for stuff I ordered from Sideshow. The Palpy/Sidious set is coming up, and, looking at my financial situation, I decided I didn’t want it badly enough to part with the money. Frodo and Sam will have to wait. The only pre-orders left are ANH Han and Luke. And Luke…man, oh man. I almost choked on my soda when I saw that $70 price tag on the order page. Using my Reward Points, I knocked about $23 off the price. $55 shipped is whole lot more palatable than $80 shipped.

I grumbled. A lot of people grumbled. I’m still grumbling because I’m getting priced out of a hobby I love.

It’s not like I’ve never paid that kind of money for something. The most I’ve spent was $70 for a collector’s edition doll. But that was one thing out of a great many, some of which I got at ridiculous discounts. Maybe that spoiled me for what was coming down the road as I moved up to higher-end collectibles. $50 for a fig stings, but spacing it out makes the sting less painful. If I spent $50 for stuff, how come twenty dollars more is now a deal breaker? I’m breathing the rarified air, but only just. There was no way I could be a completist. I could list maybe one impulse buy among my Sideshow SW stuff. My LOTR stuff came because, rarity of rarities, I had money lying around to get them.

I can’t say what the rest of the year is going to be like collecting-wise, but I think it’s safe to say each purchasing decision will get much more thought. There’s got to be something more to it that “it would be nice to have it”.

What was waiting for me in my email box this morning but a 15-20 day notice on Palpy/Sidious.

Gah!!!

Money is really tight right now because I had unexpected expenses this month, and I would have loved for Palpy to come near the end of February. I’ve been dialing down the thermostat so I won’t get killed by the gas bill next month and hoping for an early spring. Loading up on ramen noodles and canned food, too.

/end whine

So, what to do? Because we’re within the two-week cut-off for SS to hold stuff back, I could probably call them and not lose Palpy. If I do lose him, it shouldn’t be too hard to find him online somewhere.

It’s been a couple of months since I got Bespin Luke; he’s still in the box because of space issues. And I added Farmboy Luke to my future wish list for 2009. Yesterday, I read the latest SS newsletter to find out that Farmboy is coming this year!

Huh?

That would make three Lukes in roughly one year if you include last year’s Comic-Con exclusive. Luke has gone through many changes in looks through the movies. The only one who has more is Amidala/Padmé, and we’ve seen only one non-movie version of her. This is just too soon for another Luke. Vader should be the priority now, as we’ve waited for what I think is way too long for him.

Unfortunately, we’re about to enter the land of diminishing returns as we get close to the end of the main characters. You’d expect repeats, but you’d also expect secondary and tertiary characters. The last one we’ve gotten was Praji (and Palpy, if you consider him secondary). No armor means, of course, no flavors of stormies or either Fett. And I’d hate for them to go back to PT Jedi, but they’re there and waiting. I really don’t want to see bit players solid for the next couple years.

By way of the Freaks board by way of Rebelscum: there might be someone taking up the SW prop replica license that Master Replicas dropped. They’re called eFX, and here’s the website. Is this outfit for real? Maybe; some folk have seen an ad with the date 7-23-08, which will be preview night at Comic-Con this summer.

Good news for people who collect SW prop replicas. Not that I’ll ever own one; it’s just one of those things I can ogle from a distance.