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Coolest "in the wild" find?


hisDUDENESS9829

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With the Caliban wave popping up now, I was wondering if we could share our favorite "success" stories.  Did you hunt hard for a certain figure thinking you would never find it until that faithful day?  Were you completely convinced you would never obtain that one figure until you just happened to refresh the website at 5 AM one morning?

My most memorable hunt moment was looking for the Juggernaut wave at every Walgreen's in my area for a while.  At first I was only hunting for Deadpool and Wolverine as my funds were limited (ended up grabbing the whole wave eventually at other Walgreen's stores).  

As someone who never found the ToyBiz  Deadpool and had to buy the Marvel Select one to fill in, he was my top priority.  I had all but given up on finding him until I just happened to be out and about one day without my wife and kid and on a whim decided to go into a Walgreen's nearby since it was in the same shopping center as the place where I was running my errands.  I walked in and saw the usual fare, nothing interesting until i caught a quick glimpse in the top stock of a box I didn't recognize.  pulled it down and there DP was in all of his Marvel Now! glory.  He is not my favorite DP that I own now (90's DP all day) but that feeling was definitely something I won't forget any time soon.  

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I think my coolest "In the Wild" find was going into an EB games and looking around to find nothing, and then the kid at that front says to me "looking for the legends man" he knew me and my game so of course he knew I was going to say yes, and he walks into the back room, and opens the door and hands me a box with the entire Apocalypse wave, almost the entire SP//DR wave (minus Scarlet Spider) and this was before anyone i knew was finding them at all, I wasnt even sort of expecting it , and another box with the entire Cull wave.

Another great find in the wild was for sure the time I went to my shitty Wal-Mart, and there on the pegs after waiting for so long to get was the new Spider-Man 2099 (sandman wave), I had been searching high and low fot that perticular figure, and there it was, never saw it again on a peg. I also was pretty stoked when I manged to get the vintage wave 2 figs I wanted the first day I went out and saw em all, no stores had em and never seen them since just this one store, and I got Wasp, BP and Vision.

But now that I think of it the best in the wild was, when I walked into an EB and saw Venom (from the monster venom wave) on a shelf up high in may or june months before the wave hit, and I asked the guy to pull it down he was baffled they had it, and two guys in the store said he couldn't sell it to me because it had a street date of August, but he gave it to me anyways

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I think my best wild find was back during the Civil War Wave when Black Panther was next to impossible to find.  i found an open box of Legends on the top of the shelves at my local Walmart (the place never has anything these days) and there was a whole case in there especially BP.  So I snagged it and left the rest of the case for the next collector.  

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49 minutes ago, greenlucario said:

I think my best wild find was back during the Civil War Wave when Black Panther was next to impossible to find.  i found an open box of Legends on the top of the shelves at my local Walmart (the place never has anything these days) and there was a whole case in there especially BP.  So I snagged it and left the rest of the case for the next collector.  

It’s crazy to think back on how tough that Panther was to find and now we have two full waves released of MCU Panther related characters.  I know I say it often, but we really are collecting in the best time to be collecting.

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3 hours ago, Podtera said:

Mine would be Juggernaut wave, Wolverine, Deadpool and Rouge at Toys R Us, back when they were released or this guy, I found him around a month ago at my local Target for.... $19.83! Never saw him in retail back in the day! 

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Nice! Back before the TRU stores went extinct in the US I stumbled across Cyke and Colossus from that wave in one stop.  Both of those figures are still two of my favorites. Thanks for the story!

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Today was pretty nuts.  I left work a little early planning on going to target on the way home but decided to call one that was pretty far out of the way (while I was driving to the target closer) first to see if they had the Caliban wave in stock.  The store that was out of the way was the only one I didn’t call on Sunday to check stock and I thought “it can’t hurt”.  

Earlier in the day I had checked the DCPI for the Game of Thrones Oreos to see if any were in my area and as it turned out the only store that did have some was the one that was out of the way.  While I was on hold waiting for the toy department manager to let me know if they had any x-men legends in stock, I made the decision to just go to the store that was out of the way anyway and snag the GOT Oreos.  

The toy department manager comes back and says “yeah we have x-men legends in stock”.  As I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, that doesn’t mean much in Targetlandia.  So I asked “how recently did you receive these?” He says “April 6th”.  

I immediately feel the adrenaline rush.  Getting to the store was the longest 15 minute drive ever (minus driving the wife to the hospital when she was in labor twice).  I sprint/walk to the toy aisle only to be met with Polaris and Dazzler.  So either I missed them, or they were in the back.  I crossed my fingers and looked for the nearest employee with a device that would make eye contact.  Found a nice guy at electronics talking to another employee and asked him.  His device showed “some in the back”.  He leaves for a bit, I prepare myself for a major let down.  

He comes walking out of the back with a box on his shoulder and says “found a whole case.  Not sure if these are the ones you want but we can take a look”.

I almost passed out when he put the box down in front of me.  Grabbed all but a Gambit, had enough wherewithal to grab the Oreos, and then hit the self checkout.  

Today was hands down one of my best days hunting ever.  I love this hobby so much.  

Bonus updated X-Shelfie!

 

 

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22 hours ago, hisDUDENESS9829 said:

It’s crazy to think back on how tough that Panther was to find and now we have two full waves released of MCU Panther related characters.  I know I say it often, but we really are collecting in the best time to be collecting.

It really is a golden age for ML.  And it really is funny, considering that same Black Panther got a re-release in the M'Baku wave.  

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1 hour ago, Benn said:

The X-Men wave doesn't even technically release until May 1st, right? Way to take advantage of Target employees' street-date ignorance. (:

There’s no street date on them.  They rang up at self checkout no issues, and the May 1st date was just an expectation from Hasbro.  So far this year the only wave we have seen with street dates is the Endgame wave due to the embargo.  This same thing happened last year with the Sauron wave, except another collector beat me to the store and only left behind a Lady Deadpool.  It dropped super early at Target and then a couple of weeks later hit Hasbro Toy Shop.

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Two for me... I'd been on an ML break for a while and was traveling for work when I randomly stopped in a Target. To my surprise I found the whole Warlock X-Men wave which Hasbro released to Target before Walmart, online, etc. For better or worse, that got me back into ML again.

Second surprise was at the same mall while traveling again and stopping into the TRU Express there in their final days.  Found half a dozen MCU Vision / Scarlet Witch 2-packs at 10% off! Grabbed one for myself and one for a fellow collector. Had no clue at the time those would be so hard to find later.

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When I visited Canada in 2014 I went to a comic store. They had my grail, the Iron Man / Mandarin 2-pack.

Unfortunately I overestimated the range of articulation of the left arm and it broke off a week afterwards while doing a photoshoot. I finally bought a replacement earlier this year. I still keep the broken figure, though. I glued the arm back on and painted its faceplate with sharpie to fill in that unpainted red section. It looks nice displayed in my assorted Iron Man merch desk corner while the unbroken version is fighting the Mandarin up in my action figure display.

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Not a Marvel Legends find but I did manage to get my hands on a 12 inch Chewbacca figure from the mid 90's that was real hard to get. He was supposed to have came out in the first wave but didn't for some reason and was released awhile later. He was still hard to find but did find him in Toys R Us in a case that some stocker left on the floor. I picked him out and never seen him in the wild since. Still one of my prized finds and this was before I ever found myself on the magical place called the internet.

As far as Legends go, I did find wave 2 Jim Lee Cyclops at my local Walgreens before they started to release them through Internet retailers. I was pretty pumped about it.

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I remember back in the 5inch X Men days, you had to buy a certain number of figures to get Senyaka and/or Rogue. I jumped thru all the right hoops,  and when the time came... I picked Senyaka. Rogue had a horrible face, and no articulation in her head/ neck. Easy pass!

 

Now, I'm all about price matching... Restart that fodder pile.

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  • 1 month later...

I found an exclusive Human Torch at the local EB here in Canada before they were on sale in the US. At the time I had no idea they be as common as they turned out to be but right then I'd have kicked small children out of the way if I had to joust to get my hands on it.

It was a good feeling to get it. 😄

 

A buddy of mine found a Juggernaut BAF Wolverine in a bargain bin at a TRU and snapped it up for me. It wasn't my find but it was still awesome.😊

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I don't know if it counts but last summer I went with a sibling to bid on storage units and inside the only one I bought had several of old toys but the the takeaway was a complete set of the Jubilee Wave, mint and sealed. Still think that's pretty wild hehe. The unit alone cost $60.

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The Walgreens near my house generally doesn’t have much but I went in to check out the Bogo 1/2 off sell. Right as I walked in they had set up a display with all the Homecoming wave. So I was finally able to pick up a Moon Knight and the homemade suit Spidey 

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I have been collecting these since the Toybiz days so my story is from quite a few years ago. Back in the TB Toad was the most expensive and hard to find figs (incredible I know). This was before Dragon Man came out I should point out. You easily saw it for 100$ on ebay.  Anyways I sued to get my figs at a mall. There was a corridor that had really small stores that sold things like candy, baby items, there were a few beauty salons as well. This corridor ha a small story that sold toddler toys, thing for kid like 0-5 years old. They would always have boxes outside with items that were on sale. Every once in a while they have old action figures loose and MOC. Sure enough one day Toad was there , paid less than retail and it was still in the package. Felt like I was getting away with murder.

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