Playtrek Gazette April 1998, Part 1 Contact us at: playtrek@hotmail.com Well, we at the Gazette figured we should finally have some editorial opinion pieces to compliment the hard-hitting factual news we usually deliver each month. As a public service, we chose the mint vs. loose collector debate as our first op-ed piece. Remember, some may find the following distressing, offensive, and just in generally poor taste. So please stop reading now if you don't want to be offended. Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Playtrek Gazette, to be mailed soon! POINT-COUNTERPOINT: Loose versus mint collecting A debate en mass by mass debaters Charles Apple and John Russell In this corner, wearing the nasty old trunks that haven't been washed in ages, is "Loose" action-figure collector CHARLES APPLE. In the opposite corner, wearing nothing but a jockstrap because his new trunks are still in the package, is "Mint" figure collector JOHN RUSSELL. This debate will be fought fairly and squarely. No hair-pulling, below-the-belt punches... well, okay, maybe just a few... and no taking Playmates' name in vain. When the bell sounds, COME OUT SWINGING! Let's get REAAAADDY TO RUUUUMMMMBLE! *DING* ------ CHARLES: I just don't get this "mint versus loose" thing. I mean, we collect TOYS. Not PACKAGES. Mint collectors like you, John, are more concerned about the condition of the package than you are about the condition of the toy itself. No articulation? Poor paint job? Ugly-ass figure to begin with? No problem; it'll look GREAT hermetically sealed in a wall-mounted glass case. Don't get too close, John, or you'll set off the proximity alarms. Why are you MOC and MIB collectors so damned anal about your packages? Is it the resale value of your toys that you're actually worried about? Do you really expect to sell your Redemption Data or your Tribbles O'Brien one day so you can put your kid through college? That's lame. It's a TOY. It's something to be ENJOYED, not an investment. Mint collectors like you, John, are the reason scalpers exist. Your anal preoccupation with the absence of even the tiniest little flaws in cheaply-manufactured cardboard is a breeding ground for the slimy bastards who crawl out from under their rocks at the first light of dawn and line up at Target and Toys-R-Us, ready to trample small children in their zeal to lay their hands on the mintiest, freshest pieces of crap so they can sell it to idiots like you, John. If you opened your figures and limited your obscene expenditures on MOC product to somewhere in the vicinity of "loose" prices, then the scalpers would be deprived of their market. Then, they could go back to surreptitiously taping rock concerts or stealing hubcaps or whatever the hell these slimeballs did before pathetic people like you, John, gave them a new lease in life. That package isn't SUPPOSED to last forever, John, you lunkhead! it's not SUPPOSED to remain "mint!" It's ONLY a TOOL to entice you into buying the toy so you'll take it home and open it up. It's CARDBOARD and PLASTIC for cryin' out loud! Collecting mint packages is unnatural. It's immoral. It causes tooth decay. It causes cancer in lab animals. Mint collectors are scary. They hang out on street corners and near schoolyards. They steal lunch money. They run over pedestrians in crosswalks. They torture household pets. They don't eat their broccoli. Mint collectors are hard to please. I'll go Waaaaay out of my way to send you a toy that you can't find-mostly, because you've chosen to live in Outer Mongolia-only to hear you whine because you've spotted three molecules that are out of place in the card backing and there are scuff marks on the bubble. Well, do some of that whining to my face next time, Johnny boy, and I'll show you some REAL scuff marks! Mint collectors are the reason for the decline of the hobby and for the decline of Playmates' Star Trek line in particular. Once upon a time, John, we could go into any K-Mart and buy Trek figures for just over four bucks apiece. I'd often run into kids who were also buying Trek figures. I'd open my figures and they'd open their figures, Playmates would move a lot of product and the world was just fine. Then, despicable mint collectors like you moved in on our action, John. The bottom fell out of the baseball card market after you ruined THAT hobby, too, and so you switched over to Hot Wheels and Star Trek figures. You started buying the figures out from under the kids, who quickly grew frustrated and moved on to Wrestling figures and Teenage Turtles and Power Rangers and the omnipresent Star Wars toys. Playmates, struggling to make a buck any way they could, started catering to your sick, sick tastes with collector-oriented marketing ploys like exclusives, short-packing and that 1701 crap. Mint collectors like you, John, ate it up as the value of your pristine investments grew. Simple, corn-fed Trek toy lovers like me were left to weep in our saurian brandies as we missed figure after shortpacked figure and enormous holes began to develop in our own collections. I've never seen a Tapestry Picard with my own eyes and I suspect I never will. And here's a hearty thanks to goobers like you for making that so, John. Someone stated recently that mint collectors are not "true collectors." Hell, I'm not even sure you mint collectors are true HUMANS. Mint collectors like you, John, make me sick. You make me physically ill. I'd tell you all to rot in hell, but I'm afraid you'd find a way to take the batteries out of hades itself, put it back into its original package and sell it on eBay for an obscene profit. I gotcher mint package right here, John! ------ JOHN: Charles, Charles, Charles, Charles, Charles....OK, has your medication kicked in yet? Good. Now that you are sedated a little bit, let's talk. I too just don't get this "mint versus loose" thing either. We MOC kinda people also collect TOYS. TOYs in PACKAGES! We like to look at the big picture; the whole deal. Not some myopic vision that only includes a little hunk of plastic. Being obviously more cultured, we appreciate the aesthetics and the information that go along with a well-packaged figure. We appreciate the context of the figure within it's assortment and within the line as a whole. We understand time relationships; cause and effect of the various figures as they were produced. All that is lost on openers. All you guys have is a little figure, devoid of any context within the big picture. I doubt this line of reasoning is registering, though, so let me concentrate on something else: Removing your toys from the packages and playing with them is fine, if you're a child. Doing the same as an adult is just plain WEIRD. Why, just look at you now. What are you, like around 80 years old? And you're sitting there playing with those Seven of Nine and Spock figures. And....HEY! Knock it off. I'm almost positive that the toy designers did NOT have that in mind when they designed those action figures. STOP IT! OK, put those down and listen to me. No, not like that. Put them down side by side.... Apart from each other. OK, good. Now stay with me on this. See, that proves one of my points: Toys out of packages, in idle hands such as yours, are bound to inspire all sorts of untoward thoughts and actions. In fact, if I remember my Sunday school lessons correctly, it was an OPENER that got us all in such a fine mess in the first place. God said, "Don't touch that fruit", but Eve just had to take it off the tree and play with it. And now, thanks to you openers, were all doomed from the outset. Good work, opener-boy! Let's take a look at your collection over there in the bookcase. Now, I gotta admit that is a pretty cool diorama you've got going over there. What is that: Visit to the Dust Planet? Look out, Kirk! It's the venomous Dust Bunny! Having the figures knee-deep in cat hair, dust, and dead skin cells does add a certain appeal to those figures. Sheesh. And how many times have you had to fish your T&T O'brien out of the vacuum cleaner now? Five times! Wow. And how come all the figures have their accessories laying around by their feet! I'll tell you why: 'Cause they can't hold 'em, that's why. Once, a long time ago, I succumbed to the dark side and opened a figure. And it couldn't hold any of the accessories it came with. Turning to the list for advice, I asked how you openers coped with this. I was deluged with responses. "Of course they can hold their accessories. It just takes a little extra work." And Elmer's glue, super glue, masking tape, duct tape, jam, snot, and other assorted adhesives that people all said they had to use. Why in the world would you open something that can't be used? Which brings me to my next point: What in the hell is that Trelane figure doing? And can it do anything else besides that? I believe the answer, Opie, is: NOPE! And it's the same for alot of the others as well. Aerobics Olivia Newton Kira. Kayaking action Kang. Cheese-ripping Spock and PeeWee Herman-dancing Kirk. They ALL look better in the package, where their non-articulation is at least tolerable. Investments? You think most MOC collectors are going to actually sell their collections? I'm sure our spouses will after we kick the bucket, but not us. But since you brought it up, at least a MOC card figure is worth more than the same figure opened. Why would you buy something only to immediately diminish its value to almost nothing simply by opening it? Huh? Hey, I need change for a five. Got two tens? Hey, Thanks! And what about the environment? Landfill space isn't cheap, buddy. Quit being an extra burden on the rest of us taxpayers. Why fill our landfills and pollute the environment with perfectly good packaging? That just doesn't make sense. Don't throw away that perfectly good bubble and cardback! Keep that figure in the package. Do you enjoy buying something only to throw half of it out immediately? You openers just do not have a clue. Do you remember that time you almost got arrested for shoplifting because you forgot to wait until AFTER you bought the figures to open them? Seeing the surveillance video of the "Asset Protection" guys at Target chase you all over the aisles was hilarious. Or, how about the time you had to visit the emergency room because of the paper cut you got on your finger? That raging infection probably wouldn't have happened if you hadn't taken all of the bandages out of their sterile containers and played with them beforing using them on that paper cut. Or the time you decided to take all the eggs out of their shells as soon as you got home from the grocery store? Huh, do ya? Lastly: If figures were meant to be loose, they would be sold loose. But they're not. So obviously the toy designers and toy companies intended them to be packaged. Just leave well enough alone. And here endeth the lesson. Dweeb. CHARLES: Geek. JOHN: Opener. CHARLES: Minty-boy. MRS. APPLE: Charles! The cat is chewing on your Redemption Data again! CHARLES: Aaaaarrrrgh! Get away from that you little... JOHN: Heeheeeee. MRS. APPLE: And John. Your wife called and said your three year old was "helping" around the house by opening your Star Trek figures for you. JOHN: D'OH! CHARLES: Heeheeeee. JOHN: Hey! Wanna go have a beer? I've got two tens on me! CHARLES: Sure! What do you think about those people who buy the figures, open them, and then only collect the cards? JOHN: Now those people are really freaks. CHARLES: Oh, yeah! You said it man. Let's go. And so went the debate held recently at the home of Mr. Apple. The Editor would like to point out that neither of the participants is actually insane. Though Charles is probably pretty close. CHARLES: Am not, geek-boy.........