What do you regret the most from your time in the hobby?

TrooperWill

Padawan
Joined
Nov 4, 2017
Messages
90
Hi all, probably been asked before, but what mistakes/cons have you fallen for, what lessons did you learn?
I have two id like to share and would love to hear what mistakes other hobbyist have made.

1: at a car boot sale, saw a guy with 6 falcons, 3 AT-ST, 2 AT-AT, 4 Reb troop trans. etc. clearly a big collector, nice guy, we chatted for a age while my GF rolled her eyes and exchanged knowing looks with the guys wife, had a peek at a few of his ships, but mine at home were more complete, then he unveiled a near complete Falcon missing just the smugglers floor, which i had at home. he only wanted £50 for it, and as i had the part at home, and i figured i could sell my spare one after robbing the floor out of it on eBay, therefore gaining a complete falcon and the parts i didn't have (training ball and gunners seat) for next to nothing. i bit his hand off for it, didn't think twice about it as he was a really nice guy.

so i get it home, put it side by side with mine and start swapping over the best condition parts to have a truly minty complete one on display when i realised the training ball was a fake, just a black bead on a thread, no multiple facets or any markings. cant believe i didn't spot it before as its about half too big as well. i was well gutted, and didn't dare tell my Gf as she had stumped up the cash and was annoyed i spent so much on myself when we only took about £80 with us and had to pass on some nice ride on toys for my son.

i feel like he probably knew full well as he had earlier tried telling me he had a fully complete troop transport for sale for a bargain price if i was interested, and when i opened it he didn't have the escape hatch or ANY of the gunners deck in the back.when i said it was incomplete he just laughed and said my mistake and i figured he had made a mistake, now i realise i was taken in by a conman who hid behind being a genuinely friendly and seemingly knowledgeable guy.

2: i took a few year break from collecting when we were a bit tight on cash when my son was born, we went to do a car-boot and sell loads of old stuff, ended up doing quite well and had about £300 by lunchtime.i went for a walk and found a nice older retired couple selling tools, lawnmower deckchairs, clearly cleared out their shed/garage. they had a reb troop trans. and Vader's Star destroyer play-set, both dusty, but BOTH COMPLETE. i got very excited and asked the guy what he wanted for them and he said a "give me a fiver for both and I think there is several action figures for them in the toolbox over there!" to my eternal regret and shame i then remembered that i had stopped collecting star wars, was considering selling my mint loose run if money situation didn't improve, and i didn't fancy trying to explain why i had bought them to my GF who would probably kick off if i came back having spent money we didn't have on what she saw as clutter we didn't need.

I POLITELY THANKED HIM FOR HIS TIME AND WENT ON MY WAY!!?!

having resumed collecting since, I'm nearing a complete loose minty run and having now found most of the play-sets and vehicles but not Vader's Star destroyer i genuinely feel haunted by that few minutes... the ones that got away lurk in my thoughts and taunt me on what or who could have been lurking inside the toolbox as i didn't even look... just because i wasn't actively collecting at the time.

Anyway, thanks for reading the essay above, tell me, what did you miss out on or regret buying??
 

poncho

Grand Master
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
5,403
Location
North Wales
i regret not buying a loose r2d2 popup droids cartoon version for £5 at a carboot 3 years ago in rhyl.

a trilogo squid head moc packed with a biker scout blaster on ebay earlier this year went for £40 in the end

and beater emperor moc with italian import label for £12 on ebay about 5 years ago.....
 

poncho

Grand Master
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
5,403
Location
North Wales
i regret binning the shell of my childhood falcon some years back. i would love to have that back id display it with pride today :cry:
 

subzero

Sith Lord
Joined
Jun 20, 2017
Messages
3,052
I don't have any regrets really as iv'e only been in this game again since about 6 months or so back, I do kind of regret though not clicking quick enough on the buy button on several different ebay listings over the past several months :lol: where i'd spotted an amazing deal and someone else buys it as i'm checking out. So not a regret really but still a wounder, but I can accept it as long as a flipper didn't buy them, if a collector bought what I missed out on then happy days it's dog eat dog and all part of the fun.

I only have one major regret but it's not vintage related, I was collecting SW Pops! for a short while around 2 years back ( god ****ing knows why ) and I seen a Darth Maul hologram rare SDCC variant being listed for about £250 and I passed on it thinking it was a ludicrous amount. Now that thing sells for around £1500+ :lol:
 

Clawrence

Jedi Knight
Joined
Jan 17, 2016
Messages
495
Location
Walsall
The initial rush of finding vintage usually blinds you to the obvious mistake you're making. In early days the net wasn't around and you learned as you went on, my most biggest regret was when i brought a han solo (without his Trench Coat) bagged with a slave 1 carbonate block at an antiques & collectors fair thinking it was the real mccoy. The guy was telling me it was one of the last figures to be made and a Bargain at £25. :roll:
After that I invested in a copy of the Sansweet's "Star Wars": The Action Figure Archive, which i still occasionally flick through today.
 

edd_jedi

Moderator
Staff member
Supporter
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,877
Location
UK
A few I can think of:

1) Selling most of my original MOC collection in 2003. I had owned some of those MOCs since the early 90s and paid peanuts for them all, I sold them for peanuts too. The only one I have left is my 21 back Luke X-Wing. They were the closest thing I had to my childhood collection.

2) Selling the recovered figures which were stolen in 2007 and returned to me in 2013 (there are old threads about it if you're interested.) At the time I got them back I wasn't really in to collecting, and they had been tarnished by the theft. But with hindsight as there were only about 10, I should have kept them. One of them was a MOC I will likely never see again (PBP Luke Bespin.)

3) Not buying a carded 12 back Vinyl Cape Jawa for £750 in 2011. At the time loose ones were only about £150, and the card had ink touch ups so I passed. With loose ones going for well over a grand, I dread to think what it would be worth now!

I used to buy and sell things on a whim, but these days I hardly ever sell anything unless I have upgraded it.
 

spoons

Grand Master
Joined
Oct 22, 2006
Messages
8,314
Very few regrets really, and a few lessons.

In the late 90s I got stung buying a Lando General with a Squid Head cape from a toy fair. Cost me £30 when that was a lot of money to me, so I was a lot more careful after that.

Couple of pieces that I passed on I regret. A Han Hoth 65 back proof for £135ish and a test paint sample for around £40. The later is probably still a similar price but they dont come up for sale often. But I passed as I couldn't justify the expense at the time so the moeny went on something else.

A good lesson is that most of us can't own everything
 

theforceuk

Grand Master
Supporter
Joined
Apr 3, 2014
Messages
8,749
Only regrets I really have is never getting a VC Jawa when they were reasonably priced and buying a fake one in 1999 for £120! About 10 years ago their was a stall with vintage MOCs for sale at my local market, one of the figures was a 77 Back Boba Fett probably C8 for £125. At the time I thought it was overpriced so walked past it without even looking at it many times.

Also regret not joining this forum for so long. :)
 

bosk70

Jedi Master
Supporter
Joined
Jun 26, 2014
Messages
633
Only two small regrets early 90's passing up on a blue snag at a boot sale the chap said they were a bit rare I'd never seen one before and thought it was a bit expensive at £18 as I was picking figs up for 20p a shot and about the same time not knowing the last 17 and not buying amanaman , barada & yak for 20p each but strangely buying the ewoks (as I could see they were sw) and the staff for amanaman because I liked the look of it not because I knew it was star wars for pence :lol:
 

x-pack

Grand Master
Joined
Jan 13, 2013
Messages
5,810
Location
Leyland
Selling stuff. Not having the foresight to buy more back in the 90s. Not joining Swfuk earlier. But it's been mainly positive. No real regrets
 

AndyPreston

Jedi Knight
Supporter
Joined
Jan 22, 2017
Messages
445
I should have known better, but in the mid 90s I bought a DT Luke from a dealer at a toy fair for £50, he swore it was the real thing and like a fool I believed him, didn't know what I was looking for and ended up with a really poor fake. Good lesson learned and I now have the real deal, but it still smarts a little.
 

Plastikheld

Jedi Knight
Joined
Jan 7, 2016
Messages
397
Ouch!
I regret selling most of my vintage stuff in 2013 (shortly before prices gone nuts). Sold 12backs for less than 100 quids.
Some really nice stuff. I rebuild my collection but some of the items are still missing. Needless to say I paid way mor to get it back. Lesson learned - nowaday I think twice before selling vintage items. Mostly items I could get an upgrade for.
 

MarkG

Jedi Master
Joined
Dec 15, 2013
Messages
842
Location
Brighton
Selling all my Mocs back in 2003/04 as I went into the costuming side with the 501st.. had some corkers that are crazy money now that were peanuts back then.. blue saber Luke Jedi, Takara C3PO, hollow tubes Tusken & Clipper Walrusman to name just a few...

Most recent.. about 2years ago I passed on a loose Yak Face at a local fair for £50.. as I had my childhood one I didn't need another.. a few weeks later they were selling on FB for £150+... could have made a nice little earner from it...
 

Mini99

Sith Lord
Supporter
Joined
Sep 1, 2016
Messages
4,755
Selling everything in 2012 for what I thought was a fair price, only to start to recollect in 2016, where everything is at least 4 times the price!
These items I had colleced through the 90s and early 00 and were in the best of condition, and are now very difficult to replace...
As a lot of guys have already said, nothing gets sold now except to upgrade!
 

Starrider

Youngling
Joined
Aug 25, 2017
Messages
12
Too many regrets to mention all caused by that usual thing of a total lack of foresight and thinking stuff will be around forever. Being out of Star Wars in the late 80's/early 90's when stuff was being virtually given away, concentrating too much of my energies on collecting new Hasbro stuff in the nineties when I could have probably assembled a complete vintage Kenner collection for a fraction of what it would cost now, not taking advantage of ebay when prices on a lot of older items were dirt cheap in the mid 2000's. Not keeping certain items for my collection that came through my shop as I thought there would be other chances, a mint blue Snaggletooth comes to mind. Having silly perfectionist ideas of a vintage collection such as having the original release US boxes, meaning I passed or sold on other versions which would have at least meant I had an example of the toy.
While I have little to regret not buying from the nineties to the present as I have bought a good majority of it, I am starting to come to the conclusion that I have probably now left it too late to complete my vintage collection.
 

hellhippie

Jedi Master
Joined
Jun 30, 2015
Messages
575
my only regret is that i bought the 90's garbage in the nineties . i should have put all that money towards vintage .
 

peekaygee73

Sith Lord
Joined
Sep 1, 2014
Messages
1,025
Starrider said:
Being out of Star Wars in the late 80's/early 90's when stuff was being virtually given away, concentrating too much of my energies on collecting new Hasbro stuff in the nineties when I could have probably assembled a complete vintage Kenner collection for a fraction of what it would cost now, not taking advantage of ebay when prices on a lot of older items were dirt cheap in the mid 2000's.
Exactly the same for me. Ironically it was getting back into vintage in the mid-90s which got me on to POTF2. My focus shifted to POTF" MOC and vintage loose, when I really should've been collecting vintage MOC.
 

Pomse2001

Grand Master
Joined
Mar 13, 2012
Messages
16,102
Location
Denmark
1. I regret that I did not buy some more of the rare items in my early days as a collector.

2. I regret that I did not buy vader and kenobi dt sabers 12 years ago when I had the chance to buy them less than £1000 each :roll:

3. I regret that I did not buy the danish version of the empire strikes back read along tape with book moc in 2005 when I had the chance, I have never seen one again.

4. I regret that I mixed my childhood lot with all my vintage star wars items and sold also a big part of my childhood lot in my early years as a collector :roll:

5. I regret that I did not started to hunt childhood lots in denmark the first 10 years as a collector :roll: I bought in usa on ebay and in denmark from other collectors. It was first in 2010 that I thought about looking in papers, on the internet and on auctions for childhood lots :roll:
 
Old Thread: Hello . There have been no replies in this thread for 365 days.
Content in this thread may no longer be relevant.
Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread instead.

Latest posts

Top Bottom